On Thursday, June 7th, a team of four high school students from the School of Design and Construction won the 2018 Iron Designer Challenge in New York City. The budding architects and structural engineers were led by four mentors from SOM. Each team was tasked to build a life-sized sculpture in under three hours using everyday materials and one “secret ingredient,” all in front of a live audience. A jury of industry specialists selected the SOM team as the winner of the top prize, the Iron Design Award.
The theme of this year’s event was Smoke and Mirrors. Students were challenged to design and build a sculpture whose visual form shifts when viewed from different perspectives. The goal of the challenge was to “create a unique experience for the audience, challenging their assumptions we have had about our lived experience.”
The SOM-led team designed and placed letters inside the structure that spelled out “hope” when seen from one direction, and “hate” from another, creating a “Box of Enlightenment.” “We wanted to highlight the simplicity of a small yet powerful illusion with an efficient, clean structure that allowed the box to remain the focal point of our installation,” said SOM architectural designer Anastasia Shimchick, who led the team with SOM structural engineers Gabriel Albano, Christopher Oster, and Matthew Streeter.
Inspired by the Iron Chef television series, ?the Iron Designer Challenge is an annual fundraising event for the School of Design and Construction. Proceeds go toward the purchase of materials and new technology for the school, as well as college visits and field trips for the students. The event took place on the school’s roof deck in Midtown Manhattan. Other firms took part in the competition, including Gensler, Thornton Tomasetti, and Turner Construction Company.