Sam Fox School undergraduate students took part in the annual Laskey Charrette design competition last month. An opportunity for second-year architecture students to work on collaborative teams, this year’s theme centered on architectural volume and thresholds.

Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz, founding partners of full-service architecture firm Forma, kicked off the charrette with a public lecture on Jan. 24. They then presented students with the prompt to design a series of three thresholds for two connected interior volumes, one for entry, one for light, and one for connection with their neighbor.

“Volume is the most fundamental of architectural building blocks,” they explained in their prompt. “Thresholds define the space between spaces. A stone slab at your feet, a framed passageway between rooms, or a skylight above your head helps us understand the limits of one space and the beginning of another.”

Each of the ten teams was given the same set of materials to work with, adding constraints so that the design itself stood out. From there, they spent the weekend developing digital studies, fabricated models, and narrative descriptions, culminating in a final review.

First Place:

• Dylan Hunt
  
• Jasper Kunz
  
• Jane Spiro
  
• Zoe Zuo
  

Second Place:

• Lucy Li
• Nicole Nartey
  
• Hunnelyn Reyes
• Chin Tial
  

Third Place:

• Emily DePaz
  
• Erick Lucero
  
• Sophia Maldonado
  
• Kayla McKenzie
  

Honorable Mention:

• Huda Abdesumad
• Andres Fernandez-Aguilar
• Dongyue Li
  
• Mia Yuguchi
  

The Laskey Charrette honors the late Professor Emeritus Leslie J. Laskey and his singular approach to design education during his 35-year tenure at WashU. The charrette is sponsored annually by Studio L in collaboration with the College of Architecture.