Kinga Pabjan, a master’s candidate in architecture and construction management in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, was part of a three-person team that won the 2019 Project Precast design competition.
Sponsored by the PCI Foundation in Chicago, the competition — which included a top prize of $1,000 — took place in conjunction with PCI’s annual trade show, held this year in Louisville, Ky. Pabjan worked with Fernanda Fraijo Arce of the University of Arizona and Lori A. North of Clemson University to build a Kentucky-themed four-stall horse barn using precast concrete.
“Students had no idea what their project was, nor had they ever met the other members of their teams,” said Marty McIntyre, executive director of the PCI Foundation. “We gave them less than two days to work with other students from across the United States as well as industry mentors. Their research included learning about horse barns (and) spending time on the trade show floor, meeting vendors and experts who could guide them toward products and systems that would lead them to a winning entry.”
Washington University participants also included the Sam Fox School’s Jairo LaVerde and Taili Zhuang, who won honorable mention, as well as Rachel Madryga and Alexis Raiford. Last summer, Pabjan was part of the team from the Sam Fox School and the McKelvey School of Engineering that created the energy-efficient Lotus House for Solar Decathlon China 2018.
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