A team of NewSchool of Architecture & Design students earned two out of five awards at the prestigious Cal Poly Design Village 2014 competition on April 11-13, 2014 in the categories of “People’s Choice/Most Contagious” and “Most Habitable.” NewSchool has a long tradition of winning top honors at the annual event, which draws architecture and design students from all over California.

The teams developed entries based on this year’s design competition theme of “Biologics.” The winning NewSchool structure, called “The Rotation of Living,” was inspired by the shape of a cell. The resulting wheel-like design was made of wood sheets, steel tubes and solar panels for the project’s LED lighting. Members of that team, which won the two awards, were: Guillermo Menjivar, Salvador Vicente, Aipeng Fang, and Juan Cruz. Two other NewSchool teams participated in the event. One of the teams – consisting of Alex Angeline, Daniel Facanha, Mallory Boyd and Paula Sigala – created a design inspired by the structure of a sunflower using cables, steel tubing, and seat belt material to create mesh “petals.” Another team built a pyramid-like structure designed to adapt to changing needs, notable for engineering elements such as a leveling mechanism created from chair springs. That team consisted of Ryan Stangl, Devin Lee, Andrew Schiffer, and Guy Hartwig.

For the competition, held by California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., students must carry their materials three-quarters of a mile, build the structure on site, and then live in it for three days and two nights. The class and competition provides NewSchool students with the chance to demonstrate their mastery of creative and functional design, which is emphasized throughout the NewSchool curriculum.

All the NewSchool student teams developed their entries as part of a design studio course at NewSchool. This is at least the seventh time in the past eight years NewSchool school teams have taken home top awards, according to records, though the winning tradition goes back further than that.