At the end of April, students from all over the state converged for a competition held in Cal Poly’s backyard: Design Village, which has become a trademark event for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

The competition brief is simple: Design a structure, build it, transport everything by hand to Poly Canyon and inhabit the creation for 48 hours. This year, more than 400 students — about half of which were Cal Poly students — participated. A few of the visiting institutions, including the University of San Diego and the Southern California Institute of Architecture, competed for the first time.

In addition to community college students and many others, the competition is open to first-year architecture and architectural engineering studios, in addition to second-year landscape architecture studios — a cohort that was just added this year. The students spend weeks, if not months, designing and constructing full-scale structures that they then disassemble to carry, push and roll up to Poly Canyon. After a mile-long, uphill hike, students then re-assemble their structures on-site — without power tools. 

This year’s theme, “Modular,” encouraged students to study how many parts can create a harmonious whole. In addition to exploring the theme, students focused on quality of construction, creativity of design concept and livability of their structure. They also created a brief presentation about their project. 

For first-year students, Design Village is likely their introductory experience with a large-scale collaborative project. For upper levels, however, this competition is a rich opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration.  

A small architectural engineering graduate studio was one such case this year. The studio, made up of students who couldn’t participate in Design Village as first-years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was inspired by both the challenge of the competition and the program requirement for interdisciplinary studios — along with their desire to finally have the full Design Village experience.  

The architectural engineering team recruited students from other CAED majors: Landscape architecture, architecture and construction management, eventually creating two teams, Archipelago and LARCME. 

The two teams worked together at the beginning of the design process to develop a shared base concept, modules of triangular beds and triangular supports that work together to reinforce each other.  

“Our goal, ultimately, was having something that’s a: collapsible, b: leans on module-to-module, so that no module can stand alone, with the next one supporting the first one, and c: ease of construction so that we could repurpose the construction at the end,” said Matthew Sloss, a graduate architectural engineering student on the LARCME team. “We used mostly off-the-shelf connection components and materials that would be biodegradable or reusable and passed on to other clubs, like the garden club or the furniture design club.” 

Piper O’Neill, a landscape architecture student on team LARCME, explained how students put great effort into preparing for the night outdoors, especially on the design side. Their team knew they didn’t want to be laying on the ground or on a hard surface, so they designed a hammock-like netting and integrated it into the structure. 

Reflecting on their first night, landscape architecture student Noemi Ho of team LARCME joked that their structure might be better for napping, although small adjustments, such as tightening the stringing of the netting, could improve supportiveness. 

“We underestimated how the wind going underneath and up through the netting was a huge factor that made most of us pretty cold,” said construction management student and LARCME team member Andy Walton. 

Their sister team, Archipelago, also noted the updraft through the netting, but were otherwise pleased with their design.

“It was very comfortable. The build did its job: it kept us safe, it kept us sound, and we ended up having a really good time with it,” Sesin said.

Reflecting on the overall experience, Sloss said he enjoyed how the interdisciplinary collaboration integrated "a diversity of ideas, experiences and goals.” 

“There’s a little bit of everyone represented somewhere on the project and it was an incredible opportunity to learn from and teach each other,” he added.