SOUTHFIELD – A cross-disciplinary student team from Lawrence Technological University took second place in the 2018 international ASHRAE Student Design Competition.
The five students won in the Integrated Sustainable Building Design category of the competition. Their award was one of just two earned by Michigan schools at the event, held as part of the 2019 ASHRAE Winter Conference and Expo in Atlanta, Ga. Jan. 12-16. Sixty colleges and universities participated in four categories at the event, having been selected from hundreds of entrants.
Team members were London Jocham of Pontiac, Shawn Kitchen of Troy, Erin Moran of St. Joseph, Brittany Davis of Petoskey, and Josie Queary of Midland. Queary and Moran attended the event and displayed a poster on the project. Ralph Nelson, associate professor of architecture, was the faculty advisor for the team.
Jocham, Moran, and Queary were studying in LTU’s five-year combined bachelor’s and master’s degree program in architectural engineering, while Kitchen and Murray were students in LTU’s Master of Architecture program. Queary, Kitchen and Davis have graduated from Lawrence Tech since completing the project.
In the competition, students were asked to integrate elegant, efficient, and sustainable building systems in the design of a four-story, 70,000-square-foot resort hotel and spa on the Black Sea near Istanbul, Turkey. Architectural and structural design, along with mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering all played a part in the students’ design, Nelson said.
ASHRAE, formally known as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers. is a global professional organization to advance heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems design and construction, with more than 56,000 members worldwide.
Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, is a private university founded in 1932 that offers more than 100 programs through the doctoral level in its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 100 universities for the salaries of its graduates, and U.S. News and World Report lists it in the top tier of best Midwestern universities. Students benefit from small class sizes and a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 107-acre campus include more than 60 student organizations and NAIA varsity sports.