On Wednesday, 06 MAY, student work from five Integrative Design Labs across three campus locations was exhibited in the Cowgill Lobby. Taught during the 4th-year in many different studios, the Integrative Design Lab challenges students to develop works of architecture that balance the poetic and the technical – the needs of both human spirit and human occupation.
The scale, site, and program of the projects varies across the studios and the jury is challenged to recognize projects that offer strong architectural propositions which are highly resolved and compellingly presented. This spring, the work was reviewed by Professors Julia McConnell and Leandro Piazzi, along with architect (alum) Justin Whiteford, a partner with Fultz & Singh Architects in Richmond, VA.
The jury recognized five projects equally with Merit Awards:
“Void and Veil” // Eve Lee // Blacksburg – Ermann Lab
“Settled by Design” // Joseph Scafa // WAAC
“Simpatia” // Emma Nguyen + Bella Hwang // Chicago Studio
“900 St. James” // Alex Rumley // Blacksburg – Green Lab
“Step Up Studio” // Christopher Marcone // Blacksburg – Schnoedt Lab
Congratulations to all the students and faculty for completing Integrative this semester – and high-fives all around to those whose work was recognized.
Dear graduating students of the School of Architecture,
Congratulations to each of you from the entire school community. Your presence and contributions have been integral to shaping who we are today, and I am confident that you will continue to serve as outstanding ambassadors for the School of Architecture, the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, and Virginia Tech. As you move forward, I know you will embody the spirit of Ut Prosim and engage the challenges ahead with purpose, integrity, and imagination.
Throughout your time here, you have demonstrated a remarkable ability to make a positive difference; in your communities and in the lives of those who encounter you and your work. Your education has grounded you in inquiry: the patience to articulate better questions and the courage to pursue meaningful answers through your medium. You have learned to meet the unknown through the contemplative and constructive practices of our discipline. Graduation marks a new beginning, and I hope you remember that, as creative individuals, you have practiced “beginning” with every project and challenge you have undertaken. You are well prepared for the opportunities ahead, and you have already begun to advance the profession in thoughtful and inspiring ways.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the parents, family members, and friends of our graduates for your unwavering patience, understanding, and support throughout these challenging and transformative years. Your sacrifices have played an essential role in helping our graduates reach this milestone, and we are deeply grateful for the trust and encouragement you have provided along the way.
Teaching and learning are reciprocal processes, and I offer my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for your courage, generosity, and commitment to education. As you continue in your careers, I hope you will remember the School of Architecture and the professors, advisors, staff members, and fellow Hokies who have been part of your journey. This will always be your home, and we hope you will remain connected to us as you embark on the next chapter of your lives.
Best,
Jim Bassett
Director
School of Architecture
Sixteen students of Markus Breitschmid’s second-year architecture laboratory participated in an architecture field trip to Chicago on April 9 through 12.
The Chicago feed trip began with a visit of Mies van der Rohe’s grandson, Dirk Lohan, in his apartment at the famed 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, the world’s first residential glass and steel high-rise. We also had a tour at Mies’ Farnsworth House, IIT-Crown Hall, and the Federal Plaza Buildings. The studio visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, the Unity Temple, the Robie House as well as his Winslow and Heurtley houses. The group also enjoyed a tour of the office of Jeanne Gang, including visits of their Boat House, the Logan Art Center, and the Aqua Tower. We also visited the Monadnock Building, the tallest building ever made from load-bearing brick, the Rookery Building, the Carson, Prairie & Scott Department Store, the Inland Steel Building, the Reliance Building, and the Marquette Building. At the IIT Camous, the students visited the McCormick Student Center by Rem Koolhaas; at the Millennium Park, the students visited the Pritzker Pavilion by Frank Gehry and the Modern Wing of the Chicago Art Institute by Renzo Piano.
A special thank you to our Chicago experts John Syvertsen, Chip von Wiese, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Claire Cahan from Studio Gang, and John Murello from the Farnsworth House Foundation.
Riva Rewind: The Finale ⏪
From studio days to traveling throughout Europe, this semester in Riva blended classroom learning with lived experience in ways that will influence our approach to architecture for years to come. As the semester ends, we’re taking time to reflect on everything this experience has taught us.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the life of a School of Architecture student studying at the Steger Center for International Scholarship. We’ve loved sharing our journey with you!
Recently, we commemorated the outstanding achievements of the School of Architecture’s students, faculty, and staff at our annual awards ceremony! Following this event, award recipients and presenters attended a reception at Rivermill.
Thank you to all recipients for their unwavering dedication and efforts over the past academic year! We also express sincere appreciation to our valued supporters, including donors, alumni, and staff, whose contributions made this ceremony possible.
This spring, second-year architecture students in ARCH 2016, led by Professor Henri de Hahn, focused on one single project with many small charettes.
The project reflects the inherent need for humans to call a house/apartment a HOME and with public extensions through and within domestic spaces.
Issues of historic preservation are more than ever an important topic for the built environment. Ironically, many of today’s star architects launched their careers with architecture centered around issues of renovation and adaptive re-use: Frank Gehry’s Rebecca’s restaurant (1985); Morphosis’ (Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi) 72nd Street restaurant (1983), both located in Venice Beach, CA; or Steven Holl and Vito Acconci’s Storefront for Art and Architecture (1993) in New York City, to name a few.
The project brief is as follows:
Agnes and Roger Lüthi, your new clients who were recommended by your faculty would like to offer you the opportunity to tackle the renovation of their urban loft in Lexington Kentucky. Their twin sons, Tristan, and Vincent (both 19 years old) are attending university in New York City, and will be visiting occasionally, thus the need to think of the Lüthis as almost empty nesters but can use their sons’ bedrooms as guest rooms.
The Lüthi’s prompt is self-evident: create within an existing building confine (apartment located on an upper floor in downtown Lexington) living quarters for the Lüthi family that encompasses the following functions:
Bathroom 1 –bathtub, shower, commode and two sinks (master)
Bathroom 2 – bathtub, commode and one sink (guest room)
Powder room –commode and sink (public)
Bedroom 1 (master) with walk-in closet
Bedroom 2 (guest) with built-in closet space
Dining room/area
Entrance foyer
Kitchen
There was much debate about having a third bedroom, but Roger won on this one by requesting that a possible third bedroom be dedicated to a library space that provides a place for TV and study/work area
Living room
Storage area(s)
Washer and dryer area
Recently in the Cowgill Lobby, Andrew Shaver and Collin Caywood exhibited the work of their foundation labs.
The exhibition reflects on the shared language and téchne between the labs, treating making as the site and project of discourse. As singular learning objectives cannot adequately capture contemporary literacy, a system of associative tagging was used to classify the different exercises and establish a non-hierarchical taxonomy of methods, toolings, and translations. By mining the material this way, the process of making itself becomes essential, guiding students to arrive at a knowledge-how rather than solely knowledge-that.
This approach allows the labs to catalog common operations across the bodies of work, preferring not to dictate what an artifact or object is, but to reveal how it behaves within a larger network of design discourse. The shared language looks to bridge the gap between the foundation lab and the program at large, opening a dialogue that transcends the linearity of sequential learning and positions these early explorations as ongoing inquiries that compound throughout an architectural education.
Riva Architecture Exhibition loading… ⏳⏪
Throughout the semester, School of Architecture students curated a collection of over 1,000 photos capturing our experience abroad. We spent the week hanging the photos around the Villa and gardens to take visitors through our time in Europe. Students also wrapped up their semester-long design projects and pinned up their work in the studio.
As the semester comes to an end, stay tuned for one last post from Riva San Vitale!
Recently, students in Assistant Professor Ramtin Haghnazar’s Building Structures course collaborated in teams to design and construct bridges as part of a class competition.
Each bridge was tested for its load-bearing capacity, with loads applied incrementally until structural failure occurred. The project allowed students to explore principles of stability, strength, and material efficiency as they competed to create the most resilient tower structure. This hands-on experience provided valuable insights into the real-world performance of architectural forms and the practical application of structural concepts.
Congratulations to our 2026 Fifth-Year Thesis Award Finalists!
Following last week’s energetic lobby pin-ups, the fifth-year students and faculty nominated eleven Fifth-Year Thesis Honors Finalists to be reviewed by an esteemed jury including Margarita McGrath, Tim Frank, and Rick Fischl. The jury was impressed by the range of work and the quality of architectural research and representation. Ultimately, four students were invited to present their thesis projects to the jury, faculty, and fellow students. Thoughtful deliberation and conversation determined the following award sponsored by the Hanbury Prize, Hanbury Architecture + Design:
Excellence in Architecture Undergraduate Thesis, First Award: Arianne Garcia
The eleven finalists were (Bottom, Left to Right) Arianne Garcia ( 1st Prize), Lana Dayle Roach, Emily Grimaldi, Chhavi Khanna, Lana Fraihat
(Top, Left to Right) Lucy McHargue, Dylan Purvis (Top Four), Benjamin Erickson, Grady Swanson (Top Four), Min Kim, Jan Cruz (Top Four)
Congratulations to all of our undergraduate thesis students on a strong year. We are proud of your collective contribution to contemporary architectural discourse. Thank you to our jury for the time and care they took to review the work, and to Hanbury Architecture + Design for supporting our students through the Hanbury Prize.
Recently in the Cowgill Lobby, Mark Blizard, Registered Architect, graphic designer, Associate Professor, and former Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio, showcased two exhibitions of his work.
These concurrent exhibitions make a case for slow observation and discursive practice. Twenty-nine posters from Blizard’s recent work explore conversations with masters of graphic design including Josef Müller-Brockmann, Armin Hofmann, Wolfgang Weingart, Willi Kunz, Katherine McCoy, April Greiman, and David Carson. The dialogue is contrapuntal, both analytical and synthetic. The investigation unfolds through iterations, following lines of thought that branch and evolve. In notebooks and sketchbooks, written and visual notes form webs of affinities and questions, leading to design conjectures. These ultimately take shape as a series of posters that “speak” to one another. Each poster becomes a point of reference in a patient search to see further, not only drawing lessons, but identifying inflection points, ambiguities, and tensions that create a platform for dialogue.
The second exhibition is similarly analytical. Seventy-four sketchbooks—less than half of Blizard’s collection—attest to slow observation and sustained architectural inquiry. Each sketch is a conversation with the world: objects in museums, piazzas, tables after dinner, spaces between buildings, and details of construction. The subject is the city, architecture itself. What matters is the process: the choreography of hand and eye, and the traces of ink across the page. This work searches for the hidden structure within the familiar. Each sketch documents a moment, a question, a fascination. Over time, the sketchbook gathers an intricate record of inquiry. Presented together for the first time, these sketchbooks offer reflection. Things are elemental, yet uncertain. Like all enigmas, they remain unresolved. Blizard uses the sketchbook as a critical tool for thinking about the world we inhabit, a productive search for what may ultimately remain unreachable.
NestHAUS reimagines the home as a modern homestead, rooted in family, care, and the kind of long-term living that can grow and change over time. It is designed not just as a place to live, but as a framework for connection, memory, and shared responsibility across generations.
The goal: To create a flexible and resilient home that supports layered living through an ADU, giving family members the opportunity to stay close while still maintaining independence. With standardized SIP panels and interchangeable cartridges, the design brings efficiency and adaptability together, while the flex room and courtyard create spaces that can respond to different stages of life and different ways of gathering.
The result: A home that feels both practical and deeply personal. NestHAUS becomes a place where family can live together in a way that supports autonomy, closeness, and care, while also offering a strong foundation for the future. It is a home designed to hold daily routines, changing needs, and meaningful relationships all at once.
