February 13, 2019

Ball State University

AIAS Ball State University FBD Program assisted a family in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the 2018 fall semester. The Guist Family was in need of a water spa for their son Eli, who had a sudden need to start using water therapy. They proposed to build them a pergola to protect Eli and the occupants of the spa unit from weather variations. Over Ball State’s fall break, their FBD team shadowed a contractor on site. He explained the process step by step, allowing them to work together with thorough guidance. They all took turns to measure, cut, carry, and assemble the parts together.

Their team had a lot of fun getting together and making this happen, as well as meeting the family directly and getting to see how they can make such a positive, large impact on a family in a matter of a few materials and one day of hard work. For spring 2019, they plan to fundraise starting with a t-shirt sale and small design competition. After spring break, they will start looking for a new project & begin programming phases. The goal would be to have drawings and documents done by fall 2019.

University of Nebraska, Lincoln 

AIAS University of Nebraska, Lincoln FBD Program is working with The Bay, a local skate park and community outreach center in Lincoln. The organization continues to grow and is constantly expanding its programs to provide needed services to the Lincoln area. Due to this quick growth and renovation of spaces, the building’s drawing sets and documentation have become outdated. The University of Nebraska, Lincoln FBD Team provided them with a completed booklet with photo callout plans of all the current spaces, construction quality floor plans, and render quality floor plans. These files were also provided to The Bay for future use, and/or their FBD team’s future projects with the company. This project took a semester to complete and The Bay was so humbled by the chapter’s generosity and willingness to volunteer to help them and their cause.

Through this project, the team members were able to conduct site visits learning how to take quality site photos and dimensional measurements of all the spaces. Given that many of the Team members were also undergraduates in the architecture program, many of them got a crash-course and one-on-one training with the Revit software; it also allowed them to hone their skills in Photoshop and Adobe PDF.

 

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

AIAS University of Tennessee, Knoxville FBD Program has been working in collaboration with the education department to work with a local STEM Magnet school. During the fall of 2018, the UKT FBD program had conducted design workshop sessions with elementary students to develop the designs. This spring, they plan to push hard to start and complete the construction process in time for this year’s AIAS South Quad conference.

Virginia Tech

AIAS Virginia Tech FBD program is presently working on plans to make modifications to the Spray Paint Booth. These modifications will address issues concerning graffiti that has been sprayed onto the outside of the booth as well as spray paint cans that have been littered around the site. Before the team proceeds with any changes, however, they plan to reach out to the school, collecting opinions about how the school feels about the Spray Paint Booth and how best to improve it. They hope to continue these conversations with the school in order to gain more insight into the school’s thoughts and the changes they’d like to see.

Illinois Institute of Technology

AIAS Illinois Institute of Technology FBD program is deep in the construction of their ongoing project with local non-profit Sweet Water Foundation. Started in January of 2018, the development of a pocket park on Chicago’s south side has the team gathering for build dates twice a week through the Spring semester. Once delivered, the project will activate a small vacant lot into a living park space for the vibrant community that Sweet Water has fostered. We expect to deliver the project later this semester as the weather warms up and the snow melts away.

 

Washington State University  

AIAS Washington State University FBD Program concluded their final schematic design decisions for the Arkansas Memorial this past semester. They’ve recently been working on making material choices and working with their client on different fundraising opportunities. They plan to finish the design documents and send them to a contractor to have them finalized and begin construction.

 

Texas A&M University

AIAS Texas A&M University FBD program is still working on the same project from last semester which is to make a quadriplegic woman’s house fully accessible. This includes rebuilding her back porch to include a wheelchair ramp with planters, building a path that connects her back porch to the existing trails of her community, building a small ramp on the front side of her house, and building a set of stairs for her service dog to be able to access her bed. We have enlisted our woodshop manager as our Construction Mentor, and he will be working alongside us step by step to aid in the fabrication of the multiple parts of our project.

Texas A&M Freedom by Design Proposal

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

AIAS University of Massachusetts, Amherst FBD Program is teaming up with the Jones Library to create a seating area in front of the entrance. They had their first meeting of the semester in late January where they discussed their goals in relation to time for this semester. In early February, they will be getting together to create construction documents and from that gather their cost estimation.