Spring 2022 – Spring 2023
This pavilion is designed for Edith L. Frierson Elementary. They are a low-income montessori school that hasn’t had a lot of funding since its founding. This pavilion’s original intent was to be a vegetable processing shelter. However, we recognized a need for the students to have a dedicated outdoor classroom space, individual learning space, and memorial garden. Simply adding these programs and others to the design caused the building to take on a whole new function. We grew its square footage and complexity to the scope of a project. As a team, we felt that we had made the right decision. We feel that we are doing what’s best for the children at Frierson Elementary by giving them the tools needed for success. These kids arere so bright and deserve the best we have to offer.
The project has spanned over nearly three semesters and has had three studios of bright young minds eager to bring this pavilion to life. Through the ups and downs there have been many great experiences and lessons learned that we can all carry with us into the future. We had the privilege to work with great engineers, architects, and others who helped this project through its hurdles to give the students the outdoor classroom that they deserve
The hands-on experience that we get while working on site, and the ability to learn about how our building materials choose to behave is one of the many strengths that the Community Build Studio has to offer. As we’ve progressed throughout the semester, we’ve been able to see that steel is an incredibly strong building material but will sag when asked to span long distances, that wood is a lightweight material when dry but incredibly heavy when wet, we’ve been reminded that wood is an organic material and likes to curve unless told that it needs to be straight, that concrete will do whatever it wants to unless you tell it exactly what it’s supposed to be, and so much more.
Probably one of the most exciting moments throughout the build was watching the details come to life. Although some of the details were incredibly difficult to achieve, the final result was well worth the time that it took to craft them.
Team: Alexander Poston, Cory Yinglin, Jerome Simiyon, Johnny Newell, Amanda Wood, Krissy Matthews, Seth Moore, Gauge Bethea, Autumn Hinson, Andrew Schick, Jed Donkle, Erin Doering, Kyle Kane, Lily Morris, Hannah Moss, Shelton Stevenson, Staci Knighton, John Whitticar, Myliah Boyd, Andre Daniels, Micah Holdsworth, William Scott, Peyton Davy, MaKayla Cline, Olivia Wideman, Maddi Riester, Kevin Arnold, Kelsey Piotrowski, Jon Morris, Mia Walker, Divya Agrawal