Student dreams find home in competition
‘Passion for homes’ boosts winner of Student House Design Competition
Do what you love and success will follow. The winner of 34th annual Student House Design Competition embodies this lesson.
“I have a passion for homes. Even as a little kid, that was all I drew — houses,” says Gregory Coles, a 25-year-old architectural technologies student at SAIT Polytechnic.
“I want to build custom houses. I want to build quality houses with the kind of touches that you don’t see on everyday houses.”
As part of the competition, which is hosted by the Canadian Home Builders’ Association — Calgary Region, top local college and high school design students were honoured at a recent dinner at the Coast Plaza Hotel.
Coles won $1,000 for his firstplace design, while fellow SAIT students followed closely behind. Raymond Wong took second ($750) and Lee Oler placed third ($500).
Students from Dr. E.P. Scarlett cleaned up in the high school division, taking all top spots and most of the honourable mentions.
The overall high school winners were Christopher Mah in first place ($250), Danny Lin in second place ($150) and Godwin Tung in third place ($100).
I really like the idea of taking an old style of house with the craftsmanship and bringing it into the modern era, which is what I did with this.
GREGORY COLES
The challenge for the SAIT students was to design an imaginary inner-city home facing a road and neighbouring a park.
Coles took his inspiration from the traditional proportions of the Prairie style made famous by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “I really like the idea of taking an old style of house with the craftsmanship and bringing it into the modern era, which is what I did with this,” says Coles.
Coles’ design included some old-time features, such as step-back fascia — a flat surface covering the ends of rafters or other fittings.
“Being that we live on the prairies, I wanted to bring a historical precedent to the new house I’ve created,” says Coles. “This was created for Kensington-sunnyside, looking at a park, so I wanted it to be a throwback to 1930s vintage Sunnyside.”
The 1,888-square-foot bun- galow has 10-foot ceilings on the main level with an extended 18-foot open area over the great room.
Even though the roof is high, he raised the stone surrounding the base of the house to the windows to visually flatten the building.
To bring light into the openconcept home, a series of windows are strategically placed on one side of the house.
“This lot was kind of special because it has a park beside it that can never be developed, so I took advantage of the park and created a side entrance,” he says.
Coles entered the contest because he loves a challenge. He had originally started down a different design path.
“I had limited time and did an about-face — and came up with this design in an evening of pondering, and looking back on the history of Calgary and architecture,” he says.
While referencing the past, Coles updated the home with details including an elevator.
“I designed it for empty nesters, so it’s a single level, but there has an elevator because, realistically, an empty nester who’s buying a house of this nature in Sunnyside, this is their last purchase. So if someone falls ill or gets arthritis and can’t use the stairs, I thought that was an important feature.”
The house was the final project for one of Coles’s design classes. His mentor, Blair Marsden, architectural technologies instructor at SAIT, says the project builds on all the lessons taught that semester.
“I’m blown away at the amount of work he’s done,” says Marsden.
Tricor Designs Group president Mike Borkristl was the inaugural winner of the competition, which is intended to shed light on the housing industry to attract future workers.
“We believe in getting these students excited about coming into the housing industry,” says Borkristl, who has chaired the event for the last 34 years. “If this program gets two people a year into the housing industry in some capacity, it’s worth it.”
Borkristl says he’s impressed with what the students create using ever more sophisticated technological programs and tools.
“This is an opportunity for us to challenge them, see what they come up and see what new talent is coming down the pipe,” he says.