CCA Architecture Students Receive Distinction in National Aids Memorial Design Competition

San Francisco, January 21, 2005

Third-year architecture students Joseph Barajas, Michael Boone, Patrick Flynn, and Daniel Robb have received the distinction Design of Note for their submission to the National AIDS Memorial Design Competition. The competition was created to identify an outstanding artistic complement for the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park.

There were nearly 200 entries for the competition from 21 states and 22 countries. Five finalists and seven Designs of Note were chosen by a jury that included Walter Hood, professor of landscape architecture, UC Berkeley; Sunil Gupta, HIV-positive photographer; Mary Miss, environmental artist, sculptor, and filmmaker; Toshiko Mori, chair of Harvard School of Design; Joseph Rosa, curator of architecture and design, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Ken Ruebush, co-chair, board of directors, National AIDS Memorial.

Titled Fissure, the team's proposed design for the monument consists of a floor and walls made from limestone bricks of varying textures. Visitors would enter the monument on a wide path that narrows as the walls increase in height. The south would feature openings offering views to a meadow, while allowing those outside to see into the monument. The northern wall would tilt inward, looming above the path, appearing to be on the fragile edge of collapse as it holds back the hillside.

"It was a great suprise to come into school and find our entry among the Designs of Note. I think the four of us were very confident in the entry but had no idea that it would be so well received," said Patrick Flynn. Fissure was a fall 2004 class project in CCA's Architecture Studio 3 overseen by professors Hugh Hynes, Keith Plymale, Sandra Vivanco, and Leonardo Zylberberg.

For more information about the contest and finalists visit the AIDS Memorial Competition website.