Each year the Cleveland chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) recognizes the design talent and excellence of local firms at their Cleveland Design Awards ceremony.

AIA Cleveland invites local firms to submit their best projects to be reviewed by juries across the nation. On November 2, 2018, at the Westin Downtown Cleveland award winners will be announced.

ms consultants’ own Nick Greenaway was nominated for the AIA Cleveland Student Design Award. Nick first started working at ms consultants in June 2016 as an intern. After graduating from Kent State University with his bachelor’s degree in May 2017, Nick went on to pursue his master’s degree. Upon his graduation in August 2018 Nick accepted a full time position as a Graduate Architect with ms consultants.

The project Nick has been nominated for comes from one of his graduate school projects. We asked Nick to tell us more about the project, his research, and takeaways form the experience:

“The project, titled “EXOblique”, was located along the north shore of the Chicago River along Lake Shore Drive on the former site of Santiago Calatrava’s proposal for the Chicago Spire. His proposal was halted in 2008 after foundations were poured as a result of the recession. My project develops a new skyscraper for this site complete with living units, shared co-working space, green spaces and commercial spaces.

A lot of my research in architectural theory for the studio helped to develop the living units in non-traditional ways by incorporating sloped surfaces to reinforce the design research of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio. In short, these two came up with ‘The Oblique Function’ which aimed to reinvent the paradigm of the vertical wall.

The use of angled walls and floors creates human interest into how the body experiences space thus creating a sense of effort in climbing up a slope and a sense of speed when declining which cannot be abstracted from the space. Their research, along with research of the trends of future urban living, helped form the concept of the design and helped carry it through the entire building.”

We also asked Nick to fill us in on his favorite part of the project.

Nick says, “What I enjoyed most about the project was the ability to design for a typology of which I’m not familiar with. Not everyone gets to design skyscrapers and learning about the design and process of building skyscrapers was very interesting and useful not only as a student but also as a design professional!

It was also a great opportunity to unite everything I learned in school such as design knowledge, construction methods and theory and put them into one complete project!”

This year AIA Cleveland has incorporated a People’s Choice element into the judging process so Nick and his project need your support! Go to AIA Cleveland’s Facebook page and vote in the ‘2018 AIA Cleveland Design Awards People’s Choice Voting!” poll. There are five categories, Nick’s design is in the third category, Student.

Interested in attending the event? Get all event information here.

Nick’s project, EXOblique, received a 2018 AIA Cleveland Student Design Honorable Mention Award. 

Congratulations, Nick!