Students from Washington University in St. Louis have unveiled a diverse collection of architectural and design projects that tackle some of today's most pressing urban challenges. The showcase, featuring work from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, includes innovative proposals ranging from modern housing in East Berlin to customizable market spaces in Bangkok, Thailand.
The featured projects come from graduate programs in Master of Architecture, Master of Landscape Architecture, and Master of Urban Design, under the guidance of faculty members Chandler Ahrens, Derek Hoeferlin, Linda Samuels, and Aki Ishida. According to the school's statement, their programs emphasize strategic design thinking, careful craft, and thoughtful integration of technology while maintaining independent and critical positions on social and environmental justice.
Among the standout projects is Maggie Welker's "Open Block Apartments," which draws inspiration from historic housing strategies in Berlin and Barcelona to provide modern, flexible housing for Berlin's former East side. The design builds upon key Barcelona strategies like designing in a series of rooms and taking advantage of corner conditions, with each apartment unit designed as a corner unit to provide expansive views along with maximum daylight and ventilation.
Mason Burress presented "Restoring Vocation," a proposal to revive vocational education in north St. Louis. The project addresses the disappearance of hands-on learning institutions that once equipped students with practical skills in woodworking, metalworking, welding, fashion, auto mechanics, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing trades. Burress's design seeks to establish a new affiliate school that would work in partnership with four major high schools in the surrounding area.
Environmental and community-focused solutions feature prominently in the collection. Lucas Kamal's "Community (land) Trust" creates a framework for St. Louis's Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood that aims to prevent speculative development while reinvesting in a community historically affected by America's racialized built environment. The project proposes interconnected networks of personal trusts between community members, institutions, and fellow citizens.
Jia Song contributed two award-winning projects to the showcase. Her "Alpaca Bridge" proposal connects the Saint Louis Zoo to the former Forest Park Hospital site, featuring an alpaca habitat with a protected pathway and exhibit space. The project received a Merit Award from the St. Louis Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Song's second project, "Pollinator Garden," earned an Excellence Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects at the Central States Conference by addressing five typologies of pollinator gardens in St. Louis's Wells-Goodfellow community.
International projects demonstrate the program's global reach. Emma Woolcott's "The New Nolli" focuses on capitalizing on neighborhood markets to fill public space gaps in Bangkok. Based in Minburi Market along the Saen Saep canal, the project addresses the takeover of streets between traditional 1960s shophouse typologies through a customizable structure that provides climate comfort, utilities for vendors, and storage solutions.
Madeleine Cordray's "Rye and Barley in Cedzyna, Poland" addresses challenges related to aging populations and inequitable resources in rural communities. The mixed-use program combines an agricultural school, elderly daycare center, and leisure facilities like a biergarten, using silos and material transitions to denote different areas of activity.
Infrastructure and urban planning solutions round out the collection. Nayoung Shin's "Stayfrastructure: More Water, Less Displacement" focuses on Los Angeles's proposed Festival Trail and LA River convergence, leveraging hidden resources like vacant lots, buildings, and greywater to build infrastructure in phases for the 2028 Olympics and 2050 planning horizon.
The Washington University programs maintain NAAB accreditation for the Master of Architecture program, LAAB accreditation for the Master of Landscape Architecture program, and STEM designation for all three graduate programs. The school emphasizes its low student-to-faculty ratio, which encourages meaningful conversations around design disciplines and professional opportunities, while offering dual degree options in business administration, construction management, social work, and public health.
