STUDENTS SHINE AT SARA AWARD GALA

Three student projects from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture have been honored with awards from the 2018 Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), New York Council Design Awards program.

Architecture students Benjamin Kunz and Mallory Lane won an Award of Excellence for their project “Interstitial Hope” with Mark Bacon serving as their faculty advisor. “Interstitial Hope” has received several accolades including an Award of Excellence from SARA National in 2017 and an Honor Award from American Institute of Architects (AIA) Nebraska in 2017.

SARA awarded Rachel McCown, Megan Peterson, Danielle Durham and Charles Dowd the Award of Honor for their project “Aquatic Communities” with Brian Kelly as faculty advisor.

Zoë Cope earned the Award of Merit for her project “Architectural Ghosts” with Peter Olshavsky IV as her faculty advisor. Additionally, this project was a finalist for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) President's M.Arch Silver Medal and presented at the 2018 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) National Conference in Denver and the 2018 ACSA International Conference in Madrid, Spain.

From the nationwide call for submittals, the SARA jury selected 10 student projects, representing seven universities as award finalists. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln won the most awards with three of the 10 project groups being UNL students. This is the fourth consecutive year UNL students have gained significant recognition by this organization. In fact for the 2017 competition, two of the three design awards were won by UNL students.

“I’m extremely proud of our students’ work and the faculty who guide them,” said Dean Katherine Ankerson. “It’s gratifying to see their caliber of talent being recognized at a national level year after year, and the fact that our College won the most awards in the student category speaks volumes about the support and education we offer our students.”

The awards were presented Tuesday, June 19th at Battery Gardens Restaurant in New York, New York.