It Takes A Village_ Building Enclosure Mentoring of Architecture Students

This course was initially presented at the 2021 International Convention and Tradeshow.

Architecture students need individualized support from faculty and mentors to learn about building enclosures in preparation for internships and practice. While challenging in the best of times, imparting this knowledge is even harder during a pandemic. In this intermediate-level presentation, the speaker will recount the process and outcomes of the IIBEC Mid-Atlantic and Virginia Chapters Student Design Competition held at Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture + Design (SA+D) immediately after the shift to online learning in March 2020. Surprisingly, this seventh competition of its kind produced the most detailed work yet. This result is likely due to the unprecedented dedication of IIBEC members serving as mentors and jurors; the individual attention afforded to each student; and the pointed interaction of students and mentors through the marking up of drawings in real-time. Final student submissions will be shared, along with insights gleaned from the mentoring sessions. While the SA+D values self-directed learning, the students’ overarching conclusion was that they greatly benefited from the specific input on their design projects, representing knowledge that they would not have otherwise gained in school. These insights will be of interest to building enclosure consultants, emerging professionals, and IIBEC chapter leaders looking to initiate similar student competitions as service and outreach.

Elizabeth Grant, PhD, RA

Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA

Elizabeth Grant is an associate professor at the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech. She is a registered architect, a member of IIBEC, and the associate director of the Center for High Performance Environments. Grant’s book, Integrating Building Performance with Design: An Architecture Student’s Guidebook, was published by Routledge in 2017. She has also published in Interface, the Journal of Architectural Engineering, the Journal of Green Building, Professional Roofing, and Architectural Science Review. She holds two patents for an omnidirectional roof vent and is active in research critical to roofing design.