Frank Maier High School Design Competition
2027 Design Challenge Announced
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
The Alaska Chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA Alaska) is pleased to announce the 62nd Anniversary of the AIA Alaska Frank Maier High School Design (FMHSD) Competition.
The competition is an annual architectural design challenge sponsored by the Alaska Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Frank Maier, a Juneau Architect, started this program in 1965 and managed it personally for the first twenty years. Following his death in 1991, AIA Alaska elected to name the competition in his honor. Now, beginning its seventh decade of success, the competition continues to expose Alaskan high school students to architecture and the profession.
Throughout the years the competition has challenged hundreds of high school students with a variety of building types and sites of Alaskan relevance. Past programs have included both rural and urban sites for a wide range of facilities such as last year’s Housing Alaska’s Homeless and the previous year’s program, the Palmer Flats Visitor Center. The program has evolved to encourage students’ development of computer aided design (CAD) and building information modeling (BIM) software skills. Energy efficient and sustainable design solutions are now being emphasized in the design programs. All entrants will be provided with a certificate of participation. Four place winners will be awarded a cash prize. The winning submissions will be posted on the AIA Alaska website, and, for the first time, will also be featured, along with other high school entries, at the AIA’s national conference, to be held in Philadelphia, May 19-22, 2027.
2027 DESIGN CHALLENGE
Satellite Child Development Center, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson
Click the Learn More > below to download the competition outline, guidelines and rules. If you have problems accessing the file in our Google Docs folder, please contact us – we will email you a pdf version.
Previous Winners
2026 Design Challenge Winners
“Housing that Addresses Alaska’s Homeless”
We are pleased to announce that students from Houston High School in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District are this year’s competition winners!
1st place, and winner of a $400 cash prize, is Elias Johnson (Elias was one of two tied for 3rd place in 2025);
2nd place, and winner of a $300 cash prize, is Kierstyn Robeson;
3rd place, and winner of a $200 cash prize, is Ashton Sullivan;
4th place, and the winner of a $100 cash prize, is Ethan Slaton.
Congratulations to each, and to Ms Hannah Ford – CTE Building Pathway; Fine Arts Teacher, for creative design and thoughtful consideration for the architectural problem at hand.
About this year’s contest:
Observations when traveling, and national resources tell us that homelessness is rising in the United States and Alaska is no exception. In 2023, the Alaska Department of Health indicated that 1,764 individuals utilized Emergency Shelter, 382 individuals utilized Transitional Housing, and 468 were unsheltered. There is a current urgent need, and it is growing.
This year, students were challenged to creatively design temporary housing for the homeless, either in their respective Alaskan community or in another Alaskan community meaningful to them.
The initial goal was to help transition people from being homeless to temporarily housed, which was the scope of this year’s project.
2025 Design Challenge Winners
“Design a Medical Office and Physical Therapy Facility”
The Challenge was an outside medical organization has begun working with a local developer to provide a new, two-story medical office and physical therapy facility, totaling 10,000 square feet, or 5,000 square feet per floor of leasable space. The medical organization will be providing the medical staff, therapists and local administrative support. The developer “selected the student” as the architect to lead the design team to develop preliminary floor-plans, sections, elevations, and renderings to help gain support from financial institutions.
The winners really showed a great deal of problem-solving skills and sense of design. The project narratives were wonderful to read and understand their aspirational goals for their designs.
In first place, winner of the $300 prize, is Ryan Wood, at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.
In Second place and winner of the $250 prize, is the team of Ronin Van Gorder, Nathan Bultman, Dane Dekruif, Analiseah Jirik, and Kenneth Motton, also of the Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.
Tied for third is the entry by Westin Keeton and Elias Johnson, both of Houston High School. Both third-place winners received a $200 check for their excellent talent shown.
2024 Design Challenge Winners
Four students of Chris Taylor, Drafting Instructor at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School, are being recognized for their designs of the “Palmer Flats Visitor Center”
Please click on their names to view their projects, as follows:
1st Place: Remy Fagerstrom ($300)
2nd Place: Kellen Wolfer ($250)
3rd Place: Jacob Wood ($200)
4th Place: Elsye Radavich-Holle ($100)
A total of 7 entries were received, congratulations to each for a job well done!
