Competitions
Frank Maier High School Design Competition
2025 DESIGN CHALLENGE: Create a Design for a Medical Office and Physical Therapy Facility
The Alaska Chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA Alaska) is pleased to announce the 60th Anniversary of the AIA Alaska Frank Maier High School Design Competition. The competition is an annual architectural design challenge sponsored by AIA Alaska.
Introduction:
The delivery of healthcare remains a vital interest to Alaska. Alaskans are faced with numerous chronic conditions, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes; higher death rates than 30 other States; a lack of insurance coverage; and limited availability of medical facilities and healthcare professionals. Now 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 is hiring you as the architect to lead the design team to develop preliminary floorplans, sections, elevations and renderings to help gain support from financial institutions.
Click here to learn more and to enter the competition.
About the Frank Maier High School Design Competition
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
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, in its sixth 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 Palmer Flats Visitor Center, along with Rural Air Taxi Facility, Talkeetna Ski Chalet, Urban Coffee House, Youth Hostel, Wellness and Wilderness Retreats, Whale Watching Census Station, Visitor Centers, Seismic Science Center, and Equality Resource Center to name a few. The program has evolved to encourage student’s 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 and their design submissions posted on the AIA Alaska website.
MAT-SU TECH STUDENTS AWARDED IN 2024
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!
