SAC Architecture Students Recognized In National Competition

For the third year in a row, students at San Antonio College have earned recognition in a national architecture competition.

The team of Andrew Earnest and Kelly Pharis received an honorable mention for their entry in the 2024 Student Design Competition organized by the Coalition of Community College Architecture Programs (CCCAP). They competed alongside 80 student teams from 20 community college architecture programs across the country.

Chris Verette, a professor in the architecture program, said the contest gives students practical experience.

"You're competing just like a real-world practical situation in which architecture firms compete to win a client and build a project," Verette said.

The competition called for students to design a refugee and immigrant center using a real site in Atlanta, Ga., in an urban area located across from Centennial Olympic Park.

Students spent the first two weeks of the project researching the site, surroundings, local culture, history and other factors that would influence their design. They then designed a theme that would drive their design.

Tools such as Google Earth Pro helped students understand the setting in which they would be designing their building.   

"It was a great opportunity to show them how we can problem solve despite not having the ability to go to the site," Verette said.

Earnest and Pharis named their building the Journey Center for Immigrants and designed it to resemble a mountain, with a wide base rising four stories to a narrower peak, where a library sits atop the building. The center is designed to echo the difficult path immigrants must take in order to pursue better opportunities in the U.S.

"Our project was really about honoring the journey of immigrants," Earnest said.

With ramps and walkways that take visitors around and up to the top of the building, the design symbolizes the immigrant's climb toward a better life and the desire to overcome obstacles and move upward.

"You could actually walk up this series of ramps and stairways through the terraces of the building all the way to the top and back down, symbolic of crossing over this obstacle," Earnest said. "That was our concept and inspiration for the project."

The four-story center design includes a library, classrooms, a computer lab, legal offices, conference rooms and an atrium in the center of the building.

Earnest and Pharis took inspiration from the natural setting of the park adjacent to the site. Tiered gardens and green spaces are found at every level of the building to bridge the gap between the natural setting of Olympic Park and the bustling Atlanta cityscape.

"We came up with something organic, covered in plant life, but with some of the features of an urban environment," Pharis said. "You're in a government building, but it reflects the beautiful nature of the Olympic Park across the street."

Verette said the natural elements helped their project stand out.

"What I thought was interesting is that they didn't want to just have another concrete building added to the catalog of Atlanta, so they made a connection to the park, greenery and nature," Verette said.

Pharis is entering her second year at SAC. She returned to college 12 years after graduating from high school. Since she was a child, her hobby has been drawing floor plans for houses. One day as she sketched a plan for an imaginary mansion, a friend asked her, "Why aren't you an architect?"

"I just really could not think of any reason I wasn't. I knew what an architect was, but it never occurred to me that I could be one," Pharis said. "Once I was asked that question I couldn't get it out of my head. I was signed up for college a month and a half later."

Earnest graduated from the SAC architecture program in May 2024 and will transfer to Texas Tech University this fall to complete his bachelor's degree in architecture. Earnest feels his experience at SAC has prepared him to transfer successfully.

"When I was going into orientation at Tech, I didn't feel super overwhelmed seeing the work in their studios," he said. "I feel like I'll be able to transfer pretty seamlessly into that environment. I feel very well prepared to move into a university, and I'm really happy with the education I received at SAC."

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