December 19, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO - Right now, architecture students across the country are designing projects they want to bring to life in the real world--and a jury of experts will decide which of them will receive a grant to do just that!

The University of Kansas/Studio 804’s Dan Rockhill, California Polytechnic State University’s Dale Cifford, and Hillsdale Fabricators’s Tony Diebold will evaluate proposals from faculty and faculty-sponsored students. The projects in question can range from full-scale inhabitable builds to prototypes to furniture. Entries for 2025 grants are due January 13, 2025.

The American Institute of Steel Construction’s Steel Design-Build Grant Program offers a unique--and invaluable--chance to experience what happens after a design is drawn. Last year’s jury awarded $60,000 to support an outdoor gardening classroom, a bus stop, and a bicycle and pedestrian rest stop--class projects with a real-world impact on their communities.

“This year’s experts are leaders in the professional design-build market--making them perfectly suited to choose among these student proposals,” said AISC Senior Architect - University Relations Jeanne Homer, AIA, who spent almost 20 years as an architecture professor at Oklahoma State University. “It’s one thing to take notes in a classroom and work on theoretical projects in studio, but it’s quite another to have more direct experience with a material like steel and understand how it enhances a design.”

The Steel Design-Build Grant Program is funded by the AISC Education Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) organization that supports students, educators, and educational programming to invest in the people who will drive the future of design, fabrication, and construction of structural steel.

The 2025 jury includes:

Dan Rockhill, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture and JL Constant Distinguished Professor of Architecture, University of Kansas
Executive Director, Studio 804

Rockhill and his students have designed and built fifteen LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum buildings in Kansas and have also completed three Passive Institute Certifications. They have won numerous international design awards including three American Institute of Architect’s Honor Awards, the NCARB Prize, Architecture Magazine’s “Home of the Year,” and multiple Leadership Awards from the USGBC (United States Green Building Council).

Dale Clifford, Professor of Architecture, California Polytechnic State University

As a professor, Clifford teaches thesis and design-build coursework at Cal Poly. The vehicle for Clifford’s scholarship is prototyping and includes full-scale demonstration projects to field-test responsive building technologies based on regional building practices, biomimetics, and dynamic material properties. He is a founding member of the UA Emerging Materials Technology Graduate Program, was named Research Associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and is a recipient of the ACSA Creative Achievement Award.

Tony Diebold, Chief Structural Engineer, Hillsdale Fabricators (the steel division of Alberici Constructors)

Diebold has 20 years of fabrication, erection, detailing, and engineering experience. He leads Hillsdale Fabricators' engineering and detailing efforts with a strong technical knowledge of steel fabrication and erection. He oversees complex structural steel projects with attention to quality, schedule, and safety. Diebold has been part of several award-winning project teams, including CITYPARK in St. Louis, a soccer stadium that AISC honored with the prestigious IDEAS² Award for Excellence in Architecture in 2024.