Program Summary
“The ACE / CPS Summer Design-Build Workshop is a student educational program focused on career exposure and community building through hands-on experiences in design and construction. The workshop, run in partnership by the Chicago ACE Mentor Program and the Chicago Public Schools Department of College and Career Preparation, provides a unique learning opportunity for high school students interested in a career in architecture, construction, or engineering.”
The third annual Design Build Workshop was a success by many measures, exampled by the photographs of the finished project above, and by the smiles seen on the faces of our students and clients! The project above, named by our students as the ‘Inverted Umbrella Trumpet Flower’!, was designed and built by our team of 15 high school students for the Children’s Garden of Hope in West Humboldt Park, Chicago. The project provides work tables and seating, and will collect rain water for the vegetable plots at the rear of the garden. Students were additionally responsible for coordinating the construction effort, which spanned just two weeks (culminating a 7-week design build program), and meeting the project budget of $7,000 (final costs ran just over budget at approximately $7,500).
I would like to extend a thank you to each of our talented and hardworking ACE students who participated this summer; and of course to the many supporters of our summer program!
- ACE Chicago Board of Directors, Associate Board, and Supporting Professional Firms
- Chicago Public Schools
- Curie Metro High School
- NeighborSpace
- the Children’s Garden of Hope
- Lend Lease Foundation
- Adrian Smith Gordon Gill Architecture
- Gensler
- Halvorson + Partners
- Helios Design-Build
- Cushing Company
- Chicago Center for Green Technology
- ..and many individual volunteers!
Matthew Snoap, ACE Workshop Director