Week 13 marked a pivotal moment in our DesignBuild Program journey. On May 6th, we stepped into the Olver Design Building Presentation Hall, ready to showcase the work we have refined since we chose the direction of our project at the Midterm Review.

Although we did not spend as mush time practicing the presentation as we ideally would have liked, we managed to get the slides put together in the order of who would be in charge of what section of the presentation. This way, each team member got an opportunity to speak in front of our critics.

The presentation was began with the Site Team presenting the site context, location, site design, and plantings. We then moved to the Floor Plan and Elevations Team, where they walked us through the layout of the interior design and explained the how the building’s porch was added to the front of the house in order to provide protection from the elements — appreciated by our future occupants. the Interiors Team was up next, followed by the Building Sections Team. That completed the ‘build aspect’ of our project. 

Since we had the goal of making the Eighth Sister as efficient as possible, Asher Thomas took charge of the Energy Modeling Results and spoke to our critics about the International Energy Conservation Code from 2021 versus 2024. Through a series of graphs we are able to see how the evolving code has substantially improved the building energy efficiency. Last up was the Carbon Team who demonstrated totals related to CO2e emissions, carbon storage, and finally net emissions; emphasizing materials choices for the projects and the impact on net emissions that these selections, plus or minus, created.

At the conclusion of the presentation we were able to gather around the architectural model of the site with the 8th Sister in place. We reiterated to our guests how the house will interact with its surroundings, how the house will be laid out on the site, and where a potential addition could be added to the Eighth Sister.

That week ended with us submitting our final drawing sets to be reviewed and approved for the Build aspect of the DesignBuild Program. We ended our last class together on an exciting note by receiving our tools and hard hats.

We all are ready to start building the 8th Sister!