Architecture students sweep national bridge contest

Students from the Waterloo School of Architecture swept the top three spots in a national contest to design a pedestrian bridge.

Owen Melisek and Silas Clusiau finished first in the Architectural Student Design Competition staged by the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. They were sponsored by Professor Terri Meyer Boake.

Owen Melisek and Silas Clusiau of the Waterloo School of Architecture took top spot in a national design competition with this pedestrian bridge, which they called Fire Bird.

Their winning entry, a vibrant orange bridge designed to represent the danger of forest fires due to climate change, earned them $8,000, plus $2,000 for Boake as the faculty sponsor.

Cindy Ma and Luna Hu finished second, while Jeffery Yau and Ernest Lee took third place. Nadia Cheng and Jessica Chan received an honourable mention. Boake also sponsored those three projects.

Students in the 2021-22 competition were challenged to design a bridge that would “establish a meaningful connection” and “draw attention and be the symbol of a link between an origin and a destination.”

It is the second straight year that Waterloo students have swept the contest, and the third year in a row they took the top spot.