Two student teams from the School of Architecture were recently announced as prize winners in the 2025 Steel Design Student Competition.
Administered by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the 25th annual Steel Design Student Competition challenged undergraduate and graduate students to explore a variety of design issues related to the use of steel in design and construction.
This year’s competition offered architecture students the opportunity to compete in two separate categories. In Category I, students were challenged to design a library and illustrate its role as an integral part of a community’s civic fabric. Category II presented students with the option to select a site and building program of their choosing, using steel as the primary material.
The thirteen winning projects were selected for their innovative designs using structural steel and their design responses to local contexts. For each category, the jurors chose First, Second, and Third-place winners, along with additional Honorable Mentions.
Zilin Jing (B.Arch ’26) and Jingxiang Zhang (B.Arch ’26) won third place in the Open category for their project, Cloud-81: Syracuse Urban Incubator, which reimagines the makerspace as a critical infrastructural node within Syracuse’s circular material economy, bridging demolition, recycling, and local production.
As part of the fourth-year undergraduate integrated design studio (ARC 409), Jing and Zhang worked under the direction of their faculty sponsor Lauren Scott, a part-time instructor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, to design a dynamic processing hub that intercepts urban waste streams—from large-scale infrastructure teardowns like I-81 to household discards.
By leveraging I-81’s demolition as a catalyst, the project creates a hybrid civic institution—part workshop, part recycling center, part marketplace—that transforms waste into value, educates on material flows, and bolsters Syracuse’s resilience. It embodies transitional infrastructure, turning urban evolution into an opportunity for ecological and economic regeneration. The project becomes a case study in adaptive reuse, leveraging infrastructure as a catalyst for material circularity.
“Cloud-81: Syracuse Urban Incubator offers a thoughtful and innovative vision of circularity, grounded in thorough research on Syracuse and the community’s needs,” noted the jurors. “The design excels in reimagining the makerspace as critical infrastructure, linking urban recycling with community engagement in a way that is socially meaningful and architecturally sophisticated.”
“Participating in both this competition and the integrated design studio challenged us to think more critically, creatively, and realistically about architectural design,” says Jing and Zhang. “This award not only highlights our capabilities but also underscores the importance of the integrated studio—a synthesis of everything we’ve learned throughout our time at Syracuse, and, for us, the most pivotal chapter of our architectural education.”
Additionally, Syracuse Architecture alumni Zhirun Huang (B.Arch ’25) and Weixia Luo (B.Arch ’25) were awarded honorable mention in the Open category for their project, Dubai Flow, an Arab art center inspired by the traditional wind towers of Dubai.
Guided by faculty sponsor Fei Wang, assistant teaching professor and director of China programs, ARC 409 students Huang and Luo researched Dubai—the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates—where they found that its many wind towers both exemplify Arabian architecture and serve as systems for passive cooling and ventilation.
By applying this passive ventilation strategy to the project, the team designed five steel modules that overlap to form the core of the building and serve as vertical circulation paths, guiding visitors to exhibition spaces for Arabic calligraphy, clothing, film, weaving, and ceramics.
“This project represents a synthesis of social, political, economic, cultural, environmental, and technological elements, achieved via the sophisticated application of steel structures and detailed design,” says Wang.
“Dubai Flow presents a seductive and formally driven design, anchored by an inventive steel web structure that informs both shape and performance,” noted the jurors. “The steel framework not only enables dramatic cantilevers and dynamic site movement but also powerfully translates cultural heritage into a contemporary architectural language.”
“This competition challenged us to push the boundaries of our design thinking and deepen our understanding of steel as a material,” says Huang and Luo. “Receiving an honorable mention affirms the potential to explore how steel systems could create adaptive and sustainable spaces and motivates us to continue investigating how architecture can merge innovation with real-world impact. We are grateful for the recognition and excited to carry these lessons forward in our future work.”
Winning students and their faculty advisors will each receive a cash prize along with the opportunity to have their projects exhibited at the 2026 ACSA Annual Meeting and the 2026 AIA National Convention, as well as published in a competition summary publication.
