Design Village kicked off the final quarter of the first year, and pitted students against the elements as they worked to complete designs for and fabricate a full-scale structure within the span of several weeks. Teams ranged from a half dozen to 20 students, and compartmentalized workflows were the key to finishing on time. Our group worked with a structural vocabulary of tesselated triangular patterns and dedicated a significant portion of the design process to seeking a uniform aesthetic branding. The finished structure, tagged "The Bison" by team members and "The Iceberg" by observers, was based on an almost-entirely recyclable coroplast design, and could house the entire team of 11 students comfortably. It made its home in Cal Poly's Architecture Graveyard, being brought to the site and erected in the course of one day and then torn down by the end of the weekend. Following its first incarnation, the project was then partially reused by the on-campus kindergarten yard as a play structure. Within the large design team, I oversaw some of the graphic design and narrative, working with a team metanarrative which charted the history of a speculative nomadic tribe of 'urban bison hunters,' to which the structure was attributed. I also assisted in shooting and editing a short film regarding the culture of the tribe and the construction of the project, alongside team member Mereck Palazzo.

This project was a group effort featuring the talents of Alexander Urasaki, Erica David, Chad Miller, Elliot Robinson, Mereck Palazzo, Kaustab Das, Karan Mehta, Dillin Ambrose, Corbin Cook, Alejo Favero, and myself. Photographs and drawings presented are the work of the author.