Help us present our design in Baltimore this October!

Since June of 2024, our team has worked extensively on our competition entry in NOMA’s Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition. Hosted this year in Baltimore, Maryland, the competition tasks students with the design of a new transit hub and accompanying communal housing project in West Baltimore, as part of ongoing plans to revitalize a neighborhood grappling with historic scars. Over the course of months of collaboration, our team has navigated an array of challenges, and emerged as a tightly-knit group, united in our passion for creating a site-sensitive and user-conscious design. With your help, we can travel to Baltimore and present our entry this October!

NOMA & The BGL Competition

    The National Organization of Minority Architects/Architecture Students (NOMA) aims to break down barriers in the Architectural field and promote uplifting, community-centered design. At their annual conference, NOMA hosts the Barbara G. Laurie (BGL) Student Design Competition, an opportunity for students from NOMAS chapters across the nation to design projects for under-served communities, and present their designs to members of those very communities! 

This year, the competition brief calls for a multi-modal transit hub, community engagement spaces, and multi-family residential project, located on 5 city blocks in West Baltimore. These blocks were cleared in the 1970s, displacing thousands of African American residents in the area for the construction of a highway that was ultimately stopped short at 1.4 miles, since nicknamed the “Highway to Nowhere”. The ramifications of these historic injustices continue to be endured by residents of the neighborhood today, but, with the recent awarding of a $2 million dollar grant to the City of Baltimore as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, hope is on the horizon. Students are tasked with encompassing the ongoing transportation project plans in the area within their design, while simultaneously designing resources for the existing community in the neighborhood. 

Our Design & Team!

    Our approach centers on bridging Baltimore’s past and present, while working towards a more equitable future. Our design hopes to act as a middle ground between an idealized neighborhood, “what would have been” had history played out differently, and “what is”, the current reality. We envision our project as a manifestation of what could be: a project that celebrates West Baltimore’s vibrance, reconnects its communities, and welcomes travelers to a revitalized, accessible, conscientious urban hub. 

    Behind this project is a passionate, 28-member team of 3rd-5th year Architecture students here at Cal Poly Pomona. With the guidance of Faculty members Richard Molina and Sona Gevorkyan, we’ve worked together throughout the summer to make our design goals a reality. With your help, we can make travel to and participation at the conference accessible to our team members, gifting promising students a unique, enriching opportunity.