Students design responsive convening spaces in 2025 Fitzgibbon Charrette

His brief began with explaining the term “Verify in Field,” or “VIF,” a common notation convention showing that something on an architectural drawing requires further information before being built. “VIF not only acknowledges the gap between the idealized realm of conception and the messy and material realm of construction, but allows the gap to be a productive space of inquiry.” Höweler asked students to operate within that gap, letting their work adapt, evolve, and open.

Another principle was architecture as a negotiated social form. Höweler indicated how architecture is a “spatial contract,” that is has a significant impact on how bodies move and relationships form. The third principle, lightness, referenced Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch, Antoni Gaudí’s upside-down tensile models, and Frei Otto’s experiments with lightweight spans. The charrette asked students to push their design’s relationship with “gravity, materiality, and environmental forces, while experimenting with non-standard prototyping materials in the spirit of critical play.”

Höweler presented students with a set of three successive tasks to create a convening pavilion space. First, each group had to arrange a set of stools in a way that facilitated different types of convening. Once they picked an arrangement they liked best, they created a formwork enclosure encouraged engagement, openness, and transparency, by using balloons, tape, and plastic sheets. Finally, they were challenged to speculate through drawing how their pavilions could converse with other groups’ work.

The winners of the 2025 Fitzgibbon Charrette are:

First Place

• Marco Donohoe
  
• Luke Jasso
  
• Shoshana Rosen
  
• Kiera Sullivan

Second Place

• Carlos Chen
  
• Eric Ha
  
• Zev Kupferman
  
• Harry Park
  
• Summer Sun
  
• Jason Wang
  
• Dylan Wei
  
• Tina Zang

Third Place

• Frances Bobbitt
  
• Mercy Fey 
  
• Shelby Roach
  
• Mary Kate Sullenberger
  
• Leah Thorpe
  

Honorable Mention

• Dylan Barry-Schoen
• Avery Caggiano
  
• Arielle Meisel
  

Eric Höweler, FAIA, LEED AP, is an architect, designer, and educator. He is a co-founding partner of Höweler + Yoon and professor in architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he is the program director for the Master of Architecture program. Höweler’s design work and research focuses on building technology integration and material systems. His projects range from cultural buildings and mixed-use residential buildings to public spaces and interactive environments. Recently completed projects include the MIT Museum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia, and the Coolidge Corner Theatre expansion. Höweler’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, and the Venice Biennale. He is the co-author of ”Expanded Practice” (Princeton Architectural Press 2009), ”Verify In Field: Projects and Conversations Höweler + Yoon” (Park Books, 2021), and author of the forthcoming ”Design for Construction: The Tectonic Imagination in Contemporary Architecture” (Routledge 2025). 

The annual Fitzgibbon Charrette is a one-day sketch problem open to all juniors and seniors in architecture. The charrette was established in memory of WashU professor James Fitzgibbon, who was known for his work as a residential designer and structural innovator.