RFP02 Benches: A Design-Build Competition

Continuing a series of design-build competitions that activate the newly renovated Hayes Hall as a site for research through making, the school invites faculty and students to submit proposals for the design and fabrication of window seating areas on the building's staircase landings.    

Known informally as "the benches," Hayes Hall's current HVAC elements at the landings are sporadically used as lounging opportunities, mainly by students. This competition capitalizes on this and the abundant daylight available at these spaces to create areas of social interaction, informal chance encounters between faculty and students and lounging opportunities.

The benches will serve as signature elements for Hayes Hall while meeting all technical requirements such as constructability, accessibility, sustainability, security, labeling, code compliance, durability and maintenance. We welcome proposals which thoughtfully explore the potential of the benches, using space, material, and/or process to create an identity of making.

The latest competition builds on a successful opening competition that resulted in an innovative installation of terra cotta mailboxes in the Hayes Hall faculty lounge, designed, fabricated and installed by a team of faculty and students in partnership with Boston Valley Terra Cotta. 

In the implementation of "Benches," faculty/student teams will work with Buffalo fabricator Jon Spielman, owner of Spielman Fabrications and a graduate of UB's architecture program. The proposed materials are metal and wood. 

The Benches design-build competition is organized by members of the school's facilities design committee: architecture faculty members Jin Young Song, Laura Garofalo, Matthew Hume and Georg Rafailidis.

Winners will see their project published and exhibited, and receive an honorarium of $1,000 in support of travel or other faculty development expenses. The school will also hold an opening ceremony to unveil the completed project in 2018.