The UF NAHB Student Chapter won third place in the Four-Year College category of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Residential Construction Management Competition (RCMC) held at the 2015 NAHB International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas in January. More than fifty teams representing universities, community colleges, high schools and career technical schools across the U.S. participated in the annual competition.
The DCP multidisciplinary team of students included: Michael Ferrer, Steven Harrison, Quin McHale, Brett Maddox (from Construction Management), Joshua Macbeth and Lam Nguyen (from Architecture) and Victoria Bryer and Allie Wright (from Interior Design). Faculty coaches were Dr. Richard Smailes, Construction Management Senior Lecturer, and Dr. Svetlana Olbina, Construction Management Lecturer.
During the competition, students solved real-life construction management problems and presented their solutions to a judging panel of residential construction industry experts.
Interior Design students, Bryer and Wright, worked in an inter-disciplinary semester-long experience with Construction Management and Architecture students. They were challenged to develop with a proposal for a new-urbanism community in Lebanon, Tennessee, including: complete estimate, site design, product design, sales, marketing, construction management, financing, and a presentation in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Our main goals as interiors were to not only design the floor plans and overall presentation book, but establish the sales and marketing strategies,” says Bryer. “Although challenging, working on this project has opened our eyes to working with other disciplines and students.”
Bryer says they were thrilled to receive Third Place in this national competition, which is an achievement UF has not done in ten years.
Bryer states, “Being part of such an amazing program, gator nation, and team, it really could not have been a better experience.”