Whiting resident on Ball State University team that took second place in national architecture competition • Northwest Indiana Business Magazine

Whiting resident on Ball State University team that took second place in national architecture competition

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Gwen Stricker
Gwen Stricker

Gwen Stricker of Whiting was part of a Ball State University student team that took second place in the 2018 Charles E. Peterson Prize Competition.

The competition’s goal is to heighten awareness of the nation’s historical buildings and to add exemplary student work to the Historic American Buildings Survey collection at the Library of Congress. The award is presented jointly by the National Park Service's Heritage Documentation Programs, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, the American Institute of Architects, and the Association for Preservation Technology International.

The Ball State University team studied and measured the 1862 Southgate Schoolhouse in West Harrison.

Stricker, a senior architecture major while on the project, spent a semester preparing a submission to the competition, which awards $2,000 to $5,000 for outstanding measured drawings of historical places and puts the architectural work in the Library of Congress. If the historical building were damaged or destroyed, the team’s intricate measured drawing would offer construction guidance on every dimension of the structure.

“This competition gave me experience physically measuring and drafting drawings of a historic building — skills I was able to apply in my summer internship at a preservation architecture firm in New York City and now in my graduate study in historic preservation at Columbia University New York,” Stricker said. “Ball State gave me a comprehensive foundational understanding of architecture, history, and technical preservation practice.”

Southgate Schoolhouse’s historical significance is that it’s been part of Indiana’s educational system since 1862.

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