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Introduction
The monument sign design contest is for a house owned by the San Jose Branch of AAUW or The American Association of University Women. AAUW is a world wide women's organization started back east in 1882 by 15 university educated women who decided to ban together to help other women go to college, since at the time it was thought an education was bad for a woman's health. Of course the first study AAUW did was to prove this idea wrong. In addition to funding studies AAUW also awards scholarships to deserving students. One of our first was Madame Curie. Over one hundred years later AAUW has grown to include Branches (chapters) world wide. The only requirement to joining our organization is an associate degree. ( we also have student affiliates)
The San Jose Branch will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2009. We are planning a year of festivities in 2009. One of our goals in the celebration is for better name recognition in the community. Although mentioning the name AAUW has a lot of power in Washington D.C. and Sacramento, our name is not as well known by the local community. Signage outside our meeting house is one of many steps to achieving our goal. But enough about AAUW what you really want to know about is the contest.
Contest
AAUW SJ owns an old craftsman house in downtown Willow Glen, close to the corner of Lincoln and Minnesota Ave. Our address is actually 1165 Minnesota Ave. As we near our Branch's 100th anniversary we plan on painting our home in age appropriate colors as well as installing a monument sign close to the street. Since we are an organization of women who's mission is to advance equity for women through higher education, we thought proposing a monument sign design competition in the architectural department at West Valley College fit this goal.
Design Requirements:
1. Although the point of signage is to advertise, the first criterion for our monument sign is
it must blend or fit with the design of our old house. We would expect the students competing to understand the elements of a craftsman bungalow as they apply to our house and would therefore be able to incorporate those elements into their designs. As one of our members is very active with the local historic society she will be judging the students work based on her experience with the Craftsman style.
2. In addition to blending with our house
the sign must also reflect AAUW. We are a national organization as noted earlier that was established in the late 1800's. As with all organizations our colors and logo has evolved over time. These do not necessarily have to be incorporated into the monument sign but the students should know they exist and are often incorporated into a company's signage. Our local website can be found at
www.aauwsanjose.org. The national website is
www.aauw.org.
3. As with all non-profit organizations, funds are tight so the third criterion is of course a limited budget. We would like to
build the sign for $5,000.
4. Our last criterion is of course
San Jose Planning and Building Department approval. We would like the students to understand the real world process. The city is short staffed right now so they can only review the winning design, but they are more than willing to walk a group through the process. (15 or so students can go down to the city together for each phase of review.)
The Prize
In addition to accolades the winner will be awarded a cash prize of $100.00, and we hope publicity in the local paper. We are still developing the festivities for 2009 but we are planning a ribbon cutting ceremony in May. We hope to have the mayor at a few of our events throughout the year one of which is of course the sign unveiling in May.
This is unique opportunity to experience the process of a design project; from the design, to presenting your proposal to a client, through the process of applying for permits, and finally seeing the design realized as it is built.
Submission Requirements
- Completed Application
- Note: The application has blanks for up to three-member teams. You can pair up, or work alone, but no more than three people can submit one design together.
- Presentation of Your Design
- This is up to you. You can create a digital presentation or make a presentation board, whatever you need to do to present your idea/design to the jury.
- Having AutoCAD drawings with specifications and the correct scale will be helpful if your design is picked; these will be useful in the permit application process and the final construction phase.
- Samples of Materials
- The jury would like to see a sample(s) of the materials you.re planning to use.
- If you need a box to bring in your samples for the presentation, contact Anna at (408) 656-9016, she has a few bankers boxes that were donated to the WVC AIAS
If you have any additional questions, you can contact Linda Snashall or Anna Mezheritskaya, who is in charge of organizing this contest.
Anna Mezheritskaya, AIAS
(408) 656-9016
mezanka88@gmail.com
Linda Snashall
AAUW San Jose Branch President 2008-2009
(408) 519-8337
Images of the house can be found below.
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Site Plan PDF
