December 18, 2011 9:00 AM CST

Ezquerro; Andrade win Sigmon Memorial Design Competition

Design competition expands

By Lynn Nash

Carlos Avalos Ezquerro and his team partner Benjamin Sanchez Andrade, graduate exchange students from Mexico, are the winners of the inaugural Appalachian State University North Carolina Masonry Contractors Association (NCMCA) Sigmon Memorial Design Competition held in Boone, NC on December 7th.

Ezquerro and Andrade will share a semester's tuition as their prize. Twelve teams participated in the competition to design and model a hypothetical masonry in-fill building section as a graded assignment in the ASU Commercial Building Design program.

J. Patrick Rand, FAIA, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Architecture, NC State University College of Design, who, along with Past NCMCA President Doug Burton, Chairman of the Sigmon Design Competition, who served as judge for the completion, developed the NCMCA Sigmon Memorial Design Competition at NC State eleven years ago, and who served as a judge for the ASU competition.

Jason Miller, who as a graduate student at NC State, placed “Second” in the NCSU Sigmon Competition in it’s second year at NC State, worked with ASU’s Assistant Professor Chad Everheart and NCMCA’s Sean Varner (Argos) to initiate the competition at Appalachian.

The design competition is named in memory of brothers David and Dwayne Sigmon, and Dwayne's son, Randy, who were all very active in NCMCA before their untimely passing.

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About the Author

Lynn Nash is the Executive Vice President for the North Carolina Masonry Contractors Association.