Toot Toot!

I just wanted to let you all know of an exciting thing that happened for Serge. You may recall me mentioning a project Serge was working on called the TJ project, where they built a house out of recycled paper and cement. This project has been going on for two years and this last quarter, they asked the architects to get involved(it was under the direction of regenerative studies). So, ofcourse, they couldn't have picked a better team than Serge's class of architects. Basically, it was just a block of cement and paper. The team not only designed where to put the windows in, but the materials used. Then, they put the project on the fast track to build, finish and then submit a board explaining the project with an essay, to a competition in little old Washington DC, called 'The NCARB Prize 2008.'
For those of you not familiar with NCARB, they are the people who are incharge of registering licensed Architects--a process that takes 3 years after graduation. So this was pretty much THE comptetition.
Well, on Saturday, Serge got a call from his friend Brad, asking if he had got an email--which he hadn't checked, explaing that they had placed in the contest. THEY WON FIRST PRIZE!!!
O.K. so, just to let you know, the people who won last year came from the number one ranked school in the country. I think Cal Poly is like 15th or something. And the grand prize is $25,000 smackaroos. Not that we'll see that money because there have been so many people in the two years the project has been going on, but still--what an accomplishment. Let's just say that the dean, Judith--was in utter shock and Serge was pretty blown away too. This is such a huge recognition.
Way to go Serge!