Source: PCI Foundation, Chicago
The PCI Foundation voted to accept proposals for two new educational projects during its June 28 Summer Meeting in Sioux Falls, S.D. Starting in fall 2013, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and South Dakota State University (SDSU) will be added to a growing list of universities that have undertaken new precast/prestressed concrete programs. This brings the total number of schools currently working with the foundation for the 2013/2014 school year to seven.
“Each program is slightly different, depending on the interest of the professors, the school or schools of learning in which the program resides, and the needs of the students,” says Doug Sutton, academic council chair for the PCI Foundation. “In one school, we may see architects and engineers working together on a precast design. In another, students from construction management will pair up with architecture students and build a real project. It’s always exciting to see how the semester unfolds—and every one of these programs is teaching a new group of students who we never reached before about precast.”
The new programs will be housed at one of the oldest and one of the newest schools of architecture in the country. RISD was started in 1877 and its school of architecture is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 in the United States. The School of Architecture at SDSU, on the other hand, is only three years old and will be working hand-in-hand with the school of Construction Management on real projects in local communities. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.pci-foundation.org.