Cal Poly Students Win National Design-Build Annual Competition

(L-R) Coulter Langmaid, Casey Lavin, Alyson Buchholz, Jacquelyn Castillo Lomano & Sergio Garcia

 

A team of Cal Poly construction management and architecture students won top honors for their innovative approach to the 2025 National Design-Build Student Competition, presented by the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA).

This marked the first time that Cal Poly won this competition. The team of four construction management undergraduates and one architecture student competed against 32 university teams from across the U.S. As national champions, the Cal Poly students brought home a trophy and a cash prize.

This year’s challenge -- using a progressive design-build approach to create an expansion of an existing airport in Montana -- expanded on last year’s, which focused on the procurement of a major airport expansion, including a new main terminal and airside expansion with an automated people mover. The 2025 competition challenged teams to complete the terminal by adding additional gates and concessions to the new terminal building using progressive design-build.

Cal Poly’s team, led by CM senior and co-captain Jacquelyn Lomano, was given the problem Sept. 2, while still on summer break and away from campus.

“I was studying abroad in Europe, and my team had internships all over the U. S,” Lomano said. “We met and prepared on Zoom so that we could hit the ground running when school started.”

The two-phase competition asked students to complete an RFQ (Request for Qualification), judged at the regional level. Those winners advanced to the second phase, which challenged them to respond to an RFP (Request for Proposal). The top three teams were invited to present final submissions to a national judging panel at DBIA’s Design-Build Conference & Expo in Las Vegas on Nov. 6.

Before tackling the project, the students assigned themselves roles: project manager, design manager, safety manager, airport operations coordinator and quality manager.

“We had separate duties, like creating an estimate, schedule, a site logistics plan, a safety plan or set of drawings,” Lomano explained. “Our sponsor, Sundt, helped tremendously. The company’s specialists who work in roles similar to ours shared what we should keep in mind as we developed our work.”

Cal Poly’s team put in 12-hour workdays at least once a week, sometimes twice. The long hours turned into valuable lessons. “Design-build is all about collaboration and bringing out everyone’s best skills,” Lman said. “I learned that our design-build dynamic works. Our team felt comfortable contributing and bouncing ideas off each other. Everyone was well versed in each other’s roles.”

CM faculty members Bryan Knakiewicz and Tom Kommer co-advise the team along with Department Head Jeong Woo. Knakiewicz said the competitions give students even more Learn by Doing experiences by “overcoming project hurdles and working together to find solutions to a real project with actual constraints.”

Students also benefit from the competition by displaying their work and experience to an international audience of professionals, Knakiewicz said. “Plus, they learn the intricacies of teamwork dynamics, gain confidence in presenting projects to an audience or client, and they are rewarded knowing they did a good job.”

Lomano recalled that “stepping onto the stage to present” was the event’s highlight. “We had spent days practicing, and that moment became our best and most rewarding performance. When the judges asked us questions, we all had something to say.”

Team co-adviser and CM Department Head Woo said, “This interdisciplinary team brought creativity, collaboration and innovation to the highest standard and showcased the true power of Learn by Doing together.”

Lomano was joined by team members Alyson Buchholz, a CM senior who served as captain co-chair; Sergio Garcia, CM senior; Coulter Langmaid, CM senior; and Casey Lavin, fifth-year architecture student. The three alternates were Nathan Berger, CM senior; Ryan Gharib, CM junior; and Nick Kimball, CM third-year.

For more information on DBIA or the competition, visit dbia.org or dbia.org/student-engagement/student-competition/.