Architecture, Construction and Engineering club project manager junior Caroline Garland said the club is currently working on designing establishments for a city block in St. Paul.

“We’re designing the things and using architecture, and then we’re going to put (the design) in this computer program called CAD, and then we’re going to 3D print it. Then we will go present it at a competition,” Garland said.

According to Garland, the block will be designed to include aspects of a community.

“It’ll be some apartments, some retail space, a community building, a park and then also some parking to go along with that because we need to have access to things we’re designing,” Garland said.

Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) adviser Al Wachutka said this project stands out from others because it has a physical location to model after.

“I think it’s a cool project because it’s local. It’s in St. Paul; it’s an actual area, and it’s actually an area that they’re currently redeveloping,” Wachutka said. “It would be cool to design something and see ultimately if you’re down there a couple years later and take a look at what they did, see what the professionals put into it as opposed to a student group.”

Garland said the project should take approximately 21 weeks in total to complete all the steps in the process.

“We had a bunch of discussions and thought about what kinds of things we wanted to put into the block space we have and then we started drawing out and sketching ideas and then we will eventually come up with precise measurements for all of those ideas,” Garland said.

Wachutka said the project will culminate in a presentation to a board of judges along with other ACE groups from other schools.

“In May we will go down to the U of M, at least that’s where it’s been the last few years, and they rent an auditorium, one of the classrooms, and each school presents their plan to a panel of judges,” Wachutka said.

According to Garland, the current project is teaching ACE members valuable communication skills.

“So far I have learned lots of things, as in how to start the process because starting the process really takes lots of discussion and input of ideas and I hadn’t been used to that before,” Garland said. “Now that we’re able to formulate actual designs from our ideas we’re starting to go faster and get further.”

ACE meetings take place every Thursday after school in the room attached to the At-Large Lab.