The Walker Residence - Camden Michalek 2022

Result

2nd at Texas Region V & 5th at State (Texas)

What I Learned

I must say that this year was quite a learning experience. I had a lot of fun designing this home but I definately paid more attention to what I wanted to design, and less towards what my research was implying I should design.

The biggest thing I learned was how important following the rubric is. The way to win this competition is by following the rubric, not presenting your design in the way you see appropriate. Additionally, you should really pay attention to the client you are provided, and include tons of research about this client in your presentation. This year, though I did research children with autism, I didn't really convince the judges in my presentation or with my design that I had done any research. 

The judges didn't like that I had designed a white playroom (so I guess I would recommend that you make logical decisions when it comes to durability with your design), even though I explained that I selected high performance fabrics. 

I will also stress that you really think about the responsibility points as I seemed to lack those. I hadn't sourced any sustainable materials or even mentioned it in my presentation, nor had I really focused much attention on designing an appropriate home for the client. Knowing this now, I want to really stress that you should source and talk about sustainable materials. It may not be in the prompt, but it will definitely help you get the responsibility points which in my opinion are quite difficult to get. Additionally, make sure that your have researched your client and talked endlessly about this research in your presentation, as well as how you implemented your research into your design. Another tip I would give is to literally make one of your design objectives about designing a responsible space so that there is no question that your did this.

This was the year that I really came to the conclusion that you shouldn't follow the provided invoice template, as the judges took off tons of points. My only advice here is to just follow the template we provided on the resources page, as we copied it directly from industry and have included more than enough detail for any harsh judge do be impressed.

Similar to the invoice, the judges at state did not like my planning process sheet even though I had filled it out, so I recommend you look at Cary & I's from this year and try to include as much detail in your own as possible. FCCLA also provides a list of what they recommend you include, which is linked on the planning process section of our checklist, found on the resources page.

Another big thing was my lack of renderings. Though I had rendered the kitchen and created elevations for almost every room, the judges wanted to see more and seemed to have trouble interpreting my elevevations so I recommend you render every room, as tedious as that is.

Overall though I was incredibly happy with my result and used the feedback to really grow as a desiger and a competitor the next year.