Students win gate design contest
By LAURA ROMPF
News Writer
After a two-day competition, Holy Cross College selected designs from three Notre Dame students for the construction of its new millennium gate.
The design combines ideas from Notre Dame senior Suzanne Stugart and a sophomore team of Trevor Draper and Heather Reilly. Construction on the gate started in early October.
The competition began when the college decided to commemorate the millennium change — a Christian method of marking time — with a pedestrian gate made of stone and brick. The gate symbolizes the "doorways" that Catholic churches will open on Christmas Eve to mark the Jubilee year, said Reilly.
"We all won the competition and the final design is a hybrid of our two original designs," Stugart said. "We each developed our original designs separately, but after we were chosen as the winners we spent an additional day working with two graduate students and various professors to decide upon the final design and to draft the construction drawings."
Holy Cross Campus Ministry director Robert Kloska played an integral role in starting the project. The competition was open to all Notre Dame architecture students, who had slightly more than 48 hours to create a design, said Stugart.
"I just tried to envision a gate that I would find welcoming and to design something Holy Cross could be proud of, as it's the first thing people see as they arrive on campus," Stugart said.
The St. Joseph Valley Masonry Contractors Association, whose mission is to educate local architects and union masons about new building techniques and materials, joined with local companies to supply goods and services for the project.
"The gate that we put together is now the one that is located in front of the main Holy Cross building," Reilly said. "It is not complete. We are waiting for more funding to finish the top of the arch."
As winners, Stugart will receive a $150 cash prize, and Reilly and Draper will share a $150 cash prize.
In addition, they will receive full scholarships for the International Masonry Institute's Summer Masonry camp in Maine.
Other companies that contributed to materials and labor of the project include Rose Fuel and Material, Verkeler Inc., Ziolkowski Construction, International Masonry Institute and The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen.
The South Bend Tribune contributed to this report.
All News Stories for Friday, November 5, 1999
