Montana State’s Elena Silverman earns international award for sustainable design

BOZEMAN - Elena Silverman gently placed her award-winning model in the recycling bin at Montana State University's Cheever Hall.

Laser cut and dotted with human-like figurines to emphasize scale, the chipboard building represented months of 3D modeling, presentations and critiques during her final semester in MSU's environmental design program before graduating in May.

At the time, Silverman didn't know her design was one of 10 selected from 1,300 submissions around the world in a student competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The student from Chico, California, could only think about her new beginning in MSU's Master of Architecture program this fall and making room for younger students to cover Cheever Hall with their designs.

Thirty minutes later, Silverman received a message from assistant teaching professor Eric Watson, who taught her senior studio course.

"I get an e-mail saying, 'Wait, save your model. Save everything. You just won,'" she said. "So I sprinted back over to Cheever, praying that nothing destroyed it so I could still archive it. I was so ecstatic."

Silverman's project, which was submitted to the AIA COTE competition's upper-level category, received an award on Sept. 23 alongside nine projects in both upper-level and foundation-level groups. It is the fifth design from MSU to win an award since 2017. The awardees' designs implemented sustainable materials and systems that adapted to climate change and addressed social and environmental issues.

Passive systems, which include energy-saving techniques such as orienting windows to capture natural heat from the sun, are a central focus of students' undergraduate curriculum. Buildings account for 75% of the electricity and 40% of the total energy used in the U.S., contributing to 36% of the country's total carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

"What sustainability really means is 'Let's do less.' But what I ask the students is, 'How can we do more?'" Watson said. "And how can we do more in a way that gives back? How do we not just use less energy, but think about a building that might give back to the power grid? How do we think about a building that would be water positive and cleans water before it returns to our aquifers?"

Silverman's design, titled the Center for Information and Collaboration, incorporated low-energy systems for heat, water and ventilation into a multi-story educational space. The building's footprint is next to Cheever Hall and features a sunken library, gallery spaces for architecture students, a 300-seat auditorium, community conference rooms and an underground parking lot. The building was designed for students of all disciplines to mingle during the school year, with open spaces for community members to use during off seasons.

Silverman created several iterations of the design in the 3D modeling program Revit after receiving feedback from faculty members and practicing architects in class, which met three times a week for four hours. During critiques throughout her undergraduate experience, Silverman said her perfectionist tendencies had to take a backseat. She learned to keep in mind that a project is never finished, and architects should strive for constant improvement.

Watson believes Silverman's mindset is one of her greatest strengths. He said her approach to design emphasizes the importance of students making daily progress in their work, with each class building on the last.

"I always tell students to come to class with a beginner's mindset. Don't approach a project with the assumed idea of what it should look like because it's something you should discover," he said. "I think Elena is great at discovering the design. She is curious, and she continues to not just push herself, but push others with her ability to work hard."

Silverman's knack for architecture began in high school, where she developed an interest in art and geometry. While on a tour of MSU's Cheever Hall with the School of Architecture's director, she gazed at student projects lining the walls and said MSU immediately felt personal. She also grew up skiing competitively, and Bozeman's easy access to the slopes was front of mind.

During her undergraduate years at MSU, she discovered a passion for designing educational and commercial spaces, much like her award-winning model. With MSU's emphasis on large-scale projects, Silverman said she became confident in her ability to tackle buildings with complex mechanical and structural systems.

That confidence propelled her toward an internship for SMA Architecture and Design, a Montana-based firm with a Bozeman office, after graduating with a bachelor's degree in May. She helped shape Revit models, interior design and construction documents for a new elementary school in Belgrade that is an ongoing project.

Now starting her three-semester master's program at MSU, Silverman will work as a graduate teaching assistant and begin a new project - featuring a nature-based academy for middle schoolers - in her comprehensive studio course. She hopes to stay in Montana after graduation and pursue educational and commercial design.

"I think my brain never turns off from this creative energy thing, so being able to express that in design school is so fun," she said. "It's a little bit liberating in a way. Especially for such big projects, every day you're able to be innovative and add new things into your project that makes it special or one-of-a-kind."