Study Architecture 
ProPEL Winners Announced
2025 Concrete Masonry Competition
Fire Station
Winners of the 2025 Concrete Masonry Competition
The Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association (CMHA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Concrete Masonry Student Competition. The competition recognizes six outstanding projects that utilize concrete masonry products as the primary material in the design of a state-of-the-art Fire Station, with an emphasis on local civic engagement.
1ST PLACE
The Periurban Firestation
Students: Alec Rosen & Akhil Singh
Faculty Sponsor: Sergi Serrat Guillen
Institution: Tulane University
The Periurban Fire Station made a powerful impression on the jury through the use of concrete masonry as both structure and problem-solver. The material provides thermal mass, resilience, and long-term adaptability, qualities that are especially critical in supporting Lahaina, Hawai‘i’s post-disaster recovery. Thoughtfully detailed and contextually responsive, the design integrates water collection, wind strategies, and a CMU envelope as part of a larger environmental system. Overall, the design stands out as an inspiring example of how robust material choices can address both climate and cultural context.
Project Description
The firestation is the first civic anchor in a redensified zone of Lahaina a long-term effort to house displaced residents and rebuild essential infrastructure after the 2023 wildfire, one of the most catastrophic events in Hawaiian history. The fire exposed critical vulnerabilities in water management, accessibility, and disaster response. As new housing efforts emerge, the firestation becomes a pivotal node in both emergency readiness and everyday civic life.
Its location is strategic. Sited on the edge of the new district, the building occupies a moment in the peri-urban buffer between Highway 3000 and a proposed greenway. The area is originally designated for minimal intervention. The only infrastructure here is the peri-urban water park, a system that channels water from deep storage in the Hinterland, toward the coast. By embedding the firestation into this hydrological framework, the project becomes more than a building; it becomes part of a larger environmental system.
The firestation is designed to be robust, climatically responsive, and spatially integrated. A CMU envelope provides thermal mass for heat regulation. Above, the roof holds up to three feet of water, which acts as a thermal stabilizer and a critical emergency reserve. Wind turbines rise from the structure, and their bases are embedded with light breaks that direct air and daylight into six internal courtyards. These courtyards cool the building naturally, reduce dependence on mechanical systems, and distribute light and air to every programmatic zone.
This project is grounded in site-specific research. It stems from a broader study on Lahaina’s post-disaster recovery and the importance of strategically placing civic infrastructure to support future growth. The redensified district is a key component of this recovery framework, and the firestation is situated at its edge—marks the first piece of civic architecture to materialize that vision.
This is not a monument. It is infrastructure, quiet, resilient, and built to last.
2ND PLACE
East Harlem Fire Station & Local Marketplace
Students: Rafah Alzindani & Era Hulaj
Faculty Sponsor: Suzan Wines
Institution: City College of New York
Project Description
This project reimagines the fire station as a dual-purpose civic anchor, merging emergency response operations with community-centered public space in East Harlem. The design prioritizes firefighter functionality through an efficient layout: the apparatus bay is positioned on the north side to reduce solar heat gain and ensure quick deployment and strategically placed decontamination areas support smooth transitions between calls and downtime. A central courtyard provides the living quarters with natural light, ventilation, and an oasis for physical and emotional well-being.
The project incorporates a permanent outdoor market to empower local vendors and small businesses. With around 1,750 small businesses in the neighborhood, which have grown by 37% in the past decade, local enterprise is necessary to sustain Harlem’s economic strength and cultural identity. The market includes six booths, each accommodating two vendors with built-in shelving, tables, and signage to create a flexible, organized, and expressive selling environment. These structures are covered by arched roofs, providing both shelter and a recognizable architectural pattern.
As this project’s primary structural and expressive material, concrete masonry unifies form and function across interior, exterior, and landscape elements. CMU blocks are reimagined beyond their functional role. They are used not only for load-bearing walls but also to define spaces with texture, rhythm, and proportion. Using arched CMU vaults as roofing elements demonstrates an innovative reinterpretation of traditional masonry techniques, blending structural expression with cultural reference.
Arches serve as the unifying design language across the site, referencing traditional masonry forms while reinterpreting them in a contemporary context, from the apparatus bay’s iconic openings to the split vaults of the market and the sculpted roofline above. The fire station and market create a strong communal hub where public safety, cultural identity, and economic opportunity mingle, reinforcing neighborhood ties through bold, context-driven design.
3RD PLACE
Flash Point
Student: Michael Zemaitis
Faculty Sponsor: Erik Hemingway
Institution: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Project Description
Flash point is a fire station that serves the community of Bend, Oregon. Prone to wildfires, the station is located in a rural, forested portion of the Bend area. In order to appropriately combat wildfires, the station serves as a hub for fire-fighting helicopters. It also serves as a temporary community shelter for those who may lose their homes in the fires. While it embeds itself in the forest when a fire is not burning, Flash Point itself lights up when the moment strikes. The lookout tower’s levels glow to serve as a beacon and command center for helicopters. Throughout the project, the CMU screen walls use differing patterns, as well as curvilinear forms, to control transparency and the emittance of light.
HONORABLE MENTION
Fire Station Number 7 – Re Axis
Student: Alireza Alikaei
Faculty Sponsor: Silvia Acosta
Institution: Indiana University
Fire Station Number 7 – Re Axis is wonderful for it’s design that is clean, modern, and straightforward feeling both timeless and highly contextual. The use of concrete masonry in the engine bay and tower is especially effective, conveying durability and monumentality while also allowing the repetition of simple elements to create a strong civic identity. The glowing tower and bay doors provide a striking visual identity, balancing the fire station’s functional role with its presence as a civic landmark.
Project Description
Fire Station Number Seven is strategically placed at a key city entrance in Columbus, Indiana, serving both new and industrial areas. Beyond its firefighting role, its position at this entry point underscores the building’s potential to serve as a monument to civic identity while meeting the needs of the growing community.
The building’s design is guided by two main principles: shifting programmatic masses to create functional voids, and organizing the layout along two distinct axes. One axis parallels the site boundary to optimize fire truck circulation, while the other follows a north-south orientation to enhance sustainability through natural daylight and ventilation.
The engine bay and tower are located on the east side, aligned with the highway to enable quick fire truck access and to create a strong, solid presence. These elements utilize concrete masonry units (CMU) extensively, offering not only durability but also a sense of monumental solidity. In the tower, especially, the repetition of identical, simple box-shaped CMU units illustrates how individual components come together to create a complex and meaningful whole, echoing the idea of a community built from many individuals. At night, the tower and bay doors glow like a lantern, while by day they stand as a solid civic monument.
Firefighters’ living quarters are strategically placed to maximize daylight and ventilation, while public areas on the west side near local roads create a welcoming, pedestrian-friendly environment, complemented by a north plaza that invites community engagement.
Overall, the station conveys a sense of safety and civic pride through its robust CMU massing near the highway, while the plaza and pedestrian-friendly west side foster a warm, inviting atmosphere for the community.
HONORABLE MENTION
Underhill – Encinitas Fire Station #01
Students: Alvaro Nunez & Wenjie Zhuang
Faculty Sponsor: Peter Noonan
Institution: University of Maryland
Underhill – Encinitas Fire Station #01 emerges from the earth as both a sculptural gesture and a resilient civic anchor. The use of concrete masonry is not only technically strong but also expressive, recalling the geology of the site while supporting an elegant dialogue between mass and openness. The design has striking materiality and a commanding presence, that are vividly conveyed through the exceptional graphics.
Project Description
Underhill is a forward-thinking fire station that reimagines public safety architecture through the expressive use of Concrete Masonry Units. Sited on a berm at the edge of a former parking lot in Encinitas, California, the design is both sculptural and grounded emerging from the landscape as a resilient, civic anchor.
CMU is central to the project’s identity. Selected for its inherent fire resistance, structural capacity, and thermal performance, CMU provides both form and function. The textured, block façade evokes the stratified geology of the site, while its permanence reflects the endurance and readiness of first responders. The CMU walls serve as load-bearing elements that support a series of exposed mass timber beams, creating a dialogue between heavy and light, grounded and open, drawing inspiration from the region’s tectonic and ecological history.
Designed to meet the technical demands of emergency response, Underhill features a pull-through apparatus bay, direct truck access, and highly intuitive circulation. These planning decisions enhance operational performance and ensure that firefighters can respond swiftly and efficiently. Yet the station also reaches beyond its functional role: a public courtyard, multipurpose outdoor spaces, and a green roof invite civic engagement, transforming the building into a community asset.
In a typology often defined by utility alone, Underhill proposes a new model, where material innovation and community presence coexist. The design demonstrates how CMU, when used thoughtfully, can transcend its utilitarian origins to shape enduring, expressive architecture. By integrating technical excellence, material resilience, and contextual sensitivity, Underhill redefines the fire station as both protector and neighbor, a place rooted in strength, service, and civic pride.
HONORABLE MENTION
The Dog House
Students: Andrew Dewalt & Stephanie Orr
Faculty Sponsor: Bryce Truitt
Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology
The Dog House incorporates thoughtful use of concrete masonry, creating a beautifully textured building that clearly communicates the program’s organization. The design employs a central spine that connects the key functions, showing that simplicity can be highly effective. The graphics and physical models elevate the presentation, giving a tactile sense of the CMU and reinforcing the design’s narrative. The design balances traditional fire station functions with a strong architectural presence, and the careful use of materials and composition makes it both clear and compelling.
Project Description
The Dog House functions as a composite cell, an assemblage of nested domains within the neighborhood of Grove Park, the Proctor Creek floodplain, and the hybrid private-domestic and public-emergent workplace program of the fire station. Cut and fill liberates the site periphery to become a riparian buffer zone and negotiate with the creek, while still calibrating to the elevation of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Within the elevated building territory, private and public building cells constructed of stack bond concrete masonry situate discretely as dual rectangles. These cells are incised through two distinct spatial operations, acting to embed elemental forces of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. An off-axis service corridor, constructed of glazed concrete masonry and open to the sky above, first incises the layers of space. The corridor creates an expedient path across shifting scales of occupation and emergency, through riparian periphery, topographic plinth, domestic cell, emergent-based program, public street, and interstitial spaces found between. Terminating as a training tower and civic gesture within a streetfront pervious expanse, the service bar provides access to subterranean cooling + heating rooms. A secondary east-west incision carves a linear depression into the landscape, calibrated to the depth of the creek floodplain. Along its depth, an embedded cistern energizes the slice into a productive void within the station’s ecological and operational framework.
Jury
The jury for the 2025 Concrete Masonry Competition includes:
Marcus Shaffer
Pennsylvania State University
Annicia Streete
Louisiana State University
Mark Wilhelms
Best Block Companies
Participating Schools
The competition had over 400 participants from the following schools:
Academy of Art University, Arizona State University, Auburn University, California Polytechnic State University, Catholic University of America, City College of New York, Fairmont State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Hampton University, Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Indiana University, Keene State College, Louisiana State University, Madison College, Miami University, Morgan State University, Prairie View A&M University, Pratt Institute, Princeton University, Rhode Island School of Design, Temple University, Texas Tech University, Thomas Jefferson University, Tulane University, Tuskegee University, Universidad Anáhuac Querétaro, Universidad de Monterrey, University of Florida, University of Idaho, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Memphis, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, University of Southern California, , University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Washington, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Virginia Tech, Washington State University
Competition Organizers & Sponsors
Questions
Edwin Hernández-Ventura
Programs Coordinator
ehernandez@acsa-arch.org
202.785.2324
Eric W. Ellis
Senior Director of Operations and Programs
eellis@acsa-arch.org
202-785-2324
