Taubman College Three U-M student teams swept the Honorable Mention categories in the recent Detroit Institute of Art Plaza Student Competition.
The students, who are associated with Taubman College and U-M’s School of Information, were advised by Associate Professor of Architecture Steven Mankouche and were enrolled in his Arch 660 thesis prep course. The competition was organized by Paul Fontaine, lecturer in urban and regional planning, with support from the U-M Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, where Fontaine serves as the program manager for the Michigan Engaging Community through the Classroom Initiative.
The award-winning teams are:
Honorable Mention for Interactive Design: CONNECTD
(Denise Baran, Alissa Graff, Teresa Cao, Guanrong Wang)
Honorable Mention for Product Design: D-LENS – MIUX
(Jorge Cazares, Caitlin Helgesen, Megan St. Andrew, Yankun Wang)
Honorable Mention for Overall Design: THE OPEN MUSEUM: SPACE ACTIVATORS
(Benjamin Peace, Shaobo Niu, Da Chen)
The student competition was a compliment to the DIA Plaza professional competition, juried by Dean Massey with several Taubman College faculty as finalists. For more information about the college’s participation and the professional competition, whose winners will be announced later this spring, visit
For more about the student competition, visit detroit.umich.edu/news-stories/wayne-state-team-wins-top-prizes-in-dia-plaza-student-design-summit
