At 16, Winona Li of Hampton has designed her dream home -- she had no budget restrictions, no time line restrictions, no material restrictions -- the sky was the limit. Still, it wasn't as easy as it it sounded.

Winona and students from 24 local high schools were invited to create their dream homes by Pittsburgh architect Matthew Schlueb of Franklin Park for the first SCHLUEBarchitecture Student Design Competition.

On April 18, 15 finalists, including Winona, were treated to a tour of the Hall of Architecture and the new exhibition Imaging Home at the Heinz Architectural Center, a tour of SilverTree Media, and a reception at Mr. Schlueb's residence, Villa Vuoto, where his business is located.

"This has been very exciting, but very challenging," said the junior from Hampton High School. Because the students had to create their dream house on an existing lot on Mount Washington, there were site restrictions. "When I first started designing my house, I realized I had made it too wide and had to turn it," she said.

According to Mr. Schlueb, the contest was created to introduce students to the design process. "I modeled the contest after one that I had participated in in high school back in Columbus, Ohio," he said. Although he didn't take an exact count, Mr. Schlueb said they had between 70 to 80 participants.

Using photographs of the lot from the website, students designed the homes by hand or by using computer drawings. According to contest requirements, the drawings had to be scaled appropriately and include a site plan with house location and landscaping; a floor plan with furnishing, cabinets, etc.; elevation information; green material usage explanation; and a 350-word essay explaining the design concept.

Other finalists include Hampton High School students Haley McDonald and Adam McGaughey, 11th grade, and Matt Dukovich and Christian Dill, 12th grade; Dave Humphrey and Steve Blanco, 12th-grade students at North Allegheny High School; and Scott Simpson and Ryan O'Dowd, 12th-grade students at Pine-Richland High School.

Also among finalists are Kiski Area High School ninth-graders Min-Kyu Kwak, Kyle Devault and Logan McLean; 10th-graders Corey Lu and Mario Casares; and 12th-grader Connor Brown.

Ryan O'Dowd, 18, of Pine said he enjoyed the unlimited resources the student designers had. "I could incorporate anything I wanted to put in," he said. "It would be nice to be able to do that in real life."

Scott Simpson designed his home with a bathtub on the roof. Since it was a dream home, the judges said the quirky additions made it a dream. "I liked the tub on the roof," said Erin O'Neill, exhibitions manager of the August Wilson Center and one of the judges for the first round of the competition. Mr. Schlueb also liked the tub on the roof concept.

"You don't usually see a tub on a roof, but Scott said he would like to sit in the tub and look at the stars." It was this kind of explanation that won the young man special recognition for translation of design category.

Winona won for the presentation category, Connor won for his green initiatives, Haley won for the integration of the site category and Man-Kyu Kwak won for creativity.

Mr. Schlueb and Mr. O'Neill were joined by William Kofmehl, adjunct professor of media arts at Robert Morris University as judges.

The judging process wasn't easy, the three said. "We had some very spirited discussions," said Mr. O'Neill.

Matt Dukovich, 18, like many of the students, hopes to build upon this experience.

"I want to be a construction site manager," said the Hampton senior. "The plot of land was a bit tricky. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to put where."

In addition to Mr. Schlueb, the contest was hosted by the Carnegie Museum and the Heinz Architectural Center, the University of Pittsburgh Architectural Studies Program, Artemis Environmental Building Materials, SPLASH Luxury Home Collection, SilverTree Media and Print-O-Stat Document Management Co.

Students can make changes to their designs until May 17, and the winners will be announced May 28, Mr. Schlueb said.

To find out more about the contest, visit http://www.schluebarchitecture.com/SDC.html.

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