Mississippi State Architecture Student Places in International Design Competition
A Mississippi State architecture student, Paulina Fernandez, was named a finalist in the 2025 Timber Design Competition at the Timber Construction Conference in Pretoria, South Africa.
Fernandez, a senior architecture major from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, placed ninth out of 130 entries from nine universities worldwide for her project HALO: A Haven of Eternal Rest.
Her project began in a spring architecture studio led by Associate Professor Jacob Gines, who is the Mississippi Lumber Manufacturers Association Endowed Professor in Innovative Wood Construction and Design.
Fernandez was excited about the studio, which included a mass timber project, because she had done research on forestry and wood.
Fernandez was drawn to Mississippi State's renowned architecture program after hearing about it, and she previously served as the school's Method Studio Undergraduate Research Fellow in 2023 under Gines.
Author's summary: MSU architecture student wins international design competition.