2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In the 1960s around ten acres of land behind the main campus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo were set aside for students from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design to experiment with structural forms, materials, and construction methods. The publicly accessible Poly Canyon site has amassed a collection of structures: bridges crossing a seasonal creek, caretaker housing, a greenhouse, multiple sculptures and observation structures, among others. There were ebbs and flows of construction activity in Poly Canyon, often seeing a decade of activity with as much time dormant in between.

This paper focuses on the execution of six restoration and new construction projects that have taken place in Poly Canyon since 2017. These recent senior capstone projects mirror the process practitioners follow in a design-build project and helps students develop a host of technical engineering, construction, and management skills. The typical workflow is:

1. (a) Investigation and documentation of the structure’s as-built condition to determine necessary repairs to achieve structural/safety compliance (for restoration), or (b) Site selection, surveying, and conceptual design (for new construction);
2. Preparation of a professional structural drawing and calculation package in accordance with applicable building codes;
3. Revisions per their faculty advisor, licensed structural engineer reviewer, and permitting official with Cal Poly Facilities;
4. Solicitation of funds, services, equipment, and building materials from engineering firms, contractors, and manufacturers;
5. Execution of the repair or erection of the new structure, often a combination of modular fabrication in the CAED machine shop and on-site construction in the Canyon; and
6. Documentation of all these efforts through a senior project report published to the Cal Poly Digital Commons.

The six featured capstone projects represent various material types, structural systems, and construction challenges. This paper will present a summary of each project based on detailed review of available project reports and surveys of the student team members. Through these projects, students have successfully approached an open-ended design problem and worked with a team to deliver a variety of permanent on-campus structures.