We collaborated with the College of Engineering to facilitate the competition and received dozens of entries, from which a shortlist of three were selected. Anna Thompson, a student in the Master of Landscape Architecture degree program, submitted the winning entry, Hands. She submitted photographs of the hands of her colleagues and friends as they gesticulated and discussed creative design processes. In her submission, she wrote,

“Hands are the tools of design. We use them to gesture and communicate our ideas as well as to create physical prototypes. They are also the ultimate collaborators, always working in concert with each other. My concept for the Jacobs Hall wall panels is to use hands as an embodiment of these ideas, fabrication, communication, and collaboration.”

The jury noted in selecting Hands that some of the first works of art were prehistoric cave paintings of hands, as illustrated below. The concept was particularly appropriate to a building centered around design thinking and making. The idea that the tactile sense has continued relevance, even in a building with an abundance of digital fabrication tools, serves as a reminder to everyone who enters the building.