AQ Studios, Summer Design Camp brings Architecture to life for sisters

This past summer, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Fletcher Hall was abuzz with activity during the School of Architecture and Design’s Summer Design Camp.

The Summer Design Camp is a week-long program that fully immerses high school students in lectures, projects and visits to design firms. Participants are introduced to architecture, industrial and interior design.

For a week, the design studio was filled with high school students busy with design projects ranging from architectural design, space planning and furniture element design for social spaces. Among the red Moleskin notebooks and sketches scattered about their workstations, the attendees dove into their work, concentrating intently on the tasks at hand.

Among the camp attendees were 17-year-old twins Andrea and Angelle Camberos. AQ Studios, a Louisiana-based architecture design firm, sponsored their attendance at the camp and allowed them to solidify their academic futures.

Chad Abell, a principal architect with AQ Studios, said the firm’s sponsorship of the Camberos sisters is something the firm does to invest in the next generation of architects. The firm has previously sponsored camp attendees and plans to continue doing so.

“Architecture is a complex profession,” Abell said. “It’s about them being able to experience it before they go through the entire program. They get a better sense of what it takes in the profession.”

Andrea and Angelle came to the camp with their eyes already set on design careers.

“I’ve always been interested in art, drawing and creating things,” Angelle said. “In architecture, you get to make things come to life.”

For Andrea, the camp allowed her a chance to explore the field at the collegiate level. Her experience at the Summer Design Camp has led her to strongly consider UL Lafayette’s program.

“I liked the interior design day. We did a one-point perspective drawing, and I really liked that because you can see the most detail out of the buildings we design,” she said. “When you do a floorplan, it’s shapes on a flat surface, and you can’t see the beauty of the building yet.”

Angelle said she’s still considering other schools, but UL Lafayette is in the running.

“We want them to be able to make as an informed decision as possible,” Master Instructor Dan Burkett said. “If they go to another school, as long as they make a decision about what they want to do and get some insight into that, that’s great.”

At the conclusion of the camp, attendees exhibited their work to family and friends and walked away with a realistic perspective of life as a college student studying architecture. Abell said it’s the perfect end to the camp and what AQ Studios hopes to achieve by sponsoring the Camberos sisters’ attendance.

“We appreciate the School of Architecture and Design,” Abell said. “The Summer Design Camp is a lot of fun, and their goal is the same as ours: to reach kids before they make those big decisions and give them the experience of what it takes.”