Over the years, third-year architecture students at Virginia Tech’s design/buildLAB have left indelible marks on their community, designing and erecting structures to support local activities. Most recently, they brought their game to the Little League baseball teams of Clifton Forge, Virginia.

The students worked as a team, using off-the-shelf materials to construct 12 playing-field structures for two baseball fields, including back stops, score boards and field equipment storage. Larger structures – including two periscope-like press boxes and four dugouts backed with breeze-friendly louvered walls – were fabricated on campus, then craned into place. The complex puts function first, but its form boasts a flair Frank Gehry would envy.

Project: Sharon Fields

Location: Sharon, U.S.

School: design/buildLAB, Virginia Tech, U.S.

Team: Keith Zawistowski and Marie Zawistowski with Mary Covert, Luke Dale, Anuja Das, Leah Hodgson, Lauryn Jean, Kevin Lee, Zhuoran Liu, Robert Riggs, Kayla Sloan, Hunter Stephenson, Casey Walker, Sarah Walker and Sophia Xie