To get in the holiday spirit this year, Lea and I entered the Gingerbread House Competition sponsored by AIA Central Valley and Sacramento Self Help Housing.
As an inaugural competition to raise funds for Sacramento Self Help Housing, the Gingerbread House competition was open to everyone; professionals, the public at large and children. We anticipated heavy competition and wanted to create a “house” that reflects what landscape architects do. We waffled back and forth on various themes but eventually settled on the idea of a tree house as multi-family housing. I don’t want to give you the idea that landscape architects only work with trees but really, what could be better than a tree house?
A couple days before the submittal deadline, Lea and I got together at her house to build the tree house (i.e., drink wine). Once we realized gingerbread wouldn’t meet our structural requirements, we whipped up a batch of rice crispy treats- just like cake boss! Lea, Sam (Lea’s husband) and I worked on the tree for two nights, creating candy critters, meringue mushrooms and mixing up brown frosting and creating frosting leaves. The Treehouse lived in the fridge and we hoped it would all stay together through the delivery and judging.
The night of the judging we got to see our competition: An amazing Victorian house and a very creative dome house done by a local structural engineer from Point 2 structural engineers. The entrants in the other categories all did some fun and creative work. It was great to see the edible creativity. We didn’t win first place but we had a great time putting the tree together and it was wonderful to meet some great people who do so much for our community. Next Year we will hold nothing back!
-By Christine Talbot
