Dive Brief:

• If you're a high school student, designing and building 96 square feet of building probably sounds a lot bigger than that.
• Accomplishing it and being judged on the work is at the heart of a competition that the Sacramento Region Builders Exchange in California runs to give students a taste of what building is about and, hopefully, whet their appetites for construction careers.
• The competition began in 1987, and it culminates every year in a day and a half in which students build what they designed and got approved and get their sites ready for the judges.

Dive Insight:

The need to find new people for the construction trades and professions in the barren labor market of the recovery has made the Design/Build competition a stand-out idea. Peter Tateishi, executive chief of the exchange, notes that many workers who lost their livelihoods in construction during the recession are simply not coming back.