Together, Former BGSU Student-Athletes Hannah and Ochuko Evwaraye Displayed Passion for Architecture and Bowling Green in Slater Family Ice Arena Renovations
Noah Tylutki, Strategic Communications Coordinator
1/22/2025
HANNAH EVWARAYE FOUND something.
She and her colleague from their architecture firm, BHDP, were inside BGSU’s iconic University Hall in the middle of campus, taking photos and measurements of an abandoned auditorium scheduled for demolition. The firm had been assigned to renovate the space.
Laying in its old audio booth in the back of the stacked auditorium was a BG News student newspaper dated Nov. 5, 2008, seemingly preserved in time sitting in total darkness. Using only the light from their flashlights to see, in the upper left-hand corner of Page 6 – the sports section – was a photo of Evwaraye’s future husband, Ochuko, dribbling a soccer ball in a Bowling Green uniform. The four-sentence caption read that the men’s soccer team finished its regular season against Detroit Mercy in a 3-3 tie and that Ochuko scored two goals.
“We were like, ‘Wait a second. Is that Ochuko?’” Hannah (Lambert), a former BG women’s golfer, recalled. “It was just lying there. It was all locked down, so students didn’t have access to this area. It was just left in place.”
They then headed towards the Hall’s marble staircase at the main entrance. As Hannah turned to take more photos and measurements, she noticed a large poster hanging on one of the walls.
It was a picture of her and Ochuko as students, talking with one of their old professors from the University’s architecture program as a promotion for it.
These artifacts, discovered inside the building where Hannah and Ochuko – both 2010 graduates – first met at student-athlete study tables as sophomores, serve as constant reminders of the impact Bowling Green has had on their lives and how they discovered their passion for architecture.
It is also what helped inspire them to passionately take on a massive multi-million-dollar renovation project with their new firm, Moody Nolan, to the beloved Slater Family Ice Arena on campus, together.
THROUGHOUT COLLEGE AND post-graduation, Hannah and Ochuko had worked on various architecture projects at Bowling Green but never together.
As a men’s soccer player, Ochuko had a hand in the design of the team’s locker room as a self-created internship for class credit and Cochrane Stadium with newly installed lights in the late 2000s. He assisted head coach Eric Nichols in raising money from alumni to make these projects come to fruition.
On top of the University Hall project, Hannah also had a hand in helping with a renovation to an organic chemistry lab in the science area of campus.
After Ochuko joined Hannah at Moody Nolan, Hannah learned of the Slater project since its details were required to be posted publicly because BGSU is a public university. Hannah, who works in the sports studio, thought it would be a great project for the firm to pursue. After presenting the project to her studio leads, they agreed to apply for an interview with the University.
A proposal was then submitted, and the firm decided to create a team for the project primarily with Bowling Green graduates. Ochuko, who works for the firm’s design team, was roped into the project. One of the interior designers, David Miller, also graduated from BGSU in the early 1980s. The University picked three proposals for interviews, and Moody Nolan was in the final three.
During the virtual interview, the BGSU graduates personalized it by sharing their own unique experiences they had at the University.
Ochuko, who had his leg propped up on a chair because of a torn ACL he sustained while playing in a rec league soccer game the week before, spoke of his experiences designing the men’s soccer locker room and stadium. Hannah shared how she worked as a skate shop employee at the arena as a student for three years and knew the building and its logistics well. Miller told the tale of taking a figure skating class in the arena for a physical education credit and having BGSU honorary degree holder Scott Hamilton co-teach the class while he was training for the 1984 Winter Olympics where he would eventually win a gold medal.
“Here [Miller] is 30-something years later renovating the ice arena after having class in there and getting to meet Scott through class,” Hannah said. “So, it was pretty special for all three of us to have different stories related to [the arena].”
Moody Nolan was awarded the project.
“In the debrief, the University told us that being student-athletes and alumni helped in their decision,” Hannah said. “There was also the connection of me working in our sports studio and bringing that sport experience and same with Ochuko being in our design studio. We also had a team of engineers who had worked on the campus before, so they felt comfortable with them.”
The project included an addition of mezzanine suites and a renovation of the exterior and vestibule of the arena. It offered its own challenges, working on a tight budget of $5 million while the arena had to still be operational, especially its skate shop and Zamboni rooms that were existing below where the mezzanine suites were to be located.
Despite the vestibule being a small 1,000-square-foot space to work with, Ochuko and his design team showed the University nine different options during the interview process and how the size of the exterior would play into a greater appearance.
“Part of our design process at Moody Nolan is iterative design where we like to explore many options and really study different elements of the project,” Ochuko said. “I showed different options on how we could really create an entry presence even though it’s a very small square footage. One of the design ideas was driving the larger canopy [in the exterior] and create a larger footprint and presence, even though the actual entries are a lot smaller. When you approach the building, it feels a lot bigger than only that 1,000 square foot we’re actually using.”
Tying the exterior space with the interior vestibule was a key design element throughout the process. Inside the vestibule, cases were installed to promote the hockey program’s storied history as BGSU’s only athletics team to win an NCAA national championship.
“It's so special, because the arena has so much history,” Hannah said. “That’s so important, and it should be celebrated. That was really key in our design of that addition of putting casework up in front to celebrate the history that’s already there as well as retention of current student-athletes promoting future recruitment tools.”
It's so special, because the arena has so much history. That’s so important, and it should be celebrated. That was really key in our design of that addition of putting casework up in front to celebrate the history that’s already there as well as retention of current student-athletes promoting future recruitment tools.Hannah Evwaraye
HANNAH AND OCHUKO’S paths to their passions for architecture differ.
Hannah loved both math and art while attending Midpark High School in Berea, Ohio outside of Cleveland. During her senior year, an art teacher had her complete an architecture-based project and fell in love with it. While she was being recruited to play golf, Bowling Green was the only school that had an architecture program which was one of the main reasons she chose BG.
Ochuko, who was born in Nigeria before immigrating to Dayton, Ohio with his family in 1996 at the age of eight, entered college at 17 and was committed to play soccer at the University of Dayton. After the coach who recruited him left, the new coach wanted to redshirt him and not make him an official member of the team. Feeling “insulted” and not enjoying his mechanical engineering major, Ochuko decided to play for his club team for one more year to get re-recruited and transfer after the school year since he was still 17.
During his second semester at Dayton, he took an art class and loved it so much that he wanted to get an art minor. Then, someone told him engineering and art “sounds like architecture,” so he decided that the school he would transfer to had to have an architecture major.
After being recruited by Santa Clara, Cincinnati and former BGSU head soccer coach Fred Thompson, he was set on Bowling Green after Thompson also gave him a competitive scholarship offer.
“Once I got [to Bowling Green], that’s when I fell in love with [architecture],” Ochuko said. “I loved the design process, and it really fit up my alley. It was less engineering and more art. I lean more art any way with the more creative side of things. My focus was still mostly soccer, but I was also starting to love this profession and started to lean into it more.”
Architecture came with its own challenges for Hannah, who was told by some people she could not golf and be an architect major at the same time.
However, she did not let others deter her from pursuing her passion.
“I had great support from the athletics department and from my coach and our architecture professors,” Hannah said. “They did a great job with helping me manage my schedules and knowing that this is what I wanted to do with architecture.”
For both Hannah and Ochuko, that often meant working on projects while traveling with their teams for road events. The duo often brought their extractor knives with them, cutting out tiny pieces for physical models they would build for their classes or be completing drawings in the back of travel vans and buses.
These valuable time management and professionalism skills they learned as student-athletes coupled with what they absorbed in the architecture program helped lay the foundation for their careers today.
“It’s a great [architecture] program that has all the key elements,” Hannah said. “I felt it had a good mixture of understanding design and what the process is with the practical. You’re learning about construction and building and not just the theory. That was a good fit for me, and it still applies to things I’m doing today.”
“For me, architecture is essentially just problem solving using creative solutions,” Ochuko said. “Every design project is a problem that needs to be solved in a creative way. There’s always a solution in some way, and it’s exploring different options to figure out what the best solution is. I think BG gave me a really great foundation for that.”
The couple is still very active at Bowling Green, often going back to serve as jurors on student reviews in the architecture program. They stay in touch with their professors, many of whom still teach at the University, and would visit with them when they would come to campus to check on the Slater project’s progress. They also helped with accreditation for BGSU’s master’s program, which did not exist when they were students.
Now living in Columbus, Ohio, where Moody Nolan’s headquarters is located, they have settled there after graduating from Ohio State’s graduate school of architecture. They frequently make the two-hour drive back to campus for alumni events with their two boys and one girl.
Hannah and Ochuko have come a long way since meeting at those University Hall student-athlete study tables. The Slater project serves as a constant reminder that their passions for BGSU and architecture are never far from them.
“We haven’t done enough,” Ochuko said after being asked if he feels fulfilled with the BGSU projects him and Hannah have completed. “[The Slater project] was special because getting to work with Hannah was really special. We work really well together. We know the campus. We know its potential and how special it is, and I think being part of the growth and the story of Bowling Green is a really special thing.
“We’re doing our best and trying to bring the best quality that our firm has to offer, because BG deserves it.”
For me, architecture is essentially just problem solving using creative solutions. Every design project is a problem that needs to be solved in a creative way. There’s always a solution in some way, and it’s exploring different options to figure out what the best solution is. I think BG gave me a really great foundation for that.Ochuko Evwaraye
