Professor Joseph Wheeler, A.I.A., Co-Director of the School of Architecture + Design’s Center for Design Research, principal investigator of the VT FutureHAUS initiative, has lead a team of researchers and students in exhibiting a prototype kitchen, the FutureHAUS Kitchen, at the Kitchen and Bath industry show in Las Vegas in Janaury 2016. In May, the kitchen and living room will be exhibited at the National AIA Convention Expo in Atlanta. The research investigates better utilization of industrialized processes to build architecture.  By delivering large, complex, house assemblies as “cartridges,” a more sophisticated prefabricated product may be delivered to the job site or the assembly plant. This cross-disciplinary project engages students from Architecture, Interior Design, Industrial Design, Art, Computer Science, and Industrial and Systems Engineering.  

Professor Dr. Markus Breitschmid, Ph.D., S.I.A., has been invited to lecture at the Colegio Arquitectos del Perú in Lima, Peru. The lecture was supported by the Institute of Peruvian Architects, the Embassy of Switzerland in Lima and with an International Travel Grant from the Virginia Tech – Office of the Vice President for Research.