Faculty and students from the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture’s Sustainable Building Program were awarded a $90,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency after winning Phase II funding at the EPA P3 Expo and Competition in Washington D.C. The students performed demonstrations of their Compressed Earth Block (CEB) building technology on the National Mall April 21-23. The team was made up of construction science assistant professor Dr. Lisa Holliday, assistant professor of architecture Daniel Butko, Ph.D. student Matt Reyes, construction science students Molly Lyons and Kyle De Freitas, and architecture students Herve Sivuilu and Aaron Crandell. The team was awarded the grant at a ceremony Monday night. The grant will allow the CEB team to build a compressed earth block house in Norman, Oklahoma in partnership with Cleveland County Habitat for Humanity (CCHFH). The team will compare the CEB home to a conventionally wood framed house recently built by CCHFH to National Green Building Standards (NGBS) on an adjacent lot. Both houses will be instrumented, monitored, and compared for all aspects of sustainability as defined by the NGBS. The ultimate goal is to design a system whereby Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the United States could use CEB technology to provide affordable housing that is more resistant to wind damage and more environmentally sustainable than those built with conventional technologies.

Anthony Cricchio, assistant professor of architecture, received an Award of Excellence from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators for his work “Over Hong Kong.” His selection will be featured in the Architecture in Perspective exhibition that will travel around the country this year. His piece was chosen from nearly 400 entries from five continents.

Hans Butzer, associate professor of architecture, and his team had the official ribbon-cutting ceremony with the City of Oklahoma City for their Skydance Bridge. The bridge, meant to evoke the “sky dance” of Oklahoma’s state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, eventually will connect the north and south sections of the MAPS 3 urban park. The bridge will be lit up at dusk each day.

5th-year architecture student in the Philadelphia Studio, taught by Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi, professor of architecture, had their final presentations with KlingStubbins. Brad White Fiske, FAIA, Senior Principal, Director of Design, Philadelphia Office, and Joseph Castner, AIA, RIBA, Principal, Managing Director, Cambridge (Mass) Office  gave the final review. The students worked on the project generating design concepts for a diverse architectural mixed-use development that connects the University of Pennsylvania to downtown Philadelphia. The students used the College of Architecture’s Distance Learning Center to video conference with KlingStubbins including Richard Farley, FAIA, PE, LEED AP, Principal, Director of Corporate and Commercial Projects, staff and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and other city officials in Philadelphia throughout the fall and spring semesters.