Selected for its embrace of technology and sustainability, the TR+2 StudioHouse in Pacific Palisades, designed by Adjunct Professor Mark Cigolle and Professor Kim Coleman, was the site of one month of events marking the international launch of BMW’s i8 carbon fiber hybrid sports car.

Associate Professor Amy Murphy’s chapter “New Orleans, Nature, and the Apocalyptic Trope” has been included in the recently released Verso publication New Orleans Under Reconstruction: The Crisis of Planning, co-editors: Carol McMichael Reese, Michael Sorkin, and Anthony Fontenot, with a foreword by Mike Davis.  

Professor Diane Ghirardo, Ph.D. presented a paper, “Who is the Architect?” at the American Association of Italian Studies conference in Zurich in May 2014; in April, she lectured at the University of Enna in Sicily on “Women and Space in Early Modern Italy,” and on “Lucrezia Borgia entrepreneur,” at Casa Romei, in Ferrara. 

Vittoria Di Palma’s essay “Empire Gastronomy,” which explores connections between architecture, the outline drawing, and the invention of nouvelle cuisine, has just been published in AA Files 68. 

Patrick Tighe, FAIA, had the privilege of being a juror for the 2014 New York AIA Awards. Jurors included Giancarlo Mazzanti, Kunle Adeyemi, Reed Kroloff, Sheila Kennedy, Sharon Johnston, Robert Campbell, Alberto Campo Baeza, Regine Leibinger and Joeb Moore. An exhibition of the award winning work is currently on view at The Center for Architecture, New York. Patrick Tighe Architecture was awarded a 2014 AIA, HUD Secretary’s Housing Award. The award is granted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development along with the National Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The project will be recognized at the 2014 National AIA Convention In Chicago (June) where Tighe will participate in a panel discussion and present the work. Tighe also served as a juror for the 2014 2 x 8 competition. The 2 x 8 honors and exhibits the best work of California’s Architecture schools. 

Scott Uriu’s work has been added to the permanent collection of the FRAC Center in Orleans France for his firms model, drawings, and animation of the project “Animated Apertures”.   Uriu will be featured in the July 2014 issue of Interior Design Magazine for his “Aperture” installation at the SciArc gallery (Baumgartner+Uriu).  

1567 will be Co-Chairing ACADIA 2014 together with Alvin Huang and David Gerber, to be hosted in October 2014 in USC School of Architecture. Keynote speakers include Zaha Hadid, Will Wright and Casey Reas among others. The event will bring together the design community interested in the intersection between design and technology showcasing the fore-front of techniques and paradigms that constitute our practice.  Jose has also been selected as a cluster champion for Smart Geometry Conference 2014 to be held in Hong Kong.  Together with Satoru Sugihara and Sergio Irigoyen, the ‘BLOCK’ cluster will focus in developing a game app, for urban speculation and analysis of the different agencies that determine the urban density of Hong Kong.

Neil Leach has been appointed Professor at the European Graduate School, and is teaching on their new PhD program in Digital Design. He is publishing three new edited volumes this year, including an issue of Architectural Design on ‘Space Architecture: The New Frontier of Design Research’. 

Adjunct Associate Professor Jennifer Siegal’s newest mobile project will be featured in the Truck-A-Tecture exhibition at the Kaneko Museum opening on June 27 in Omaha, NE. In August it will travel and be on display at Google, Venice (Silicon) Beach, CA.

Adjunct Associate Professor Yo-ichiro Hakomori will be leading the Global Initiative Study Abroad program to Asia in the Fall Semester, 2014.  Along with landscape professor Takako Tajima, the two will lead a group of students to Japan and China.  While in Japan, the program will engage in a joint urban design workshop with students from Meiji University School of International Architecture and Urban Design, and the University of Dortmunt, Germany.  In China the group will work with students from the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture to research preservation and repurposing the traditional Hutong.  The semester will culminate with an landscape urban design studio at the Hong Kong University in Shanghai.

Eric Nulman recently completed a fellowship at The MacDowell Colony. While in residence, Eric worked on the project Mono Environments; Mono Environments was design research on the use of ephemeral ornament (colored-light shadows) to generate a singular spatial aesthetic. Eighteen light patterned environments were created using physical models with custom cut theatrical gels to filter sunlight onto interior walls and floors; these temporary environments were documented in situ with photographs and represented through drawings. 

Rob Ley, Lecturer, recently completed an interactive curtain wall facade as part of the New Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis, IN.  The project stretches 12,000 s.f. and changes color through lenticular articulation in response to the building users’ direction of travel and speed. 

Dr. Travis Longcore (Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Associate Professor (Research) of Spatial Sciences) was an invited speaker at the USC Center for Sustainable Cities Spring Symposium “Envisioning Drought-Resilient Cities.”  He spoke on “Interstitial Greening for a Drought-Reslient City.”  Longcore was also a quoted expert in the Los Angeles Times on issues associated with alley cleanups.   

Dr. David Jason Gerber is co-chairing this years’ ACADIA 2014 Annual conference titled Design Agency held at the University of Southern California School of Architecture. Dr. Gerber chaired and edited the 5th annual conference on Simulation in Architecture and Urban Design. 

Professor James Steele, Ph.D. has been selected to be a member of the  jury for the International Design Competition for the Noble Quran Oasis, held from May -1 to 15th in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.

Lecturer Mina M. Chow, AIA, NCARB and USC School of Cinematic Arts Adjunct Associate Professor Mitchell Block have won a prestigious documentary grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts  for their film FACE OF A NATION:  “What Happened at the World’s Fair?”  An inquiry into national identity and the importance of the vision through the architecture of World’s Fairs, the film introduces the debate about the importance of vision created by architects as part of the immigrant American dream. 

Dr. Joon-Ho Choi, Assistant Professor of Building Science at USC was recently invited to the National Math and Science Competition as a special lecturer. He talked about “How and why to be an engineer/ scientist” for K-12 students. Dr.  Choi will open a new course, titled “Sustainable Design for Healthy Indoor Environments” in the fall semester of 2014 based on his robust research experience with the Workplace 20.20 project supported by the General Services Administration. He will present two of his research papers at the 13th International Society of Indoor Air Quality: “Evidence-based model of building façade features using data mining for assessment of building performance”, and “Visual environmental quality control using human physiological signal in an office workplace”. The conference will be held in Hong Kong in July 7 to 12, 2014. 

Lawrence Scarpa and his partner Angela Brooks of Brooks + Scarpa were named the recipients of the 2014 Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Award in Architecture. 

Assistant Professor Rachel Berney has been awarded entry into the USC Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Grant Writing Mentorship Program. During the 2014-2015 school year, she will develop funding proposals for her new Los Angeles-based research project MOBILE CITIES, under the mentorship of Dr. Ann Forsyth of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. 

Assistant Professor Alexander Robinson recently delivered a keynote lecture at a symposium on “Parametrics” at Washington State University. He also presented his recent work in a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and presented peer reviewed work at CELA in Baltimore and SIMAUD in Tampa, Florida (by proxy). 

Victor J. Jones, Assistant Professor of Architecture has been newly appointed to the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.

Lecturer Vinayak Bharne’s latest book Zen Spaces & Neon Places: Reflections on Japanese Architecture and Urbanism was released on May 1. The book brings together two decades of Bharne’s scholarship on Japan since his first trip in 1993 as the Asia-Pacific Development Commission Traveling Scholar from India.

Lecturer Nefeli Chatzimina – Founder of X|Atelier Architects – completed construction of a Flagship store for a prestigious Insurance Company in Athens, Greece. Nefeli during the Summer 2014 will be organizing International Architectural Design Workshops in Europe [Athens and Innsbruck]. Selected students from USC will participate in this design academic research with the title ‘Functionless’ using the latest computational design techniques and digital fabrication technologies. X|Atelier workshops are based on Nefeli’s current PhD Research as a selected candidate from the University of Athens in Greece.