Two faculty members have joined Clemson University’s School of Architecture as new permanent faculty this academic year, bringing with them a rich and impressive range of experience and expertise.  Sallie Hambirght, AIA, LEED AP, (B.S. In design, Clemson University; M.Arch., Yale University), is a new assistant professor focusing on beginning design and visualization.  Sallie has served as a lecturer at the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston and at the Georgia Institute of Technology; has worked in the offices of Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Eisenman Architects; and has her own practice in South Carolina.  Ray Huff, AIA (B.Arch., Clemson University), the founding director of the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston (CAC.C) is now associate professor of architecture and director of the CAC.C.  Ray comes to his position as an award-winning educator and director through a path of exemplary and critical architectural practice, as a principal and partner in the firm of Huff + Gooden Architects LLC, with offices in New York and Charleston.

Keith Evan Green, RA, PhD, Professor of Architecture and Electrical & Computer Engineering, was awarded funding for “architectural robotics” research from the National Science Foundation; and his monograph, Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino, was recently published in Japanese translation by Kajima Press. Green was awarded $271k as Principal Investigator from the Smart Health and Wellbeing Program of NSF to design and prototype an Assistive, Robotic Table [ART]. A discrete component of an envisioned suite of robotic furnishings, ART is comprised of a novel “continuum robotic” table surface that gently folds, extends, and reconfigures to support work and leisure activities; a smart storage volume that physically manages and delivers personal effects; and an accessorized headboard. These components of ART will recognize, communicate with, and partly remember each other in interaction with users and with other components of the suite. ART is intended to empower people to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. Collaborating on the research are Clemson colleagues in ECE (I. Walker) and Psychology (J. Brooks), as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering of Kaiserslautern, Germany. The prototype will be tested in the research team’s home+ residential lab within the Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center (see www.IMSA-Research.org). The theoretical underpinning for ART and other applied “architectural robotics” projects by Green is his monograph, Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino, which has just been published in Japanese translation by Kajima press. Through the case of these two architects and friends, Green’s monograph explores how architectural artifacts might be rendered “nearly alive” by their designers and users.