Professor Alfredo Fernandez-Gonzalez was selected to receive the 2012 UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award. He was also chosen by the UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award Committee to be UNLV’s nominee for the 2012 Nevada Regents’ Teaching Award. The Regent’s Award is Nevada’s most prestigious teaching recognition and the sole nomination to this award constitutes a great honor.
by Michael Monti, Executive Director
Clockwise from top left: closing reception at the Mies van der Rohe Pavillion, reception at the CCCB; participants at 2012 ACSA International Conference; keynote lecture with Martha Thorne, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Xavier Costa. (visit flickr.com/acsa-arch for more photos from the event)
Take these notes from Barcelona, print them or rewrite them on paper. Cut them up and, thinking of nothing about order, mix and layer the pieces—spread them around on the table until a picture forms.
Deadline: February 1, 2012
The ACSA invites proposals from member schools to host the 2013 ACSA Fall Conference. Beginning in 2011 the ACSA began holding annual fall conferences that were thematic in focus. The 2011 conference hosted by Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University focused on “Local Identities/Global Challenges.” The 2012 ACSA Fall Conference will be “Offsite Production in Architecture: Theory and Practice,” hosted by Temple University and chaired by Ryan E. Smith, University of Utah, John Quale, University of Virginia, and Rashida Ng, Temple University.
The Fall Conference program is assembled from peer-reviewed abstracts, with full papers collected in a digital proceedings published in ACSA’s permanent online archive. The conference is an opportunity for the host school to bring educators from across North America and beyond to their campus. The thematic focus can highlight a school’s strengths and demonstrate educational excellence to upper administration. Other goals for the new format include strengthening social opportunities for participants with common scholarly interests and bringing concentrated visibility to the work being done in the topic area.
Attendance at the Fall Conference is anticipated to be 100-200 people, with host schools using campus facilities or other appropriate venues for conference sessions. Joint proposals from neighboring schools and partnerships with other groups (such as those formed around the thematic area) are welcome.
Final proposals will be reviewed and selected through the ACSA Board of Directors’s Scholarly Meetings Committee. Proposals should be 3 pages or less, excluding supporting documents, and should include:
1. A title and paragraph-length description of the conference that clearly identifies the theme
2. Proposed dates for the conference
3. The name of the conference chair or co-chairs, as well as any other relevant organizers
4. A description of other potential enhancing conference features: partnerships, sponsors, keynote speakers, tours, etc.
5. Clear expression of interest by school
6. A description of resources available for the conference
Schools interested in hosting are encouraged to contact the ACSA to discuss potential arrangements prior to making a proposal.
Submission and Information
Please submit your proposal and direct any questions to: Jonathan Halpin, Conferences Manager, jhalpin@acsa-arch.org, 202.785.2324 x2
Rochelle Martin, Ph.D., passed away on October 8, 2011. Dr. Martin had been with Lawrence Tech since 1986 and was a Professor in the College of Architecture and Design at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Professor Martin received a Doctor of Architecture from the University of Michigan, a Bachelor of Architecture from Lawrence Tech, a Master of Arts in History and Bachelor of Science in Education from Wayne State University. Prior to working at Lawrence Tech, Rochelle was an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University, a Visiting Professor at the University of Nebraska, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan.
In her years at Lawrence Tech, she served on numerous university and college committees, along with founding the university’s Tau Sigma Delta chapter. A published author, she served on many thesis juries and enjoyed researching the impact of film media on architecture.
Rochelle was highly respected and will be greatly missed. She is survived by her daughter Marilee.
Dean Carlos E. Betancourt LLambias AIA, and Interior Designer Smyrna Mauras, CODDI, announced the inauguration of the Interior Architecture Program in the Spring 2013. Dean Betancourt also announced the integration of the Landscape Architecture program to the school of Architecture ARQPOLI.
Professor Diana G. Rivera was appointed as the new Associate Dean of the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (PUPR). Professor Rivera has been teaching for seventeen years and has taught design studios at various levels. Professor Rivera has a B.A. in Environmental Design from the University of Puerto Rico and an M.Arch from Syracuse University.
Professor Jorge Rigau FAIA, received the Distinguished Architecture Professor Award from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico in May 2012.
Professor Miguel Del Río AIA, has been appointed AIA Regional Director for the areas of Florida and the Caribbean. The appointment took place on July 2012 during the AIA Convention in Palm Beach.
Professor Andres Mignucci AIA, will be lecturing at Tulane School of Architecture, the lecture ‘The City is not a blank slate” will take place this coming month. Also, Professor Mignucci announced the publication of his next book Contexts: Parque Munoz Rivera and the Supreme Court.
Professor Nadya K. Nenadich mentored second place award winning students Glorimer Anselmi, Nestor Bartolomei, Javier Bidot, Cristhian Cano, Marcos Colón and Janice Quevedo, for the San Juan 3D Competition sponsored by Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas. Nenadich also gave the lecture “La erosión de la gestión común de lo común” for the Arquitectonics International Workshop “Architecture, Education and Society” at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) on May, 2012.
Professor María Gabriela Flores AIA, gave the lecture “Consideraciones de Diseño para Vivienda en Puerto Rico” as part of the design competition “Nueva Vivienda para Puerto Rico 2012” at the Puerto Rico’s Architects Association (CAAPPR) on May 10, 2012.
Professor Omayra Rivera, coordinator of the Collaborative Design Studio, is offering a course at Beta Local in Old San Juan in collaboration with the project ENLACE for Caño Martín Peña. Moreover, Prof. Rivera presented the paper “Participatory Analysis of the Living Environment: The Plus Ultra Neighborhood”, together with professors Leandro Madrazo and Angel Martin Cojo from the School of Architecture La Salle in Barcelona at the Association of Collegiate School of Architecture (ACSA) Conference on June, 2012, that took place at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona.
Professors Yazmín Crespo and Omayra Rivera, together with Andrea Bauzá, presented the work produced by their collaborative studio “Taller Creando Sin Encargos’, at the Puerto Rico’s Architects Association (CAAPPR) on August 16, 2012. They were also guest speakers at the University Radio talk show “Arquitectura de Hoy”.
Professor Yazmín Crespo gave a history and theory of architecture summer course at the Elisava School of Design in Barcelona on June, 2012.
Professor Vladimir García has joined the ArqPoli faculty. Prof. Garcia, who has a Masters Degree from SCIArc, was recently awarded, together with Doel Fresse, the First Prize from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture: Galería Espacio Temporal (GET) Design Competition 2011 for the Revuelo installation. Revuelo was selected as one of the projects to represent Puerto Rico in the Third Design Biennial in Madrid on November 2012. Prof. Garcia gave a lecture about this art-installation at the School of Architecture, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and at the Puerto Rico’s Architects Association (CAAPPR) on March, 2012.
Professor Maria Isabel Oliver conducted a Summer Advanced History Course together with the Centro de Estudios Martianos in Havana, Cuba. The project Havana: topologies of a transitional city, examines through videos and urban acoustics, the topological ‘invariances’ of memory, history and identity within the ‘variant’ uses of contemporary society.
Professor Oscar Oliver Didier, together with 16 students, traveled to Berlin, Germany, to conduct the Summer Studio Berlin: Enduring Impermanence. The project evaluates place and the crisis of permanence.
The Study Abroad Exhibitions Berlin: Enduring Impermanence and Havana: topologies of a transitional city will be held at the Antiguo Cuartel de Ballaja in November 2012.
Dean Carlos E. Betancourt Llambias AIA, announced the production of the third ArqPoli Polimorfo journal edition “Architecture to come” and the ArqPoli deBrief student work catalog, to be released in the upcoming months.
CLEMSON — Two teams of Clemson University’s School of Architecture graduate students have earned first and second places in Dow Chemical Company’s Dow Solar Design to Zero Competition. Three additional Clemson teams received honorable mention and ancillary awards.
The international competition challenged undergraduate and graduate students to conceptualize energy-efficient, sustainable residential solutions on a global scale. Clemson’s ambitious teams were selected by a group of their contestant peers as the winners from a pool of 131 design teams from 19 countries.
Winners were announced Wednesday during a ceremony at the National Home Builder’s International Builders’ Show in Orlando and online through a Facebook Livestream.
Clemson’s Live/Work team won first place and $20,000 with its sleek, modern design. Eric Laine of Indianapolis and Suzanne Steelman of Las Vegas embraced the social and economic aspects of life and created a home that incorporates both commercial and residential functionalities.
Daniel Kim of Vienna, Va. and Caitlin Ranson of Pickens received second place and $10,000 for their Project Zero design. The structure’s concrete masonry units create a seamless house that reimagines spaces and blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior with “zones” intended to increase ventilation.
Honorable Mention was awarded to John Oxenfeld of Tega Cay and Adam Wilson of Chester for their unique Partial Submersion design.
Mike Niezer of Fort Wayne, Ind., and Adrian Mora of Miama took the Design Integration Award for seamlessly integrating space, materials and technology to craft a serene and environmentally sound breatheZERO home.
The Built-In Photovoltaic Design Award went to Jason Drews of Houston and James Graham of Wilmington, N.C., for their Below Zero design, incorporating optimal solar angles.
Architecture school chairwoman Kate Schwennsen said she is very pleased with the success of these students, as are their design studio professor, Ulrike Heine, and consulting professors Daniel Harding and Bernhard Sill.
“The accomplishments of these students and faculty represent the highest aspirations, values and abilities of the School of Architecture,” Schwennsen said. “The work is innovative, technologically integrated and sophisticated, optimistic, engaged with industry, clearly and beautifully communicated, the result of collaborative design processes.
“It addresses one of the critical issues of our time and is focused on leaving the world better than they found it,” she said. “The School of Architecture couldn’t ask for better representation of its potential.”
Contestants created designs for three connected residences, including areas for privacy and recreation. In addition to traditional design elements, students were tasked with incorporating environmentally friendly, recyclable materials with near zero-energy efficiency standards.
Dow sponsored the competition as part of its commitment to the environment, health and safety as demonstrated in its 2015 Sustainability Goals.
[The winners are (left to right) Jason Drews, James Graham, Adrian Mora, Daniel Kim, Caitlin Ranson, John Oxenfeld, Adam Wilson, Suzanne Steelman and Eric Laine. Michael Niezer is not pictured.]
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
ACSA Representative on NAAB Board of Directors
Deadline: October 10, 2012
The 2013-2014 National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) will comprise thirteen members: three representing ACSA, three representing AIA, three representing NCARB, two representing AIAS, and two public members. Currently Theodore Landmark of Boston Architectural College; Nathaniel Belcher of Pennsylvania State University, Patricia Kucker of University of Cincinnati represent ACSA on the NAAB Board. With the expiration of Ted Landsmark’s term in October 2013, the ACSA Board of Directors is considering candidates for his successor at its meeting this March in San Francisco, CA.
The appointment is for a three-year term (Oct. 2013 – Oct. 2016) and calls for a person willing and able to make a commitment to NAAB. While previous experience as an ACSA board member or administrator is helpful, it is not essential for nomination. Some experience on NAAB visiting teams should be considered necessary; otherwise the nominee might be unfamiliar with the highly complex series of deliberations involved with this position. Faculty and administrators are asked to nominate faculty from an ACSA member school with any or all the following qualifications:
For consideration, please submit a concise letter of nomination along with a CV indicating experience under the above headings, and a letter indicating willingness to serve from the nominee, by October 10, 2012.
Nominations should be sent to:
Email (preferred): eellis@acsa-arch.org
ACSA, Board Nominations
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Professor Graham Livesey – Congratulations to Graham who has been promoted to full Professor effective April 1, 2012. Well done Graham!
Professor Loraine Fowlow – The Solar Decathlon 2011 project is a finalist for the 2012 Emerald Awards, in the category of “Education: School or Classroom” category. The Awards will be announced at the Awards ceremony on June 6th. President Cannon has offered her congratulations to the Team on this accomplishment, saying, “The Solar Decathlon Team exemplifies the University of Calgary’s Eyes High goals to pursue excellence and to forge strong ties with our community.”
Professor Branko Kolarevic
Professor Tang Lee won first prize in the International Urban Design competition for the Foshan Chancheng District European Industrial Park, China. Orianne Berger, an EVDS student, assisted with the competition.
Dr. Brian Sinclair’s
A National Endowment for the Arts grant is a first step toward the revival of the historic, 60-block Pettaway neighborhood in Little Rock, by blending new development within the fabric of that turn-of-the-century urban neighborhood.
The $30,000 grant, awarded to the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp., will fund the creation of the Pettaway Neighborhood Revitalization Plan.
The grant recipients were among 1,145 nonprofit national, regional, state and local organizations recommended for a grant as part of the NEA’s second round of fiscal year 2011 grants. This design grant was part of the federal agency’s Access to Artistic Excellence Program. In total, the NEA will distribute more than $88 million to support projects nationwide.
The Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, works to advance creative development in Arkansas through education, research and design solutions that enhance the physical environment. The Community Development Corp. steers investment activity in the Pettaway neighborhood and develops single-family housing in the area.
The Community Design Center will spend 10 months generating the Pettaway Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. Designers hope to develop methods for urban infill that integrate contemporary innovations – such as green streets, transit-oriented development, urban agriculture, low-impact development live-work housing configurations – with existing historic buildings. They are using models they’ve already developed and applying them at a broader, neighborhood scale.
“Like all well-established urban areas, the Pettaway neighborhood offers a rich mixture of lifestyle opportunities in the architecture and land uses close to downtown,” Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center.
The plan will combine urban development with affordable housing and public transit planning. Ecological-based storm water management methods will be studied, including green streets, low-impact development, rainwater gardens, bioswales and stream restoration. Designers will propose that the city extend its downtown trolley system into a commuter streetcar system along a trunk line, which will connect the Pettaway neighborhood to the downtown business district and North Little Rock’s downtown.
Affordable housing configurations with mixed uses will cater to artists and others employed in creative, innovative fields, while serving the neighborhood’s established constituents. The project team will explore an open space and landscape plan that will link underused parks with new pocket parks, drainage corridors, community gardens, recreation areas and pedestrian areas.
Though the neighborhood is already strongly committed to and supportive of changes, this plan will better guide the development corporation actions. “Something like this can bring the bigger vision for what the neighborhood can be,” said Scott Grummer, executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp. “This, in turn, helps guide the corporation, the neighborhood and other developers in decisions they make for future developments.”
The revitalization plan will be presented to the Pettaway neighborhood next spring.
This plan will build on the MacArthur Park District Master Plan – a plan created by the Community Design Center that has won five national and two state design awards. Segments of that plan are slated for construction this year. In that plan for MacArthur Park, which borders the Pettaway area, one of the more visionary options was to build a pedestrian bridge over the interstate, which literally divided MacArthur Park, and reconnect the park and downtown to the Pettaway neighborhood.
“There’s so much revitalization potential currently being exhibited in Little Rock that will allow it to flourish as a great mid-sized city,” Luoni said. “This plan will return low-density urban neighborhood options to the table, providing a mix of classes with affordable choices for living downtown.”
For the past two years, the Fay Jones School of Architecture has partnered with the Community Development Corp. to design and build two affordable, sustainable homes in the Pettaway neighborhood. Both homes are located on East Commerce Street.
Luoni said the school’s design/build program and this new neighborhood plan approach revitalization from different scales. “We’re going to look at the building blocks of good neighborhood development and planning, with an aggregate thinking that exceeds what one can accomplish on a single piece of property,” he said. “The design/build program serves as an exemplary model for what can be accomplished through building typology at the micro-scale. They are building stunning, high-concept houses that are affordable.”
An interdisciplinary team at the University of Arkansas will work with the City of Fayetteville and local non-governmental organizations to create Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario Plan. This urban agricultural plan will be designed for a city that is expected to double in population over the next 20 years.
The plan is based on a funding proposal developed by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, an outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture. The design center recently received $15,000 in seed money from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to begin the project.
The award is part of the Decade of Design awards sponsored by the AIA in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The goal of the Decade of Design program is to engage architecture schools to participate in research that addresses problems facing urban, suburban and rural communities in the United States and the world. When completed, Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario Plan will serve as a national and international model for agrarian urbanism, said Jeffrey Huber, assistant director for the Community Design Center and adjunct professor in the Fay Jones School.
“Although in recent years there has been a greater emphasis – and actual development – on infill as a solution to some of our urban problems, Fayetteville’s current model for growth is sprawl,” Huber said. “And sprawl places more strain on the land available to grow food for the local population. Currently, we need about 100,000 acres of agricultural production to support about 50,000 people. There is a lot we can do to reduce this ratio. As designers, it is our responsibility to address what the local food movement is trying to do – to support a local, urban food network.”
The local food movement – in Fayetteville specifically but also nationwide – is a response to an industrial-based system of food production. Since the 1950s, American agricultural production has become an increasingly concentrated and industrialized enterprise, so much so that most Americans have forgotten where food comes from or how to grow it, store it and preserve it. Many in the local food movement believe the industrial-based system is unsustainable and environmentally irresponsible. Huber points out the average food product travels more than 1,500 miles from producer to consumer, and in that time it has lost 80 percent of its nutritional value.
With assistance from food-law experts at the University of Arkansas School of Law and food scientists in the University’s Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food and Life Sciences, project designers and students at the design center will work with the City of Fayetteville and local organizations such as FEED Fayetteville to design infrastructure for the purpose of growing, storing, preserving, distributing and selling food locally. Through these relationships, they will create an urban plan for healthy and safe food systems at a local scale. The goal, Huber said, is to build agrarian urbanism, where everything is designed around production of food and how people live.
“The whole project is based on this question,” Huber said. “What if 80 percent of Fayetteville’s new development provided an incentive to develop around a local, urban agricultural network?”
So how does a food city work? Imagine Fayetteville’s Wilson Park as an agricultural asset, an orchard with apple trees or a mini farm with lettuce, green beans and strawberries growing in gardens along the walking trail. That is a small part of what a food city looks like, Huber said. From window boxes with tomato plants to large-scale industrial farms, the goal is to imbed agrarianism back into the urban environment. The urban landscape includes right-of-way gardens, residential “grow streets,” greenhouses, agricultural subdivisions, urban orchards and agricultural parks. Low-impact irrigation and water cycling would be integrated into these spaces. The food city could also include animal husbandry and processing facilities.
Such a change would create an “edible landscape,” as Huber calls it, a shift from the ornamental to the productive, and in this scenario, the city of Fayetteville could become a food utility, not unlike its current role as the water and sewage utility. But this would be only part of the overall plan. Private citizens, neighborhood cooperatives and both small and large farms and orchards would be integrated into the system. The challenge for the designers will be to develop a plan for infrastructure that will support all these components.
Huber said the center will finish the design of a food scenario plan by summer 2013. The University of Arkansas Community Design Center will present its work at the AIA national convention.
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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