Page 137 – Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico

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 University

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.]

ACSA Seeks Nominations for ACSA Representative on NAAB Board of Directors

March 17, 2014/in ACSA News /by Matrix Admin

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:

Tenured faculty status at an ACSA full member school;
Significant experience with and knowledge of the accreditation process;
Significant acquaintance with and knowledge of ACSA, its history,
policy programs, and administrative structure;
Personal acquaintance with the range of school and program types across North America.
Willingness to represent the constituency of ACSA on accreditation related issues.
Ability to work with the NAAB board and ACSA representatives to build consensus on accreditation related issues.

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

University of Calgary

March 17, 2014/in School News Canadian Region /by Matrix Admin

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

was an invited speaker and a panelist at the “Vectored Resources” symposium held on March 8, 2012, in Toronto. This event was organized by Columbia University from New York as one in a series of global “think tanks” that are part of the “Columbia Building Intelligence Project” (C-BIP).
On March 23, Branko delivered the opening presentation (by invitation) at the “Material Intensities” Smart Geometry 2012 conference held at the Rensselear Polytechnic University (RPI) in Troy, NY.
will give a public lecture at Université Laval École d’architecture in Quebec City on Nov 8 (http://www.arc.ulaval.ca/).
is speaking at the aceBIM symposium in Edmonton on Nov 28 (http://www.acebim.ca/bim-symposium-2012).
is one of the keynote speakers at the “Materiality in its Contemporary Forms” conference to be held on Nov 29 & 30 in Lyon, France (http://mc2012.sciencesconf.org/). The conference is organized by École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) de Lyon and École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) de Grenoble.
He was a Technology Theme Co-Chair for the 2012 ACSA International Conference held in June in Barcelona, where he also presented a co-authored paper and co-chaired three paper sessions.
Branko also joined the Advisory Committee for the Architectural Technologies Program at SAIT. This fall he will lecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway and Université Laval in Quebec City.

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.

Tang Lee won first prize in a design competition for an Ecological Master Plan for a senior’s development in Mengzi City, Yunnan province, China.
Five EVDS students, 3 architecture and 2 planning students spend the summer working in China. The students worked on Tang Lee’s projects including the design several high rise apartment and commercial buildings, urban designs, town planning, etc.

Dr. Brian Sinclair’s

Administered the International ARCC King Medal Program for Excellence in Architectural Research (May 2012);
Received the UC GSA ‘Teaching Excellence Award’ and was nominated for the ‘Supervisory Excellence Award’ (May 2012);
Paper accepted (co-authored; first author S. Mousazadeh) for presentation in the 9th AHRA Conference in UK (May 2012);
Submitted invited paper (co-authored; first author S. Mousazadeh) to the Global Built Environment Review (May 2012) | publication pending;
Served on the Scientific and Paper Review Committee for the ARCC/EAAE International Bi-Annual Architectural Research Conference (Cities in Transformation) in Milano; chaired two sessions under the category ‘Housing and the Shape of the City’; and delivered a peer-reviewed paper (published in proceedings) within the category ‘Architecture and Technical Innovation’ at the conference (June 2012);
Delivered the invited Keynote Address at the Annual PhD Student Workshop, and moderated & served on the PhD Alumni Panel, at the University of Missouri (June 2012);
Paper on ‘Agile Architecture’ accepted for publication in ARCC Journal (June 2012);
Travelled to Yunnan Province in China as an government-invited participant, speaker and advisor (together with Professor Tang Lee) in the Honghe Prefecture Sustainable Urban Planning and Design Forum | delivered an address on Holistic Design & Planning at the congress (July 2012);
Received a DrHC (Honoris Causa) from the Institute for Systems Research & Cybernetics, at a ceremony held in Germany, in recognition of scholarly work and leadership in the field of Design Education (August 2012);
Delivered three lectures at the University of Hawaii’s School of Architecture including the opening invited public talk (Agile Architecture: Considering, Conceiving & Constructing Environmental Design for the 21st Century) for the 2012-2013 Academic Year (August 2012);
Received an EVDS Research Funding Award for work on ‘façade plasticity’ (September 2012);
Appointed to the Scientific and Paper Review Committee for the ARCC Annual Research Conference to be held in North Carolina in Spring 2013 (September 2012).

University of Arkansas

March 17, 2014/in School News Southwest Region /by Matrix Admin

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.”

University of Arkansas Community Design Center to Partner with City, Local NGOs to Create Urban Agricultural Scenario Plan

March 17, 2014/in /by Matrix Admin

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.

Catholic University of America

March 17, 2014/in School News Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

“Box of Miracles: Contemplating a 21st Century Convent” opened January 29th at the Art Gallery of the Wesley Theological Seminary’s Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion. The exhibit features selected design work by CUA sacred space and cultural studies concentration students and senior undergraduate students, and will run until March 1st. This work was produced last semester under the guidance of 2012 Walton Critic Alberto Campo Baeza and CUArch Associate Professors Julio Bermudez and Luis Boza.

Photo Cube I, Guadalajara, Mexico by Estudio Carme Pinós

Carme Pinós, an Architect and Urbanist based in Barcelona, lectured on her work Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at the Koubek Auditorium of the Crough Center for Architectural Studies. Pinós set up her own firm in 1991, after a decade of partnership with Enric Miralles. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the National Prize of Architecture by the Spanish Architects Association in 1995, the 2001 Prize by the Professional Architect Association of the Comunidad Valenciana for the Juan Aparicio Waterfront in Torrevieja, the 2005 Arqcatmón Prize by the Professional Architect Association of Catalonia for the Cube Tower in Guadalajara, as well as the 1st Prize of the Biennial of Spanish Architecture in 2007 for the same building. In 2008 she received the National Prize of Architecture and Urban Space by the Catalan Government for her professional work. Her current work includes the Catalan Government Headquarters in Tortosa, the Museum of Transport and Metropolitan Park in Málaga, “La Gardunya” Square in the Historical District in Barcelona comprising “La Gardunya” Square Design, “La Massana” Fine Arts Center, a Housing Block and “La Boqueria” Market’s back façade, as well as a Department Building in the New Campus of the University of Economics in Vienna, the Caixaforum in Zaragoza and the Cube 2 Tower in Guadalajara (Mexico).

Mississippi State University

March 17, 2014/in School News Awards, Gulf Region /by Matrix Admin

John Poros, AIA associate professor in the School of Architecture and the director of Carl Small Town Center (CSTC), recently presented a session on his research on rural sustainability at the American Planning Association’s national conference held on April 15, 2013, in Chicago, Ill. Poros’ session was attended by more than 200 participants and was selected as the Small Town and Rural Planning session for the year.

Jane Britt Greenwood, AIA associate professor, has received a personal invitation from the Gyumri Mayor in Armenia to help celebrate the city’s new declaration as “Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS] cultural capital.” Mayor Samvel Balasanyan asked Greenwood to be a part of various cultural events that will begin on June 1, 2013. Greenwood began research in Gyumri in 2007 with a grant from the Earthwatch Institute and later continued her work as a Fulbright Scholar.

Alexis Gregory, AIA received $1,140 from the National Center for Intermodal Transportation for Economic Competitiveness (NCITEC) to fund research and design for an international competition for an intermodal transit station in Tirana, Albania. In March 2013, students in the Habitat Prototype House elective course, taught by Assistant Professor Alexis Gregory, received third place in the Community Engagement division of the 2013 Mississippi State University Undergraduate Research Symposium. Adam Trautman, a senior in the Building Construction Science Program, presented the project, “Elevating Habitat: Service-Learning in Design and Construction.” Third-year architecture students Melinda Ingram, Jacob Johnson, Alex Reeves and Mark Riley also worked on the project. Professor Gregory, along with Assistant Professor Jonathon Anderson of the University of North Carolina Greensboro had an article, “Educating ‘Architects’ Within and Beyond the Digital World: A Studio Exploration of Physical Realization through Digital Fabrication,” published in d3:dialog>assemble international journal of architecture + design.

Hans Herrmann, AIA assistant professor, delivered the opening lecture for Clemson University’s spring lecture series, “Southern Roots + Global Reach.” His lecture, “Opportunist[eth]ic” covered his professional development over the past 10 years and how opportunism and ethics have had an influence on his design practice and teaching pedagogy.

The Green Building Technology Demonstration Pavilion project was realized under the guidance of landscape architecture professors W. Cory Gallo, ASLA, and Brian Tempelton, ASLA, and architecture assistant professor Hans Herrmann, AIA. The project demonstrates ecological building and site design principles. The project received over $50,000 in private and public material and funding donations. It is featured by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as a 2013 Year of Public Service Project and most recently was awarded an American Society of Landscape Architects, Mississippi Chapter, Merit Award.

Todd Walker, FAIA, principal partner in the Memphis firm archimania, was named the School’s Eminent Architect of Practice for the Spring semester. Todd lectured and co-taught in the 3^rd year Brick Industry Association funded-studio.

The School of Architecture was invited by Richard Ramsey, the director of the Howlin’ Wolf Blues Society to design a Museum to honor the legendary and seminal blues musician who was born in West Point, Mississippi. This project (undertaken by the 4^thyear capstone studio w/ Associate Professor Jane Britt Greenwood, AIA, and Assistant Professor Hans Herrmann, AIA) will be critical to the future design, urban planning, and programming of the actual project.

The School of Architecture and Department of Building Construction Science are proud to announce that through the efforts of their faculty and administration they have been awarded $200,000 in Hearin Foundation Grant Funding to support continued research and development of the “Collaborative Studios: Integrated Learning Toward An Integrated Practice.” The pedagogical research and course development is being undertaken this summer by four faculty including Assistant Professor Alexis Gregory, Assistant Professor Hans C. Herrmann, Assistant Professor Tom Leathem (Building Construction Science), and Assistant Professor Emily McGlohn.

University of Southern California

March 17, 2014/in School News West Region /by Matrix Admin

The School of Architecture is developing a travel and a public space-public life survey workshop with Oliver Schulze of Gehl Architects for Summer 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and northern Germany, and a fall studio in Los Angeles connected with the workshop.

In early May, Mario Cipresso AIA will be a juror for “Re-Thinking Shanghai 2012: An International Design Competition for a Sustainable Intervention on the Suzhou Creek”. The announcement of the winners and awards ceremony will take place in Shanghai on May 10, 2012.

Professor Schierle’s book Structure and Design is required reading at six major schools, including Carnegie Mellon University.

Stovall Villa is a 32 unit affordable housing project designed by John Mutlow for low income seniors and completed in July 2011, which has just been selected as a winner in the ‘Design Housing, Multi-family’ category of the 42nd annual Los Angeles Architectural Awards. The project is designed to reinforce the contextual scale and material conditions of adjacent buildings, to expand and more clearly define an existing courtyard, and to provide a series of social spaces that encourage social interaction by either physically or visually interconnecting the spaces. Sustainability/low energy strategies include building over an existing Parking lot, optimal East/West solar orientation, incorporating metal shading screen on the south elevation with a more dense Trex screen on the West elevation and a connection for the future installation of solar Photovoltaic panels. A very short time schedule was established by the two major funding agencies, HUD and LA City which required the Design, Construction Documents and Building Permit to be completed in one year.

Dana Bauer, in collaboration with Elysian Landscapes, has been commissioned to design the landscape and public urban spaces for a new mixed use development in Hollywood. Other current projects include an Elementary School Master Plan, also in Hollywood, and a collection of ‘urban product’ prototypes scheduled to begin production this summer.

John Dutton will give an invited public lecture entitled: “Intersections of Architecture and Urbanism: Fin de Siecle City-Building by Wagner, Berlage, and Saarinen” at the School of Architecture of Notre Dame in April.

Eui-Sung Yi, Adjunct Associate Professor, is Director of Docomomo Korea and the Director of the Bidding Committee to host the next International Conference in Asia. He is excited to address emerging issues of physical versus heritage conservation and the changing definition of modernism in Asia.

Eric Haas, AIA, Adjunct Assistant Professor, curated “Top Fuel: Funnels,” USC’s design-build workshop, in which Achim Menges of Stuttgart University led students investigating performative pneumatic architecture. “Self Preservation,” an article on Haas’ restoration of R.M. Schindler’s Bubeshko Apartments, was published in Dwell (Feb. 2012).

Gail Peter Borden, Director of the Master of Architecture Programs, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He recently curated and participated in “Material Matters,” a six month installation at the Pacific Design Center and MOCA’s “Design Loves Art program” that had five architects each create five iterative pieces based upon a material logic. Participants included: Gail Peter Borden, Predock/Frane, Jason Payne, Victor Jones and Andrew Atwood. The exhibit is up through the end of summer. In April Borden was named one of Building Design and Construction’s 40 under 40. His third book – Principia: Architectural Principles of Material Form, co-authored with Brian Andrews and published by Pearson is due out in the fall.

Kristine Mun and David Gerber received a USC FIUT Award to implement research on interactive architecture to undergraduate students. Mun and Gerber will commence a collaborative design project with USC’s School of Cinema and School of Engineering to develop an IA prototype this summer.

Professor Ghirardo has published an article on Lucrezia Borgia’s religion and her entrepreneurial activities in Quaderni Estensi in February 2012, and a chapter entitled “Vicende e calamità delle cose create” in a book on the reclamation of the lands in the Po Valley, edited by Prof. Chiara Visentin.

Chelsea Workspace, a recently completed CNC-milled home-office fit-out in London designed by Alvin Huang, AIA (Assistant Professor at USC School of Architecture, Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture), will be featured in the July/August issue of Dwell Magazine.

Victor Jones had an exhibit entitled “Material Matters: Flat Shapes Justice” at the Pacific design Center for Westweek, March 20-22, 2012. Jones has an article titled “The Medium of Big: The Culture Now Project Midsize America” in a book by Thom Mayne and Karen Lohman due out in April.

Chuck Lagreco reports that “The Riverside Group,” the developer of a new destination resort community in the Jinhai lake area outside of Beijing, announced that his team was one of finalists of six architectural firms to proceed into design development phase on luxury residential projects for the new community.

Esther Margulies, part time Lecturer has joined AECOM’s Los Angeles office as a principal in the Planning Design and Economics business line. With fellow principal Vaughan Davies and the Urban Design and Landscape Architecture groups they are leading projects in southern California and China in a highly integrated process bringing together design, planning, economics and environmental practices. AECOM’s landscape architects are currently working on multiple projects that will significantly change Los Angeles’ mobility including the downtown Regional Connector rail stations and improvements to the Central Terminal area at LAX that will dramatically change the image of LAX. Ms. Margulies is also a member of the recently formed ULI Women’s Initiative and is working with Gail Goldberg and other ULI members to expand the leadership role of women in the Urban Land Institute.

Visiting Assistant Professor Ying-Yu Hung is Managing Principal of SWA Los Angeles, and co-founder of the Infrastructure Research Initiative (I.R.I.S.). Hung is an active lecturer and recently presented at the GSD Harvard for a two day symposium on the topic of landscape infrastructure. SWA Los Angeles is currently one of the shortlisted teams for the Union Station Master Plan with Metro. Other projects that she is working on include Emaar Square Landscape Plan in Egypt and the Historic San Jacinto Plaza in El Paso, Texas.

Prof. Graeme M. Morland. Architect / USC, has recently been appointed to the Los Angeles, Metropolitan Transportatiom Authority, Committee on 21st century planning, as part of the forthcoming “RAIL-VOLUTION” 2012 conference to be hosted in LA, dedicated to the challenge of “building liveable communities with transit”. This appointment is concurrent with his School of Architecture, topic studio design studies proposing station site development opportunities for 13 of 42 new station sites currently proposed in LA . These studies are at the request of the LA, Mayor’s office of transportation and are financially supported by the Architectural Guild of the USC School of Architecture. Following the previous success and joint USC/ MTA publication of a similar study to review the future station site options for the Prairie/Crenshaw corridor, conducted by G. Morland in 1997, It is now anticipated that this renewed interest will be on-going and the results published accordingly. The driving force for these design investigations is predicated on providing incentives to enhance private investment and economic development at station sites in a dynamic embrace with MTA stations locations, creating exciting new community “places/centres” in hitherto mundane locations.

Equalbooks has published Volume 12 in the Design Peak series; a comprehensive monograph on B+U’s oeuvre and features a complete overview of the innovative architecture of design duo Herwig Baumgartner and USC Lecturer Scott Uriu over the past 10 years. Previous monographs within the DesignPeak series include architects such as Morphosis, Delugan Meissl, and Fuksas, among others. The monograph on B+U includes an introduction by architecture critic Stephen Phillips and articles about the firm. B+U’s work ranges from conceptual projects utilizing sound as a generator for geometry and space, urban utopias imagining what our cities will look like in the future, up to build work and projects that are currently in development. Among the designs featured here, are the Firestone Boulevard office building in Downey, California; the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan; the Tall Emblem Structure for Dubai, UAE; Villas for the Royal family in Al Ain, UAE; the Frank/Kim residence and the Cohen residence in Pasadena, California; Sound cloud and Sound City_ urban intervention projects based on sound study’s, Los Angeles, California ; Sunset Junction_ a permanent installation in Silver Lake, California; Performing Arts Center in Iserlohn, Germany; NTCArt Museum for contemporary Art in New Taipei City, Taiwan; the Ott Winery in Feuersbrunn, Austria; and City Futura_ a utopian urban proposal for the city of Milan, Italy that was featured at the 12th Venice Biennale in 2010.

American University of Sharjah

March 17, 2014/in School News Conferences /by Matrix Admin

In April, the American University of Sharjah (AUS) became the first university in the Middle East invited to participate in SaloneSatellite. Begun in 1998, the annual event held in Milan, Italy brings together the most promising young designers from the world’s most prestigious universities and design schools. Eight students as well as recent AUS alumni from the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) exhibited work in furniture. Following a highly competitive selection process, CAAD students were invited to join approximately seven-hundred other young designers and eighteen international design schools for this year’s event. The participating students were accompanied by Bill Sarnecky, Assistant Professor in Architecture, and Amir Berbic, Associate Professor in Design. Also accompanying the group was the Dean of CAAD, Peter Di Sabatino.

Noting the significance of this opportunity, Dean Di Sabatino stated that, “we are much honored to be the first university from the Middle East selected to exhibit at SaloneSatellite.” Adding, “this furniture fair and design week in Milan is the most important annual design event globally, and the selection process for SaloneSatellite is extremely competitive. I am very proud of the students and faculty from the College of Architecture, Art and Design; they have done excellent work.”

The eight furniture pieces exhibited were designed and built by the students; four pieces were from the Furniture Design Basics course taught by Sarnecky, and four pieces were developed in a collaborative course entitled Form, Furniture and Graphics taught by both Sarnecky and Berbic. Emphasizing the collaborative nature of the pieces from the latter course, Sarnecky said, “After teaching beginning furniture design for five years at AUS, I teamed up this past semester with Amir Berbic to teach a new course, Form, Furniture and Graphics. Students in the course were encouraged to explore the potentially reciprocal relationship between two-dimensional graphics and three-dimensional form. Four of the eight pieces traveling to Milan for the exhibition emerged from this course.” Noting the overlap between the two programs and the effect on the work produced, Berbic added, “In some examples of student work, typographic patterns became a skin for the piece of furniture while in others the form of letters was the shaping element. Students from both the architecture and design departments enrolled in the course and the unique conditions of the course resulted in a hybrid between two-dimensional and three-dimensional design.”

The eight pieces selected were all, coincidentally, designed by women of Middle Eastern heritage (AUS is a co-educational institution). Students whose work was chosen were Rasha Dakkak, Sarah Alagroobi, Maha Habib, Noor Jarrah, Ghenwa Soucar, Heba Hammad, Danah Al Kubaisy and Marwa Abdulla Hasan. Several of the furniture pieces were strongly influenced by specific regional traditions, practices and contexts. For example, Palestinian student Rasha Dakkak’s piece, a table titled “Veto,” reflects a desire to shape visual culture in a way that best represents a modern Arab identity. The table’s form is derived from a cross-sectional transformation of the Arabic word la (meaning refusal, denial or disbelief) into kalla (indicating strong disapproval, protest or objection). The concept was inspired by dissent expressed in the Arab world during the Arab Spring revolutions. Sarah Alagroobi, an Emirati student, created “Amal’s Prayer Chair.” The idea originated from her desire to aid her mother and late grandmother who struggled to pray in the prostrate position. According to Islamic tradition, those who cannot physically endure prostration may pray in a sitting position. The typographic pattern on the skin of the chair is derived from the Arabic letter kaf and refers to “The Throne” (Ayatul-Kirsi), a powerful verse in the Holy Quran. The verse states: “His Chair doth extend, Over the heavens And the Earth…” The chair also rocks to aid in the act of praying.

The selection of AUS student work exhibited at SaloneSatellite reflects the academic vision and institutional goals of the College of Architecture, Art and Design which promotes a culture of design excellence, opportunism, entrepreneurship and leadership in both the regional and global creative culture and the creative economy. Design faculty and students at CAAD have a history of making in the applied and aesthetic contexts that contribute significantly to the regional and international material culture. As a participant in this year’s event in Milan, AUS is proud to be recognized internationally for the quality of its architecture, design and art programs and for collaborating or partnering with regional and international entities.

As Dean Di Sabatino notes, “It is very much an honor and very gratifying to be sharing the creative voice and the creative energy of the Middle East in such a significant global venue.”

For images of the student work, please visit http://www.aus.edu/caadmilan#.T51bedlMGSo

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