CCA Adjunct Professor Matt Hutchinson has been selected to participate in the DesCours 2011 art and architecture event in New Orleans. The project, Bayou-Luminescence fuses material surface, structural volume and lighting effects into an immersive spatial experience. It is a collaborative effort, developed and fabricated with Igor Siddiqui, Assistant Professor at University of Texas at Austin.
CCA Adjunct Professor Katherine Rinne’s book,The Waters of Rome: Aqueducts, Fountains, and the Birth of The Baroque City (Yale University Press) won the 2011 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Award for Landscape History from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. Most recently she has lectured about her Roman water research at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Denver, the University of Washington, Drury University, and at Pratt Institute in Rome. Her web-based cartographic research project, Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome, <www3.iath.virginia.edu/waters> has been chosen by the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche, as one of five international water research projects to be featured at the “World Heritage and Water Strategy” conference to be held in Rome in March 2012.
Museums of the City, an experimental history project by David Gissen, CCA Associate Professor, and commissioned by Geoff Manaugh, appears in the exhibition Landscape Futures, Center for Art and Environment, Nevada Museum of Art. A catalog of the exhibition is forthcoming from Actar. David recently spoke about Museums of the City at the Event “What is to be Written: A new generation of scholar/critics speaks out”, held at the Graduate School of Design Harvard.
Dr. Mona El Khafif, Assoc. Prof of Architecture at CCA, gave a lecture at the ART CITY BERLIN 2020 conference, organized by Heinrich Boell Stiftung, on July 21st. El Khafif’s presentation introduced a panel discussion and workshop dedicated to operational strategies, defined as cultural impulses, for public space. The session was attended by the artist Harry Sachs from Kunstrepublik, architect Matthias Rick from Raumlabor, curator Ute Vorkoeper, and Mona El Khafif. Returning to San Francisco, El Khafif participated in a panel discussion, titled WHAT IS LANDSCAPE URBANISM? at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) on July 27th. Her input introduced a range of urban design and research projects developed by students and faculty at the CCA URBANlab that deal with new approaches to ecological urbanism. A selection of this work was also presented on October 15th at the ACSA conference in Houston, titled Local Identities Global Challenges, where El Khafif and CCA colleague Antje Steinmuller presented the paper MADE FOR CHINA: Transcoding Local Patterns into Ecologically High-Performing Urban Prototypes.
CCA Assistant Professor Jason Kelly Johnson and Associate Professor Nataly Gattegno were awarded the 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects. Future Cities Lab, their experimental research practice has also recently won several design awards and commissions including the Trilux Pavilion in San Francisco; Thermaespheres in Athens, Greece; and they were finalists for the Henry Art Gallery Facade project in Seattle. Jason will also serve as co-chair of the upcoming ACADIA 2012 Conference to be hosted at CCA in October 2012. The conference is titled “CRAFTING DIGITAL ECOLOGIES” and is being organized with partners from UC Berkeley and UC Cal Poly.
CCA Lecturer Liz Ogbu was made a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council (http://www.di.net/about/senior_fellows/). She was also selected as part of the inaugural class of “Innovators in Residence” by IDEO.Org (http://ideo.org/fellows), a new nonprofit dedicated to reducing poverty through design and innovation.
CCA Adjunct Professor Liz Ranieri and her partner Byron Kuth’s award winning entry for the 2009 Rising Tides competition, Folding Water, is on view now at the Aquarium of the Pacific’s permanent new exhibit, “Rising Seas.” Their work on elder-care housing was highlighted in a recent interview, “Mixing it up with Elders,” for the online publication ArchNewsNow. In October, Liz and Byron lectured at University of Texas at Austin. The accompanying exhibit “Reflections on Process and Recent Work” is on view at UTSoA’s Membane gallery.
Professor Patrick Peters and his Graduate Design/Build Studio won the Mayor’s Proud Partner award, for the second year in a row, for their Solar Shade Tree at McReynolds Middle School.
The work of Assistant Professor Wendy W. Fok will be featured in various venues:
Dubai, UAE – Exhibition: ARA Gallery, Burj Khalifa, Artists – Wendy W Fok / Mona Faisal Al Gurg, Title: “Stereotypical Cultures”, Visual/Aural installation.
Hong Kong, HK – Exhibition: HKSZ Bi-City Biennale of Architecture/ Urbanism Exhibitor Selection, Installation: TETRA, Collaboration with: six students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Taubman College University of Michigan, curated by Terence Riley and HKIA.
Toronto, Canada – Presentation: Pecha Kucha Toronto, 1 of 8 selected practices, presentation for Toronto #10, as Emerging Canadian Design Practice (WE-DESIGNS.ORG, LLC) on 30 September 2011 @ 8pm, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Canada, part of the Fall 2011 Architecture Exhibitions.
Shanghai, China – Publication: Tongji Architectural Press, part of the CAUP/USC/AAC Exhibition and Publication of DigitalFUTURE, edited and curated by Neil Leach and Philip Yuan. To be published in Chinese and English. Publication date: TBA.
Patrick Peters, Professor The University of Houston (UH) has received a prestigious Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), one of only 51 grants of this kind awarded nationwide. The university will receive $100,000 to support the Third Ward Arts Initiative, a series of public art installations, new media initiatives and cultural planning activities in the neighborhood surrounding the central campus.
Industrial Design Juniors –3 Competition Winners (EunSook Kwon, PhD, Associate Professor + Director of Industrial Design Program) Three competition winners, Beehive (bee keeper’s jacket), Out of Sight and Out of Mind (glass collecting machine), and Safety Extension Cords (for building construction) were invited to present a poster at the Prevention Through Design Conference, August 22-23, and to deliver a 20 minute presentation at the lunch, August 23.
Under the expert guidance of professor Barry Moore, FAIA, Adjunct Associate Professor, longtime preservationist advocate and practicing architect ,10 graduating architecture students provided their perspectives for transforming the historic Imperial Sugar site in Sugar Land, Texas.
David Ladewig participated in a very ambitious, intensive and interesting International program hosted by the prestigious Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MGTU) from July 1 – 13. Olga Bannova, Research Associate Professor was selected to serve as a group leader for the event. The US participation was sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy (Rice University). Participating students were selected on a competitive basis. The unique international program “Space Development – Theory and Practice” has been hosted by the Bauman University for the past 23 years. This year’s participation included students from the USA, Mexico, Switzerland, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Greece, Sweden, Italy, South Korea and Russia/MGTU.
The press release on the event can be found on the Russian Space Agency Mission Control website: http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=6668 (You will need to click the link, click English up near the top left, and then hit the back button to be able to read the article if you don’t read Russian)
UH COA student films produced in architecture + film have been selected to be screened at Architecture Center Houston’s 1st Annual Film Festival (August 11-13). The short films had been produced by COA students (Prof. Dietmar Froehlich) in cooperation with students from the School of Communication (Prof. Keith Houk), University of Houston. For more information about the festival and admission fees please visit the Architecture Center Houston’s 1st Annual Film Festival website. The feature films selected for the 2011 ArCH Film festival speak to the broad topic of Architecture with each central character challenging any static definition. Humanitarian, aesthete, modernist. Each evening the featured film will be preceded by a collection of juried short films by students. Student films were made as a part of supplemental curriculum and are not necessarily about architecture, students, school, or anything in particular. Come see what plays in the minds of future architects…
Assistant Professor Gregory Marinic’s New York-based architectural practice, Arquipelago, recently has revceived various awards: The projects were produced this summer with his interns:
They recently won the ‘Faith & Form Journal Award for Religious Architecture’ for their project, ‘Capilla de Guadalupe’. The project will be published in Faith & Form Journal in late 2011.
Their project ‘Estonian Flyway’ was selected for exhibition at the Tallinn Architecture Biennale ‘Street 2020’. The project is currently on exhibit at the Estonian Architecture Museum in Tallinn and proposes a landscape urbanism intervention for central Tallinn.
They recently won the Socio-Design Foundation Award for their project ‘Baltimore Calling’, an urban design intervention for the Baltimore Red Line transit corridor construction zones.
Their projects ‘Mercado La Victoria’ and ‘Baltimore Calling’ were selected for the ‘Leverage, Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design’ exhibition at theCenter for Architecture in Philadelphia opening in October.
Their project, ‘Raleigh Racks’ was selected for exhibition at the Urban Design Center in Raleigh in September.
Their project, ‘Cleveland International School’ was exhibited in the 2011 Cleveland Design Exhibition at Cleveland State University in August.
Six of their recent projects will be published in two forthcoming books by Seoul-based DAMDI Architectural Publishers Ltd. going to press in late 2011.
‘Estonian Flyway’ and ‘Baltimore Calling’ will be published in ‘Process’, a special themed edition of AIA Forward journal in Spring 2012.
The Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University is pleased to announce the appointment of Colin Ripley as new departmental chair. Professor Ripley, who has been at Ryerson since 2003, is a partner and director of the architectural firm RVTR (www.rvtr.com), and has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the 2009 Canada Council Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture. He has been published widely both in Canada and abroad and has co-edited the book In the Place of Sound: Architecture|Music|Acoustics.
Beyond his academic and professional engagements, Colin brings to the department a new vision for architectural education for the 21st century – one that is responsive to emergent technologies and encourages cross-disciplinary research. He anticipates that the future will see less emphasis placed on the architect as visionary artist and more on the collaborative work of many professionals – architects, building scientists, project managers. It will be about the coordination of complex processes and teams, operating across global and virtual networks, in collaboration with both human and non-human partners.
“I hope to renew Ryerson’s longstanding commitment to the holistic education of professionals for the AEC industry,” says Ripley, “and to update that commitment to face the challenges of coming decades.”
Associate Professor, Eric J. Jenkins published the chapter, “A Bit of Europe in Maryland: The Bata Colony in Belcamp” in the book Company Towns of the Bata Concern (Franz Steiner Verlag) edited by Ondrej Sevecek and Martin Jemelka).In addition, Jenkins’ book Drawn to Design: Analyzing Architecture Through Freehand Drawing (Birkhauser) has been released as an EPUB electronic book and is available on iTunes. The EPUB is unique in that drawings can be reviewed at full scale and the searchable index allows for non-linear readings. Jenkins also lectured and directed a workshop on analytical freehand sketching at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Associate Professor Adnan Morshed received a publication grant from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art in Spring 2013. In addition, Professor Morshed was one of the organizers of a conference focusing on the challenges of sustainable growth in developing economies at Berkeley in February and a guest speaker in the Spring Lecture Series of the University of Utah’s School of Architecture in March.
Associate Professor Julie Ju-Youn Kim will present the work of the Comprehensive Building Design Studio, entitled “Down the Rabbit Hole and Out Again: Building Technology in the Design Studio” at the BTES 2013 Conference in Rhode Island.Kim was has also been invited to present her research project on the body, architecture and dwelling (Villa of Veils + Unwrapping the Hanbok) at the Third Annual International Conference on Architecture in Athens, Greece in June 2013.Recently the studio in which Kim partners, c2architecturestudio, was recognized with an Award of Merit for infoCUBE: light monitors by the 2013 AIA DC Unbuilt Competition.
Adjunct Professor Mark McInturff, FAIA was awarded two Washingtonian Residential Design Awards for his Chesapeake Bay House and Gresser Johnson House.
Visiting Critics and E/L Studio firm principals Elizabeth Emerson and Mark Lawrence earned Washingtonian Residential Design Awards for their 63rd Avenue and Lincoln Street residences.
Each summer, CUA School of Architecture and Planning features numerous undergraduate and graduate level courses. Among these are design studios and elective courses, including history of architecture, graphics, furniture design, theory and computer-aided design/fabrication. The CUA 2013 Summer Institute for Architecture (SIA) is pleased to offer the NADAAA Design studio, led by Nader Tehrani, as the feature summer studio. Julian Palacio, Lecturer, will collaborate with Tehrani in offering this advanced level design studio. The SIA will also host a summer speaker series with Mark Sexton (Krueck and Sexton, Chicago); Lyn Rice (Rice+Lipka, NYC); Nader Tehrani (NADAAA, Boston); and Andrea Leers (Leers Weinzapfel, Boston). Please visit the CUArch website (architecture.cua.edu) or contact SIA Director Julie Kim for more information.
Janine Henri and Alivia Zappas University of California, Los Angeles Arts Library
Like many faculty who have been teaching with images for several decades, UCLA Art History Professor Dell Upton’s office is filled with slides. There are drawers upon drawers of images of Quaker meeting halls, Machu Picchu’s ruins, and Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe. In spring 2011, UCLA Architecture, Design, and Digital Services librarian Janine Henri supervised library science graduate student Alivia Zappas, and collaborated with Professor Upton to upload and create records in SAHARA for over 400 of these images, digitized from slides.
The collaborative nature of this project was very much in line with the principles upon which SAHARA was built. SAHARA, the Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archive was conceived to
“…provide an opportunity for the leaders of SAH, architectural historians, librarians, publishers, technologists, and higher education administrators to study, develop, and implement educational and discipline-based strategies to advance scholarly communication in the context of the ongoing digital revolution in the field of architectural history.”[i]
The collaboration between a professor, a librarian, and a graduate student, enriched the experience and enhanced the image records. The creation of an image’s descriptive record often necessitates research. For images of well-known buildings or sites, minimal research needs to be done: the needed information can be gleaned from consulting a book or authoritative source. Other less known buildings require a great deal more research.
Professor Upton’s records provided building name and location information only. Janine Henri and Alivia Zappas resorted to creative and rigorous reference work to track down appropriate additional information such as dates, materials, and structural elements. Zappas was then able to build up the records with detailed technical and descriptive metadata: a feature which will greatly increase the retrievability of the records. Henri and Zappas relied on their knowledge of architecture students’ research needs (gleaned from experience answering reference questions) to determine the appropriate amount of descriptive data needed for each image.
Creating image records in SAHARA turned into a valuable learning experience. An unexpected, but enjoyable benefit of the research undertaken in order to describe images was the opportunity to learn about monuments and sites or the history of construction techniques and built works. The mosques of Cape Town were particularly fascinating. Describing these images involved an exploration of the history of the Bo-Kaap, or Malay Quarter, of Cape Town.
The most rewarding aspect of this project was also one of its most interesting components. Professor Upton’s wide-ranging and high quality slides offered some incredible images. Many feature vernacular architecture or provide visual information that is not readily available elsewhere. Making these images available, discoverable, and useful through descriptive data was a productive and satisfying project that will help enhance the teaching and study of architecture. Increasing access to these images (and as a result to architectural information) was addictive, challenging, and delightful! We encourage other groups of faculty, librarians, and graduate students to take on similar projects and contribute further to SAHARA.
[i] Whiteside, Ann, “SAH Architecture Resources Archive: A Collaboration in Changing Scholarship,” Art Documentation, 28 (1) 2009; 4-8.
Lois Weinthal, Associate Professor and Graduate Adviser for the Master of Interior Design Program recently presented a paper, titled “Embedded Emotions in Objects of the Architectural Interior,” at the interdisciplinary conference, “Objects of Affection: Towards a Materiality of Emotions,” at Princeton University. Associate Professor Lois Weinthal also participated on a panel at the Dallas Center for Architecture, organized by the AIA Dallas Women in Architecture Committee.
Dr. Nancy Kwallek, director of the Interior Design Program, published a paper, titled “Ellen Swallow Richards: Visionary on Home and Sustainability,” in the summer 2012 issue of Phi Kappa Phi FORUM. better living”).
The firm Alterstudio has been busy this year. The firm includes Associate Dean Kevin Alter, Ernesto Cragnolino [B.Arch. & B.Arch.Eng. ’97], and Tim Whitehill [B.Arch. ’02].On August 8, the “Hillside Residence” will be the setting for one of this year’s “Discover Design Over Dinner,” presented by the Austin Foundation for Architecture. The “Elizabeth House” won a 2012 AIA Austin Design Award and, in January, was open to the public as part of the Austin Modern Home Tour. The recently published book, 21st Century Architecture: Designer Houses, includes a feature on the “Windsor East Residence” (the only building included from Texas). The firm’s design for the “Three Court House” was featured in an article in Austin Home Magazine‘s spring 2012 issue.
Alter presented a lecture on current work in Boston, in concert with the opening of an exhibition of five recent houses titled “Looking for Trouble.”
Senior Lecturer and Architectural Conservation Laboratory Director Fran Gale and independent conservator Casey Gallagher [MSHP ’09] will assist with an evaluative study of the effects of the 2011 Bastrop fire on Bastrop State Park’s historic structures, which were built in the early 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The study is funded by a $25,000 grant to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department from the National Park Service.
In June, Dean Fritz Steiner traveled to Turkey. Steiner and landscape architect Charles Waldheim, of Harvard University, were invited by Osmangazi Municipality, in Bursa Province, and Anadolu University to participate on a panel with local experts on devastating earthquakes that struck several regions in Turkey in 2011.
Student Alex Froehlich (B.Arch) will be attending the upcoming “Structures for Inclusion” conference in Minneapolis, March 23-24, as a representative of designBridge. This conference is hosted by Design Corps, whose mission is to create positive change in communities by providing architecture and planning services.
Adjunct professor Michael Pyatok, Principal at Pyatok Architects, was awarded the AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture for his contribution to improving the quality of design for affordable housing and community planning. Pyatok also wrote a chapter in the recently published book Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space. The chapter describes his competition-winning design for the Oakland City Hall Plaza and Park in 1985 and how it was able to serve the recent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. And in November, Pyatok spent a week in Taipei as an invited charrette leader helping their affordable housing advocates and the City government of Taipei to develop plans for the restoration and expansion of a 3300-unit public housing project.
Associate Professor Hajo Neis, Ph.D., Director of the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory (PUARL), finished a book with Professor Christopher Alexander as the main author and HansJoachim Neis and Maggie Moore as contributors and co-authors. The book is entitled: The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth, and is published by Oxford University Press, November 2012. While the main title implies a larger perspective on our current state of life on earth, the subtitle of the book A Struggle between two World-Systems suggests that there is dispute and opposition between two fundamentally different ways of shaping and forming our world. One system places emphasis on life, feeling, the process of adaptation, and subtleties, as well as fit and finesse in the local context. The other system is concerned with efficiency, money, power and control, stressing the more gross aspects of size, speed and profit.
Dewey Thorbeck, Adjunct professor of architecture and director of the Center for Rural Design: Thorbeck’s book Rural Design: A New Design Discipline was named by Routledge as one of its 15 best selling architecture books in 2012. The book formed the basis for a Rural Design Exhibit displayed in the College of Design at the U of MN that will be transformed into a pop-up traveling exhibit. Thorbeck has also been invited to speak about rural design at the University of Manitoba School of Architecture; Manitoba Planning Conference in Winnipeg; Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio; and the American Planning Association national conference in Chicago.
Associate Professor John Comazzi (architecture) published a book on the life and career of Balthazar Korab, one of the most prolific and celebrated architecture photographers working in the second half of the twentieth century. The book, Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), gives a detailed account of Korab’s circuitous path from his roots in Budapest Hungary, to his migration through war-torn Europe and his eventual move to the United States (1955) to work as designer and photographer in the office of Eero Saarinen and Associates (1955-58). The images in the book feature numerous portfolios of mid-century modern architecture and previously unpublished images of industrial and vernacular architecture from around the world. The book was partially funded by a Graham Foundation Grant and was recently listed by the Guardian UK in their list of “Best Architecture Books of 2012”
Architecture Faculty Awarded Imagine Fund Grants: Numerous members of the Architecture Faculty at the University of Minnesota secured Imagine Fund Grants of $5000 for research and project development. Below is a list of awardees and their grant titles:
Assistant Professor Blaine Brownell (Architecture) – Architectural Frontiers in China Associate Professor Arthur Chen (Architecture) – Typological Study of Swahili Public Squares Professor Renee Cheng (Architecture, Head) – Architecture in Modern China: Lost Art or Strong Tradition? Assistant Professor Greg Donofrio (Architecture) – Market Forces: The History Behind the Infrastructure of What We Eat Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla (Architecture) – Stonecutting Indigenous Artistry: the Sixteenth-Century Ribbed Vaults of la Mixteca, Mexico Professor Lance LaVine (Architecture) – Analysis of Architectural Design Constructs 1927-Present Assistant Professor Ozayr Saloojee (Architecture) – Constructing Muslim Space and Image in Cape Town (1794-1868) Associate Professor Marc Swackhamer (Architecture) – Var Vac Wall System: an Installation in the School of Architecture
The School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota will celebrate the centennial of its founding. As we look past over our 100 years of education, we will also look forward to the next century of achievement and development. Weekend events will include architecture tours, lectures, exhibitions, and time to catch up with friends during celebration activities both on and off campus.
The College of Design at the University of Minnesota will host Public Interest Design Week – March 19-24, 2013 – set to take place on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus. The University’s College of Design, in conjunction with Design Corps and PublicInterestDesign.org, announced last month what will be one of the largest gatherings public interest design advocates. In addition to keynotes by thought-leaders such as New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, D-Rev: Design Revolution CEO Krista Donaldson, and Liz Ogbu of California College of the Arts’ Center for Art & Public Life, among others, the inaugural Public Interest Design Week will feature a variety of events, symposia, and workshops.
The School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota launched a new MS in Research Practices Degree Program. Starting this spring, the School of Architecture will offer a new concentration in research practices within their master of science in architecture degree (MS-RP) for students starting the fall of 2013. The program aims at halving the amount of time from high school to licensure for architects–from an average of 14.5 years to 7. By offering this model, the School of Architecture nudges the profession toward true culture change, one that expects all students to be licensed upon graduation, regardless of their final career choices. It also takes advantage of recent changes to the National Council of Architectural Registration Board’s Intern Development Program and Architect Registration Examination, and leverages the historically strong connection between practice and academy in the Minneapolis/St Paul community. The new MS-RP was recently featured in articles that appeared in both Architect Magazine and Design Intelligence (written by Department Head, Renee Cheng).
The Architecture program at the University of Minnesota hosted another round of its yearly Catalyst program during the Spring Term 2013. The Catalysts program is an innovative feature of the School’s graduate M.Arch curriculum during which professional degree students in architecture step out of the day-to-day curriculum to work with small teams of faculty that encourage high-risk work. Each workshop is led by a host UMN faculty member in conjunction with an invited guest instructor from outside the University. The visiting faculty help provide novel insights and techniques for students, and they are typically recognized leaders within their field or specialty. Each guest also delivers a public lecture during the week. This year’s Catalysts are organized under the broad theme of “”1913/2013/2113.”” The theme is inspired by the School’s upcoming Centennial in 2013, and guests included: 1. Daniel S. Friedman, Ph.D., FAIA, Dean of the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington 2. Nathan Miller, Director of Computational Design at CASE 3. Kiel Moe, Assistant Professor, Harvard GSD 4. Billie Faircloth, AIA, Research Director at KieranTimberlake 5. Karen Lewis, The Ohio State University 6. Barry Kudrowitz, Assistant Professor of product design, University of Minnesota
This spring the College of Design at the University of Minnesota expanded its program in Istanbul, Turkey to a full-semester course. Architecture and landscape architecture students, led by Associate Professor OzayrSaloojee (Architecture) and Lecturer Brad Agee (Landscape Architecture), spent their first 5 weeks in Rome, Italy, after which they will travel to Istanbul, where they’ll spend the next 11 weeks exploring the architectural and landscape fabrics of the vibrant, historical city. In development since 2006, the program’s evolution into a full-semester was made possible with gifts from Mark and Nedret Butler (both B.Arch ’72), Peggy and Dave Lucas, Paul and Mary Reyelts, Ertugrul and Karen Owen Tuzcu, Vickie Abrahamson, and Dan Avchen (B.Arch ’72).
Professor MARY COMERIO received the United Nation’s Green Star Award, from the U.N.’s Environment Programme, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Green Cross International. Comerio’s primary focus for last 25 years has been the seismic safety of housing and post-disaster recovery. Her research on the costs and benefits of seismic rehabilitation for existing buildings has been widely published; she is an internationally recognized authority on post-disaster reconstruction. Most recently, Comerio provided invaluable advice on UNEP’s post-disaster engagement in Sichuan Province China, evaluating new sustainable building prototypes, and in Haiti, advising UN early-recovery teams on challenges related to damaged structures.
Assistant Professor Maria Paz Gutierrez has been named to the 2011-2012 Fulbright Regional Network for Applied Research (NEXUS) Scholar Program as part of a 20-member team working to promote best practices in fighting poverty and inequality in the Western Hemisphere. She will work in her native Chile on a sustainable and affordable housing prototypethat also could be deployed in an emergency, particularly a flood. Working with her on the project in Chile will be UC Berkeley graduate research assistants Kylie Han and John Faichney. (For more, see http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/04/25/architect-fulbright-nexus-scholar/)
Gutierrez also received the university’s 2011Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award (Junior Faculty). And was named Bentley’s Educator of the Year. (See the latter here: http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Community/Academic/Networking+and+Development/BE+Awards/2011+Winners.htm)
CRANZ, along with ASSOCIATE Professor RAVEEVARN CHOKSOMBATCHAI and ASSISTANT PROFESSOR RONALD RAEL contributed to a show of novel outdoor seating at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center which opened in June. Called SEAT, the yearlong exhibition curated by artist and landscape designer Topher Delaney, of Seam Studio, includes work by more than 40 designers, artists, and architects. Each team was given a site on the former Fort’s 13-acre waterfront campus, which now serves as an arts and culture venue.
The College of Environmental Design Library’s Head LibrarianElizabeth Byrne received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award at commencement in May. After joining the Environmental Design Library as its Head in 1984, Byrne established the library as one of finest architecture, landscape, and planning libraries in North America. She also recently co-edited the book Design on the Edge, which traces the history of architectural education at Berkeley.
ASSOCIATE Professor DANA BUNTROCK and Professor SUSAN UBBELOHDE brought a team of graduate students and energy specialists (including a number of alumni now working in Ubbelohde’s firm, Loisos + Ubbelohde) to Tokyo for a four-day energy conservation workshop in June, funded in part by the university’s Center for Japanese Studies. Participants in the workshop included Kengo Kuma, Kazuyo Sejima, Jun Aoki and designers from organizations such as Nikken Sekkei, Takenaka Construction and Kajima; leading academics from the University of Tokyo, Keio, Tokyo Fine Arts University and Tokyo Metropolitan University were also involved.
BUNTROCK was also awarded a one-semester Faculty Residential Research award for Spring, 2012, by the university’s Institute of East Asian Studies, for research titled “Shaped by Disaster: Architectural and Engineering Practices after 3/11.” BUNTROCK’S book, Materials and Meaning in Japanese Architecture was a finalist for the EDRA “Great Places” award and she also recently wrote two book reviews, on Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s photographs of Katsura, for the on-line L.A. Review of Books (http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/7336308794/the-eyes-think) and the May issue of Visual Resources.
GREG CASTILLO was awarded an Associate Professor Fellowship from the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities for 2011-2012. The program enables faculty members to devote a Spring semester to research while participating in a weekly roundtable composed of senior and junior faculty members and Graduate Dissertation Fellows. Greg’s research project, “Toward an Emotional History of German Reconstruction,” will examine postwar German architecture through methods pioneered by contemporary historians of emotions.
ASSOCIATE Professor Mark Anderson received an Honor Award from the AIA-SF for his “Lips Tower.” (http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/15288#more-15288)* In July, Anderson brought two student teams to Singapore for the Vertical Cities Competition (http://www.verticalcitiesasia.com/). Dean Jennifer Wolch is participating in a related symposium.
ASSISTANT Professor Nicholas de monchaux was a featured speaker at the 2011 “Urban Systems Symposium” in New York City in mid-May and as part of the “Ultra Exposure Forum,” at Little Tokyo Design Week in mid-July with Sylvia Lavin, Elizabeth Diller, Rene Daalder, Machiko Kusahara and Hiroki Azuma.
De Monchaux also spoke about his new book in a number of very cool settings:
ASSISTANTProfessor Ronald RaeL’s firm, Rael San Fratello, is one of ten finalists in a Van Alen Institute competition considering the environmental, cultural and economic impact of high-speed rail. The finalists were exhibited at the National Building Museum, and participants will engage in panel discussions throughout the country this summer.
Rael also published his project “Border Wall as Architecture” in the refereed journal Environment and Planning D, vol. 29, issue 3 and his review of the book The Masons of Djenné by Trevor H. J. Marchand. (Bloomington: Indiana University
Designs for Living in Upper Volta (1985), written with Trinh Minh-ha. Rael also presented the paper Border Wall as Architecture at the International conference “Fences, Walls and Borders: State of Insecurity?,” at the University of Quebec at Montreal and held in association with the Association for Borderlands Studies in May.His firm Rael San Fratello Architects published their 2010 sukkah, now titled “Homeless House” in the new journal SOILED’s debut edition. (http://cartogram.org/soiled.html)
Emeritus Professor Marc Treib a grant form the Graham Foundation for a research project entitled, “National Modernism: The Landscapes of Christopher Tunnard and Sutemi Horiguchi.” (http://grahamfoundation.org/grantees/3973-national-modernism-the-landscapes-of-christopher-tunnard-and-sutemi-horiguchi)
Professor Nezar Alsayyad spoke at New Castle University in March.
And he was also in the news a great deal, for his insights on the built environment in Cairo:
And IwamotoScott’s “Jellyfish House” is now part of the Architecture & Design Permanent Collection at San Francisco MOMA, exhibited until November in the show “The More Things Change.” Images of the recently reproduced 3D-printed model, its installation at SFMOMA, and the original project drawings are now viewable in a photoset on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isar/sets/72157626799271833/
Working with 14 students as part of a year-long research studio for graduating M.Arch candidates, Associate ProfessorRenee Chow developed and tested a new paradigm in integrative urban design, sponsored by grants from the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute and our own department. The project site was located along the edge of a historic district in Tianjin, China; the final projects and design processes were presented in Tianjin in June and have been selected for exhibition at the 2011 Chengdu Biennale in October.
In late May, Professor HARRISON FRAKER gave the Annual David Goldberg Lecture in Architecture to the Arts Council of Princeton.
Professor CRIS BENTON’s aerial photography was paired with the work of landscape photographer Chris Foster in an exhibition at the Pictopia Gallery in Berkeley in June.**
PROGRAM NEWS
1) A conference titled “The Death and Life of ‘Social Factors,’” took place at the University of California Berkeley April 29 to May 1. The conference questioned the status, the boundaries, and the future of social and behavioral research in environmental design. It was organized by Berkeley doctoral students Lusi Morhayim, Georgia Lindsay, and Jonathan Bean, and brought together 200 participants from 35 countries.
PROFESSORSGalen Cranz, Margaret Crawford, & Michael Southworth led keynote panel discussions. Paper sessions covered topics such as special needs populations, design for health, sustainability, perception, place identity, theoretical explorations within the field, and the practice of socially conscious architecture. The digital proceedings are now available at http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/events/conf/deathandlife.
The Journal of Urban Design will also publish a special issue devoted to papers first presented at the conference, and a Facebook group, “The Death and Life of Social Factors,” will act as a discussion board for continuing conversations and information about the field; membership is open to all.
2) An exhibit entitled “Gardens for Peace” opened in the College of Environmental Design’s Library, in June and runs through late September. The exhibition commemorates a 1985 competition for a National Peace Garden, to be built in the nation’s capital, and was curated by Gar-Yin Lee (MLA ‘11).
3) The Environmental Design Archives was honored with a certificate of appreciation by California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. The certificate read:
UC Berkeley Environmental Design Archives
Honoring consistent dedication and commitment to perpetuate the maintenance and growth of the history of California’s built environment, and for promoting scholarly research, teaching support, preservation, and public service, thereby benefitting all the people of the City and County of San Francisco and the State of California.
In addition, Curator Waverly Lowellpresented work on Greenwood Common to the Society of California Archivists Annual Meeting. Lowell was also invited to participate in a multi-campus Research Group focusing on California Architecture and Design that has received funding from the UC Humanities Research Institute.
Visual Resources collection Librarian Jason Millerwill be serving as the Production Editor for the eVRA Bulletin of the Visual Resources Association.
Associate Professor Elizabeth Mueller has been elected to serve a three-year term on the governing board of the Urban Affairs Association (UAA). Dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life, the UAA is the international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers, and public service professionals.
Dean Fritz Steiner was on a panel of professors from both sides of the Pacific talking about the amazing cultural exchange happening between American and Chinese universities and the rising stature of landscape architecture in China.
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