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University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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 DEYONG NAMED ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT UNL

Sarah Deyong, associate professor at Texas A&M University, has accepted the appointment of Architecture Program director with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Architecture. Deyong will assume her position with the college July 1st.

 “This is an exciting time for the Architecture Program and the College of Architecture. I am confident that Sarah will be a tremendous asset to the program with her thoughtful leadership and her extensive undergraduate and graduate teaching experience and demonstrated ability to integrate architectural theory and pedagogy seamlessly with contemporary practice,” commented College of Architecture Dean Katherine Ankerson. “Sarah is an accomplished researcher and has been published widely in the academic world. I have no doubt she will be a pivotal mentor for junior faculty and students alike, providing new, academic publishing connections and an inspiring influence for scholarly and creative pursuits.”  

“I am thrilled to join the College of Architecture at UNL. It is an honor and a privilege to serve as the Director of the Architecture Program,” said Deyong. “The program has long been recognized for its strong design ethos, inclusivity and close ties to professional practice. Within the larger university setting of an internationally recognized, research institution, it is poised to becoming a major voice among leading schools of architecture worldwide. Together with fellow faculty, students, staff and alumni, I look forward to building upon the program’s inherent strengths in architectural making and thinking, while advancing the college’s mission: its resilient belief in the transformative power of planning and design, and its commitment to interdisciplinary and community engagement.”

As associate professor at Texas A&M University, Deyong taught in the areas of history, theory and criticism (HTC) and design studio. She believes that areas of specialization, such as HTC, must effectively enhance the vital center of the curriculum: studio and integrated design.

“Today, we find ourselves in a dynamic situation, with new technologies and digital tools, for example. The utility of history and theory is that it brings the longer, canonical perspective of how we define ourselves into play. We learn from both failures and successes. Since architecture is inherently collaborative, we best prepare our students for the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary practice when we define ourselves as a discipline with design at its core.”

 For Dr. Deyong, the output of a studio may be a proposition for a building, but in academia, it should aspire to be an argument or intellectual provocation. “We are, after all, in the business of teaching students not only the necessary skills and toolsets, but also, how to think critically, communicate ideas and create new knowledge.” 

Deyong is known internationally for her research focused on the post-WWII period to the present, underscoring the symbiotic relationship between HTC and design practice. With grants from the Graham Foundation and the Glasscock Center of the Humanities at Texas A&M, she has published her research in leading venues, including the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH), Praxis, the Journal of Visual Culture, and the Journal of Architecture. In 2015, her JAE essay, “Re-Thinking the Legacy of the Sixties: Pliny Fisk’s Political Ecology,” garnered the ACSA/JAE Best Scholarship of Design Award. Additionally, Deyong serves on the editorial boards of two national flagship journals: the JAE and JSAH.

Her work can also be found in numerous book chapters and her co-authored book “The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection”. 

Deyong received her Ph.D. at Princeton University and her MA and B.Arch at the University of Toronto.

In addition to the Architecture Program, the college is comprised of other design and planning programs including interior design, landscape architecture and community and regional planning with a tradition of excellence in education, research and service to the community. Its fall 2017 enrollment was 521 students. 

Library Summer Project: Collections Review

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Lucy Campbell and Barbara Opar, column editors

Column by Amy Trendler, Architecture Librarian, Ball State University Libraries, aetrendler@bsu.edu

It’s the end of another academic year and the library shelves are likely looking pretty crowded. Libraries that support disciplines like architecture, where physical books and design magazines continue to be essential, often face a shortage of shelf space. As a result, summer is a popular time for librarians to engage in collection review, identify books to remove or transfer, and alleviate the overcrowding on the shelves. Typically, titles with low circulation rates and older publication dates are closely scrutinized to determine if the book is outdated or no longer relevant to the library collection. Second copies and earlier editions are also prime candidates for review, which may lead to the removal of one item and the retention of a duplicate or similar item. However, there is such a dire space crunch in some libraries that reviewing and removing a portion of the books in any or all of these categories does not significantly impact the size of the collection. When that’s the case, librarians have to identify additional criteria for review.

 

This was the situation in our library after we completed collection reviews for second copies, earlier editions, little-used or outdated titles and then discovered that we were still left with overcrowded shelves. After asking librarian colleagues for advice, reading articles like Janine Henri’s August 2017 article in this column (“Struggling with Space: Collection Browsing, Architectural Illustrations, and Remote Storage Decisions,” on the UCLA Arts Library’s review process) with great interest, and considering our options, I began reviewing the library’s collection based on additional criteria that fit our particular situation. My takeaway from the process is that planning for such a collection review should start with considering all the variables that define the library or the project at hand. These include the library mission, the curriculum, the time available for the collection review, timing of any planned changes to the space, staff availability, consortia agreements, offsite storage, the possibility of transferring titles to other libraries on campus, access to reports and collections data, and any upcoming changes to administration, faculty, or curriculum that could affect the focus of the collections. By looking closely at these variables, it is possible to plan a collections review that goes beyond basic collections data about checkouts and date of publication.

 

Considering the variables begins to help define their impact on the collection and the implications for the collection review. To take just one example, the library mission statement—whether it is formal or informal—usually describes the library’s user groups and the subjects covered by the collection. The impact might be that any subjects not explicitly included in the mission should be closely reviewed and removed from the collection to be transferred to offsite storage, a main library or other branch library in the system, or withdrawn from the collection altogether. In the case of an architecture library that collects materials in architecture and landscape architecture, books about any topic outside of those two areas, such as art, history, or geography, are candidates for thorough review and possible removal from the architecture library’s collection. Collections data—number of checkouts, date of last checkout, and date of publication—are still factored in, but the range for each of these categories should be set so that they are more expansive than they would be for books in the primary subject areas. For instance, if 0-3 checkouts is the range used to identify books to review for architecture and landscape architecture, then 0-10 or higher should be the range for books on secondary subjects. The same is true when considering consortial agreements. If another library in the consortia is designated as the repository for art or history or geography, then titles in these areas should be more closely reviewed even if offsite storage or transfer are not options.*

 

In addition to identifying criteria for items to scrutinize and potentially remove, planning for the collection review can also cover which items to keep on the library’s shelves. Depending on the variables, it may be important to prioritize the on-site retention of professional publications, well-illustrated titles (as described in Henri’s article), books intended primarily for an undergraduate or graduate audience, English-language publications, or books closely related to the curriculum or faculty interests. As in many architecture libraries, collections review will continue to be ongoing for us, but by continuing to be thoughtful about the variables I am confident that our reviews will achieve the intended result—a focused, useful, and up-to-date collection that comfortably fits in the space available for it.

 

*There is software available to help with collection review and comparison between collections. In addition to library systems’ report capabilities, a product such as OCLC’s GreenGlass is designed to assess library collections individually or in consortia.

University of New Mexico

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UNM Master of Architecture graduate (2018) Farrokh Rostami Kia, was selected to have an image from one of his studio projects appear on the cover of the AIAS magazine CRIT.  The project was developed in an ARCH 602 studio taught by Associate Chair / Principal Lecturer Karen King. 

University of New Mexico

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We are pleased to announce that we have hired Dr. Aaron Cayer as our new Assistant Professor of Architectural Historian, joining Eleni Bastea, Professor of Architecture.  We look forward to his arrival in the fall semester. 

We recent converted back to be a department, after almost 50 years as a program.  When architectural education began at UNM in 1936, it was a department with a chair.  Now in 2018, we have returned to that status.  Nothing really changes, but it helps us avoid confusion at the university level.

Department Chair, John Quale, manages the Jeff Harnar Award for Contemporary Architecture – www.jeffharnaraward.com.  This year, the winner is SHoP Architects of NYC for their recently completed project SITE Santa Fe.  The local architect of record is Allegretti Architects in Santa Fe.  This year, we also added an upbuilt category, limited to designers living in New Mexico.  One of our graduate students, Darby Prendergast, won the Unbuilt Architecture category, and Surroundings Studio, a local landscape architecture firm, won in the Unbuilt Landscape Architecture category. 

Assistant Professor of Architecture Ane Gonzalez Lara, collaborating with Associate Professor Katya Crawford and Assistant Professor Kathy Kambic (both in UNM’s Landscape Architecture department, won 1st Place in the Re-Thinking Competition. 

2018 Master of Architecture graduates have already found jobs at SHoP Architects, Kieran Timberlake, and firms in LA, Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, etc. — as well as firms around New Mexico.

Lastly, we look forward to hearing the results of our recent accreditation visit.  We believe it went well –

Call for Nominations: ACSA Committees & Task Forces

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Deadline: May 23rd, 2018

The ACSA Board of Directors invites nominations and self-nominations from faculty at full and candidate member schools to participate in 2018-2019 ACSA committees, task forces, and other activities. 

Volunteer appointments are initiated by the 2018-19 ACSA president, Branko Kolarevic. Appointments are for one year beginning July 1, 2018, and are eligible for renewal thereafter. Individuals who responded to last year’s call will remain in the pool of candidates, but may also send revised information. 

Committees will work primarily through conference calls during the academic year. A funded meeting is planned for committees in fall 2018, and committees may convene at the 2018 Administrators Conference and 2019 Annual Meeting.

Interested participants are asked to submit a 1 page cover letter identifying areas of interest related to ACSA’s committees and strategic plan, as well as a 2 page (maximum) curriculum vitae. The deadline for nominations and self-nominations is May 23, 2018. Submit materials, preferably in a single PDF file, to Michelle Sturges, msturges@acsa-arch.org.

About Volunteer Opportunities

The ACSA board relies on three Program Committees to involve members and carry out the goals of the strategic plan. Among the products of these committees are white papers, surveys, and recommendations to the board. (See the 2017-18 committee results here, and download the 2017 White Paper on Tenure and Promotion). 

ACSA seeks to identify additional members to participate in the following committees as well as other task forces and peer review bodies for ACSA conferences, competitions, and awards. (Download the ACSA strategic plan here.)

The three Program Committees are charged as follows:

  • The Research & Scholarship Committee is charged with leading ACSA’s efforts to support faculty in scholarly endeavors; monitoring and assessing peer-review and recognition programs; and recommending actions to advocate for architectural scholarship. The committee is responsible for policies guiding scholarly conferences, journals, and awards.
  • The Education Committee is charged with leading ACSA’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of architectural education through best practices and overseeing programs to cultivate and disseminate these best practices. The committee is responsible for policies guiding the ACSA Teachers Seminar, workshops, and webinars. 
  • The Leadership Committee is charged with leading ACSA’s efforts to support the strategic development of architecture programs; identifying and disseminating best-practice models of program leadership and administration; and overseeing ACSA’s efforts to promote awareness of architectural education. The committee is responsible for policies guiding the Administrators Conference, student recruitment efforts, and data collection and analysis.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Michelle Sturges, msturges@acsa-arch.org. 
  
  

Virginia Tech

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The International Archive of Women in Architecture Center (IAWA) at Virginia Tech offers an annual prize to promote research on the contributions that women have made to the built environment and the design related disciplines.

Proposal submittal of 500 words and CV is due May 15, 2018.

Call for Proposals:
http://www.archdesign.vt.edu/centers/images/Milka_Bliznakov_Research_Prize-Call_2018.pdf

And guide to the IAWA Collections: https://spec.lib.vt.edu/IAWA/guide.html

University of Texas at Austin

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Professor Elizabeth Danze, FAIA, has been selected to join The University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers, the System’s highest honor for educators. Tamie Glass, Interior Design program director and associate professor, has been recognized and will receive the 2018 American Society of Interior Designers/ASID Nancy Vincent McClelland Merit Award. The Center for American Architecture and Design recently released CENTER 21: The Secret Life of Buildings. Edited by Michael Benedikt and Kory Bieg, the publication features essays by Graham Harman, Patrik Schumacher, and alumnus Craig Dykers [BArch ’85], among others. The Constant Springs Residence by Alterstudio Architecture, firm of professor Kevin Alter and partners Ernesto Cragnolino [BArch/ BArch Engineering ’97] and Tim Whitehill [BArch ’02], is featured on the cover of Dwell magazine. Professors Simon Atkinson and Larry Speck participated in Think Tank events with METROPOLIS editor-in-chief Susan Szenasy Descendant House by Matt Fajkus Architecture, firm of associate professor Matt Fajkus, was featured on the April AIA Austin Custom Residential Architects Network (CRAN) tour. Dr. Sarah Lopez, assistant professor, participated in Tatiana Bilbao‘s US-Mexico “Two Sides of the Border: Redefining the Region” studio series at Columbia University and Cooper Union, where she also gave a talk based on her book, The Remittance Landscape. The work of associate dean Juan Miró’s firm, Miró Rivera Architects, has received international media attention in the Mexican news magazine EntreMuros. Dr. Sandra Rosenbloom, professor of Community and Regional Planning, was one of three experts funded by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide testimony to the new Massachusetts Commission on the Future of Transportation. Dr. Danilo Udovicki, associate professor, was invited to present a paper in Athens for the annual International Conference of History and Archeology. Dean Michelle Addington served on the 2018 AIA COTE Top Ten Buildings award jury in Washington, DC. Sid W. Richardson Centennial Professor Kevin Alter‘s firm, Alterstudio Architecture, LLP., won a Residential Architect Design Award from Architect Magazine for their South 5th Street Residence. Coleman Coker, Fellow of the Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair in the Art of Architecture, presented a lecture at the Tulane University School of Architecture’s Small Center in February, where he discussed UTSOA’s Gulf Coast DesignLab. Assistant Professor Junfeng Jiao was is featured in an interview by Wired UK on Uber, the London bus system, and Transportation Network Company’s (TNC) impact on transit deserts. Edna Ledesma, Emerging Scholar Fellow in Race and Gender in the US Built Environment, was recently elected as the chair of the Latinos and Planning Division (LAP) of the American Planning Association (APA).  Assistant Professor Katherine Lieberknecht served on a Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) panel with the Planet Texas 2050 team at this year’s American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference. Assistant Professor Gian-Claudia Sciara‘s multi-disciplinary research for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has been recognized by the California Association of Environmental Professionals as its 2018 Outstanding Environmental Resource Document. Associate Professor Allan W. Shearer, Director of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, participated in “Design & Environment: An Intensive, Interdisciplinary, and Output-Oriented Workshop” held at University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

New York Institute of Technology

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Thursday, April 26 at 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Introduction: David Diamond–NYIT School of Architecture and Design

Speakers:
Kenneth Frampton–Columbia University
James H. Rubin–SBU ART, SUNY at Stonybrook
Carlos Jullian de la Fuente–Architect DPLG and Urbanist
Mary McLeod–Columbia Unversity
Hasan-Uddin Khan–Roger William University
Bernard Bauchet–Architect
Ahmet Gülgönen–L’Ecole d’Architecture Paris Belleville
Jon Michael Schwarting–NYIT School of Architecture and Design


Reception will follow.
R.S.V.P. to archevents@nyit.edu
Space is limited.

NYIT Auditorium on Broadway

1871 Broadway, New York, New York 10023

University at Buffalo, School of Architecture & Planning

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‘MICRO DWELLING’ – a project designed by University at Buffalo architecture faculty members Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafialidis has been shortlisted for the 2018 AZ AZURE Award. “Big Space, Little Space” is a live/work space that has been created in a historic residential neighbourhood in Buffalo.   

Architecture faculty member Jin Young Song’s research paper was published  in TAD Journal (Technology|Architecture + Design, Vol. 2 Issue 1, Spring 2018)

https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24751448.2018.1420964 

A second research paper prepared by Professor Jin Young Song was published in the IJHRB (International Journal of High-Rise Buildings, Vol.7, No.1, Mar. 2018)

http://ctbuh-korea.org/ijhrb/05ijhrb01.php?id=214


‘CONNECTED LIVING’ – a project designed by Jin Young Song, has been shortlisted for THE PLAN Award 2018

https://theplan.it/eng/contest/shortlist/103

YOSHIHARU TSUKIMOTO – a founder of ATELIER BOW WOW in Tokyo was the 2018 Clarkson Chair in Architecture at the University at Buffalo during the Spring 2018 semester.

 

Renovation of the King + King Architecture Library at Syracuse University

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Lucy Campbell and Barbara Opar, column editors
Column by Kara Conley, Syracuse University


On March 29th of this year, the King + King Architecture Library at Syracuse University celebrated its grand reopening after a substantial makeover. The renovation represents a shift toward a library design that (1) accommodates the ever-changing information needs of students and faculty members and (2) allows the library to further strengthen its relationship with the School of Architecture through instruction, outreach, and research.


Slocum Hall, home to the King + King Architecture Library.

The King + King Architecture Library is located in Slocum Hall, a five-story Beaux Arts building that is home to Syracuse’s School of Architecture (SOA). Since 2008, the library has been located in a high-traffic area on the third floor of Slocum next to the building’s design studios. It consists of three adjoining rooms that were originally used as classrooms and  faculty offices. Although space is limited, it is a welcoming and light-filled environment. Visitors enter the library in the middle of the three adjoining rooms. Historically, this room has been utilized for circulation, course reserves, current periodicals, and computers for student and faculty use. This has remained the same post-renovation. While the design team did not change the function of the room, they implemented a number of changes to the room’s layout that have enhanced the accessibility and usability of the space.


The circulation desk before the renovation. The Architectural Librarian’s cubicle in the back corner of the room.

The first of these changes revolved around the circulation desk. Prior to the renovation, the circulation desk was one long wooden counter that took up a large swath of the room. At the end of the circulation desk stood a cubicle which served as the work station for Barbara Opar, the University’s Architecture Librarian.  The room’s redesign (largely based on the results of a charrette) condensed the size of the circulation desk and moved it to the opposite side of the room. It is now the very first thing visitors see when they walk through the doors of the library. Students and faculty members can approach the desk to talk to a student support staff member or use a computer with the library’s catalog to search for items. As for Barbara’s desk, it has also been moved to the same side of the room as the circulation desk. She is no longer required to sit in an isolated corner. Instead, her desk is an open cubicle that has a side table with extra chairs for research consultations, reference transactions, and small meetings. These changes, albeit small, are impactful. There is now a logical flow of movement from the entrance of the library to the circulation desk, which improves the information search and retrieval process as a whole.

 The course reserves and core materials collection post-renovation.

A second impactful design choice in this room was the decision to keep the library’s essential architecture texts in their original location, rather than moving them behind the new circulation desk. Now, students, faculty, and staff members are welcome to leisurely browse and access the materials. These items circulate for two-hour loans. This decision to “open” the materials reflects the findings of a recent study of architecture faculty in the United States (Campbell, 2017). The study found that architecture faculty members are “frequently looking for inspiration or current trends” when seeking information (Campbell, 2017). By placing the essential texts and current periodicals in an open and accessible location, the library invites faculty members to fulfill their need for relevant and significant materials.

 
One of the reading rooms prior to renovation.

Before the renovation, the second and third rooms in the King + King Architecture Library contained mostly physical items. One room housed the working drawings collection and the library’s circulating physical materials collection. The other room contained massive wooden tables for studying. Its exterior walls were lined with shelves chock full of books. The space was overcrowded, to say the least.

To open up the space, Barbara worked directly with architecture faculty members to condense the collection and move a number of “non-essential” books to Bird Library, Syracuse University’s art, humanities, and social sciences library. Secondly, the design team decided to move the bulk of the library’s physical materials collection to the Digital Fabrication Lab in the basement of Slocum Hall. The renovation also helped jumpstart a project that had been in the planning stages for years: the digitization of the library’s working drawings collection. The majority of the drawings were shipped to the main library where they are awaiting digitization. That being said, the library did retain a number of drawings that are frequently used by architecture faculty members in their courses.

 


The new seminar room after renovations.

Today, the space is filled with flexible furniture that can be repositioned depending on its use. Shelves of course reserves and select bound periodical runs line the walls of the rooms, but there is significantly more space than before. On one wall, the shelves have been replaced with two large smart TVs that enhance the technological capability of the library. These changes have allowed the library to better serve the diverse information needs of its users. Students, for example, now have more space to study independently or collaboratively. Faculty members can now conduct lessons in the library with differentiated learning activities. Barbara Opar can now expand her instruction and outreach responsibilities with interactive thesis seminars and instructional sessions. These examples represent a few of the many expanded educational opportunities for the SOA community. Over time, I believe that the design changes will help the King + King Architecture library create strategic and long-lasting partnerships with SOA faculty and students, especially in the areas of instruction, research, and outreach.

Ultimately, the renovation has created a dynamic and flexible space that will be utilized by the School of Architecture at Syracuse University for years to come. If you’re ever in Syracuse, please feel free to stop by King + King Architecture Library on the third floor of Slocum Hall to see the transformation with your own eyes.

 


The renovations were made possible thanks to a generous donation from the King family in honor of the 150th anniversary of King + King Architecture. King + King Architecture is a Syracuse-based firm that is the oldest architectural firm in continuous practice in New York State.

 

Sources: Campbell, L. (2017). The information-seeking habits of architecture faculty. College & Research Libraries, 78(6), 761. Retrieved from https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16734/18244

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