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| THANKSGIVING BREAK The ACSA Update will not appear on November 27 and the ACSA national office will be closed November 26- 27. Stay in touch on Twitter and Facebook. | ||||||||
| Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. | |||||||||
Magdalena Garmaz, Environmental Design Program Chair and Ann and Batey Gresham Professor of Architecture, has been named a 2015–2016 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellow. As an SEC ALDP Fellow, she is one of three Auburn faculty members who will represent Auburn University in the 2015-2016 Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program, a program which seeks to identify, prepare, and advance academic leaders for roles within Southeastern Conference institutions and beyond.
Prof. Emeritus Sheri Schumacher received and outstanding teaching award at the College of Architecture, Design, and Construction’s Annual Awards Banquet on Thursday, October 22. Students honored as Outstanding undergraduate students were Trenton Tepool—Architecture, and Katherine Lynch—Interior Architecture. Outstanding graduate-pr students honored were Joshua Cameron—Master of Community Planning, Whitney Johnson—Master of Integrated Design and Construction in Architecture, Elizabeth Matthews—Master of Landscape Architecture, and Walter Kelly—Master of Real Estate Development.
The School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture would like to welcome new faculty Valerie Friedmann, Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate Landscape Architecture; Mary English, Lecturer, Architecture; Élise Cormier, PLA, CPSI, Adjunct Professor, Landscape Architecture.
For ten consecutive years, the Auburn architecture program in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture has been ranked in the top twenty architecture programs nationally. Ranked eighth nationally in 2016, hiring firms have ranked the architecture program second nationally in the skill areas of construction methods and materials; fourth in sustainable design practices and principles; fifth in cross-disciplinary team work, and seventh in communication skills. Architecture deans from across the country rank Auburn’s architecture program fourth “for its highly admired Rural Studio and leadership in community service and design.”
The Rural Studio participated in a special exhibit with SOFA November 3-6 in Chicago, Illinois at Navy Pier called, “Rural Studio: 22 Years of Designing and Building in West Alabama.”
The Rural Studio was recently recognized as one of six architecture schools with “stellar design-build programs” in an article published by Curbed magazine. To read more, click here.
The newest issue of StudioAPLA is now available. To read about student, alumni and faculty work, research and achievements, click here.
Steve Jernigan, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, a 1981 Auburn graduate with degrees in Architecture and Environmental Design, was awarded the Gold Medal by AIA Florida. The highest honor that AIA Florida can award to one its members, the Gold Medal “recognizes a Florida architect whose distinguished career has had a profound impact on the profession for extended period of time.” Jernigan, managing partner and co-founder of Bay Design Associates Architects, PL, in Pensacola, Florida, has been a leader through political advocacy at the local, state, and national level to protect the practice of architecture.
Thomas Doyle, MLA ’01, (Principal of LA+SOUTH, INC.) and MLA Adjunct Instructor Judd Langham, MLA ’07, (Principal Prime Consultant, 2D STUDIO, LLC) recently received a Design Honor Award from the Alabama Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for their project,
Fairview Environmental Park (formerly Genetta Park) in Montgomery, Alabama.
APLA would like to congratulate alumni firm Houser Walker Architecture for winning the AIA Atlanta’s Silver Medal Firm of the Year award. For more, read here.
Renee Cheng, AIA (Associate Dean of Research and Outreach) published an updated study from the AIA Center for Integrated Practice, AIA Minnesota, and University of Minnesota School of Architecture that is the most comprehensive report on project teams using Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). Since 2010, when AIA / AIA-California Council published the first IPD Case Study, the number of projects has continued to increase. Led by Renee Cheng, AIA, the AIA / AIA Minnesota / University of Minnesota team initially published their findings in February 2011 using an interactive matrix. This updated report augments information from both previous IPD case studies with survey analysis of 127 project team members, additional interviews and metrics for five of the 12 case studies, and a map of ongoing IPD projects.
Marc Swackhamer, AIA (Head and Associate Professor) and Blaine Brownell, AIA (Director of M.Arch Program and Assoc. Professor), recently published Hypernatural: Architecture’s New Relationship with Nature (Princeton Architectural Press, March 2015), that addresses the changing relationship between nature and the built environment, and explore new ways of building that result. In the book, they argue that, “The notions that technology embodies inherently antinatural principles or that it is a domain squarely under the control of human operations are both inaccurate and dangerous presumptions, for they limit the full potential of technology as a creative force that can benefit us as well as the planet.” An exhibition of work featured in the book is currently on display in the HGA Gallery at the University of Minnesota.
John Comazzi, Associate Professor, recently lectured at the Dallas Center for Architecture on the life and career of Balthazar Korab. The lecture was coordinated with the photography exhibition currently on display at the DCA through December 03, 2015 entitled: “Inflected Modernism: Architecture Through the Lens of Balthazar Korab.” Comazzi co-curated the exhibition with Christian Korab (Adjunct Assistant Professor, and son of Balthazar Korab).
This fall, the Center for Sustainable Building Research and its partners recognized Minnesota buildings that go above and beyond to meet the state’s Buildings, Benchmarking, and Beyond (B3) Guidelines. Minnesota requires that all state-funded construction and renovation projects meet B3 sustainability goals for water, energy, indoor environment, site, materials, and waste. The team designed the program to be compatible with LEED™ and other national guidelines, with an emphasis on design elements enabling energy efficiency and sustainability in Minnesota’s climate. The guidelines are clear and simple, and include documentation to gauge progress over time. The CSBR is lead by Richard Graves (Director and Associate Professor) and William Weber (Lecturer and Director of the M.S. Sustainable Design)
Mark C. Childs, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, recently published “Learning from New Millennium Science Fiction Cities,” Journal of Urbanism, V8, N1, March 2015, 97-109.
Kristen Shaw and Mira Woodson, Lecturers, are curators and participants for the extensive city-wide exhibition On the Map: Unfolding Albuquerque Art + Design. Following architecture faculty are participants of this exhibition: Tim Castillo, Kramer Woodard, Kima Wakefield, Chris Beccone, Efthimios Maniatis, Cory Greenfield and Jared Winchester. www.ABQontheMap.com
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Faculty News January 2015
The School of Architecture received news of a $1 million grant from the Still Water Foundation, an Austin-based foundation that supports the arts and other causes. The award is to support the renovation of the school’s Battle Hall (Cass Gilbert 1910), the West Mall Office Building, and to build the John S. Chase addition to the School of Architecture.
Associate Professor Emeritus Owen Cappleman passed away in Austin, Texas, on September 25, 2014, at the age of 76.
The T3 Parking Structure, designed by Associate Dean Elizabeth Danze and Senior Lecturer John Blood, Danze Blood Architects, has won the American Architecture Award for 2014 from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, together with The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and Metropolitan Arts Press.
Two UTSOA faculty members have received 2014 University Co-op Research Awards.
Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla was awarded a $5,000 Creative Research Award for “Mixtec Stonecutting Artistry: 16th Century Ribbed Vaults in Mixteca, Mexico,” an exhibit that showcases three cathedral vaults using a 3-D laser point scanner and printer. Senior Lecturer Rachael Rawlins was awarded the $5,000 Best Research Paper Award for “Planning for Fracking on the Barnett Shale: Urban Air Pollution, Improving Health Based Regulation, and the Role of Local Governments,” Virginia Environmental Law Journal. The article undertakes the most comprehensive review and analysis of air quality monitoring, regulation, and health effects assessment on the Barnett Shale.
Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe presented the Guadalupe Garage Green Wall project research at the ACADIA 2014 Conference.
Ned Cramer, Assoc. AIA
Editor-in-chief
ARCHITECT
By email to ncramer@hanleywood.com
Dear Ned,
Aaron Betsky’s October 29 column, The ACSA and NAAB Merger, deserves clarifications. First, ACSA and NAAB are not merging. The talks announced a year ago have evolved to include all of the organizations that fund NAAB’s accreditation activities and nominate 11 of NAAB’s 13 directors. Representatives from all five collaterals (including AIA, NCARB, and AIAS) formed a joint task force to explore multiple options for the funding, organizational structure, and governance of NAAB. This fall and winter, the participating organizations will review the task force recommendations and determine future action.
Second, the “fast-track” option is an independent initiative by NCARB—one that the ACSA board endorses—to assist schools in offering additional options for students to complete some or all licensure requirements in school. Although Dean Betsky implies that NCARB’s initiative and the ACSA/NAAB partnership will lead to a narrowing of the scope of education, the ACSA’s goal is to do the opposite.
Betsky rightly identifies some fundamental issues being discussed by the collateral task force. What is the role and purpose of architectural education? What is the role and purpose of accreditation? While there may not be a merger, the task force and the collateral organizations continue to discuss how the collaterals should invest money and resources to advance architectural education.
The ACSA maintains that an ACSA/NAAB partnership would empower both organizations to carry out their independent missions more effectively, without compromising their integrity and values. NAAB’s mission is to set minimum standards for professional architectural education. The ACSA, through its membership, offers programs and opportunities that promote excellence across the spectrum of architectural education.
An ACSA/NAAB partnership could also address the reality that accreditation is more costly in architecture than in our peer professions, and that architecture schools must continue to invest resources in research and teaching, beyond the professional curriculum. This does not have to impact the diversity of approaches to education that are a hallmark of the ACSA membership. In fact, the ACSA will strive never to allow this to happen.
Marilys R. Nepomechie, FAIA
ACSA President
Eleni Bastéa, professor of architectural history and theory, was the keynote speaker in the 2014 IASTE conference (International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments) in Kuala Lumpur. Her talk, “Silent Histories of the City,” was presented on December 14. http://iaste.berkeley.edu/uncategorized/iaste-2014-conference-program.html
At the ACSA Administrators Conference in Philadelphia today we made an important announcement that ACSA and the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) are exploring a merger that would change the funding and governance model of the two organizations.
This proposed merger is intended to strengthen architectural education, and is the result of over a year of discussions among NAAB, ACSA, AIA, NCARB, and AIAS leadership—the collateral organizations that provide most of NAAB’s funding and nominate a large majority of its board of directors.
While no final agreements have been made—a formal merger requires a number of approvals by the ACSA and NAAB boards, the ACSA membership, as well as the boards of AIA and NCARB—we believe it is appropriate to announce our deliberations and to begin a conversation among the membership.
The working model for the merger would create an umbrella Council for Architectural Education that holds financial responsibility for all ACSA and NAAB activities but delegates most oversight and operational responsibility to the boards of directors for the respective groups. This means that the ACSA board would continue its role working through our membership to shape architectural education. Similarly, the NAAB would have independent responsibility to set and apply accreditation standards and for its current international activities, such as the Education Evaluation Services for Architects process.
Neither the ACSA nor the NAAB board would have authority over the other, and with limited exceptions, the Council for Architectural Education would not have the authority to replace board members for ACSA or NAAB, nor will it have the authority to override accreditation decisions. Instead, the Council will manage the financial and human resources of the organization and coordinate long-term planning activities.
The ACSA Board of Directors believes that a merger will strengthen architectural education and better support architecture schools. We see this opportunity in a broader context of change within the architecture profession and higher education over the past several years. In the context of education we all acknowledge the challenges of constrained budgets and growing needs and expectations for student learning, research, and service. Both organizations alone have a role to play in helping schools to respond to these challenges and opportunities. A merger of ACSA and NAAB is intended to take advantage of complementary organizational strengths by enhancing information and research capacities and strengthening the scholarship of teaching. ACSA will continue its many peer-review activities, and we will continue to expand our efforts to demonstrate the value of architectural education to prospective students and the broader public.
Next Steps
The ACSA and NAAB board have each appointed three board members to serve on a task force with the ACSA and NAAB executive directors, who have been working together since April on this new organizational model.
The ACSA board is committed to having numerous opportunities for member input over the next several months, leading up to the ACSA Annual Business Meeting on Friday, March 20, in Toronto. We will hold a series of discussions about the merger, its impact on member schools, and the decisions that ACSA members will need to make. ACSA regional directors will be in touch through your Faculty Councilors and administrators with details on the new opportunities a potential merger can create.
We thank you for your attention to these matters and invite your feedback as we continue forward.
Sincerely,
Hsinming Fung, President
Marilys R. Nepomechie, Vice President/President-Elect
Norman R. Millar, Past President
Michael J. Monti, Executive Director
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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