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Auburn University

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APLA Alum, Daniel Heath (’08), has been awarded the Charles Rieger and John D. Graham Architectural Art Prize, an awarded fellowship organized at the bequest of the late Charles Rieger, Professor of Architecture at Columbia University.

Mark Matel, a 2011 graduate of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s Masters of Design-Build program (now the Master of Integrated Design and Construction) has been awarded a the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship. Matel is among five chosen for the class of 2012–2014 Rose Fellows. He will be working in the Roxbury neighborhood, a community in Boston, MA, to redevelop Bartlett Yards, a former transit yard, into a sustainable residential and commercial node. 

Matel is the third School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture alumnus to win a Rose Fellowship since the program began in 2000. He joins Steve Hoffman, class of 2000-2003 and Daniel Splaingard, class of 2009-2012.  Matel will begin his fellowship in January 2012.    

Auburn University

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Auburn’s Urban Studio, directed by Professor Cheryl Morgan, played a key role in a Regional and Urban Design Assistance Team (R/UDAT) project to assist Birmingham, Alabama’s Pratt City community with a recovery plan following April’s devastating tornado.  The R/UDAT project was sponsored by the American Institute of Architects’ Center for Communities by Design and was held at the request of Birmingham Mayor William Bell in October of last year.

Morgan served as a key member of the R/UDAT Local Steering Committee, hosted the national R/UDAT team of pro bono design professionals and experts from around the country for charette studio sessions, and engaged students from Auburn and Tuskegee University in the process. The final report and public presentation to the Pratt City community on October 10 was met with great enthusiasm.

In early August 2011, Morgan gathered a team of AU faculty, professional planners, and designers in Cordova, Alabama to study rebuilding opportunities that were hardest hit by the April 27th tornados.  The team included a group from FEMA along with experienced planners, architects, landscape architects and economists who volunteered their time for the workshop.   The charette was open to the public and many citizens participated.

The summary review of the initial work was presented to 65 citizen attendees on August 28, 2011 and focused on evaluating alternatives to capture Cordova’s assets and opportunities.  Commenting on the community meetings, Morgan observed that, “The input of the citizens of Cordova was the foundation of the work, and the work accomplished during the August workshop establishes the road map for first steps in rebuilding.”  As a result of the combined volunteer and community planning effort led by Morgan other organizations (such as Alabama Forever, founded by longtime Alabama residents in response to the April 27th, 2011 tornadoes) are becoming interested in assisting the Cordova community.  The Urban Studio and other key team members will be planning regular meetings with Cordova’s long term recovery committee and with the community to be sure that they are included in the progress of the work and in the final proposals.

The Urban Studio’s efforts in Cordova are being complemented by other faculty within the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture.  During Fall Semester 2011, Landscape Architecture Professor Jocelyn Zanzot organized a collaborative (landscape architecture and community planning) graduate seminar that worked closely with Professor Cheryl Morgan and the Cordova Long Term Recovery team.  The seminar students focused on post-disaster planning and design for resilience including strategic/resourceful first moves with the idea that the work will seed long-term processes of regeneration. A combined research document was produced with the intention to support future School work in Cordova.  The Master’s of Integrated Design (MID&C) and Construction program at Auburn, under the leadership of Professor’s Josh Emig and Paul Holley, will build on the previous efforts of Morgan and Zanzot by focusing on the design of key civic buildings. Cordova lost almost its entire civic infrastructure due to damage from the tornadoes of April 2011.

The Urban Studio also hosted the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) South Regional Session on February 15 thru 17.  MICD is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and U.S. Conference of Mayors.  The Regional Session in Birmingham was attended by 6 to 8 mayors from around the country and helped teach the value of good city design in context of confronting challenges faced by cities. In the years since MIC&D’s inception in 1986, nearly 900 mayors, governors and members of Congress have been involved in the initiative.

MID&C students have been invited back to Chattanooga by the Urban Design Forum to develop a vision for a Chattanooga Industrial Heritage Center. The proposed center will celebrate Chattanooga’s industrial history, as well as its continued industrial development which balances traditional manufacturing with high-tech startups and a strong ethic of sustainability and community. MID&C students will explore two sites along the proposed north and south extensions to Chattanooga’s River Walk. Industrial Heritage Center projects will combine newly constructed elements with re-use of existing structures.

The $20K House began in 2005 as an ongoing Rural Studio research project to address the need for affordable housing in Hale County, provide an alternative to the mobile home, and accommodate potential homeowners who are unable to qualify for commercial credit.  The $20K House project gets its name from the highest realistic mortgage a person receiving median Social Security checks can maintain.  The objective of the Rural Studio students is to design and build a model home that could be reproduced on a large scale by a contractor and built for $20,000.  Currently, Rural Studio has designed ten versions of the $20K House with costs of approximately $12,000 for materials and $8,000 for contracted labor and profit.

In June 2011, Rural Studio hired Marion McElroy, a 2002 Rural Studio alumna, as the $20K House Product Manager.  Marion is taking steps to move the projects out of the research area and formulating an initial plan to move from $20K Project to $20K Product.

In the early 19th century, the Federal Road was constructed to connect Washington City (DC) to New Orleans through the soon to become State of Alabama. Established first as a postal horse path, the road usurped Creek Indian trails to traverse woodlands, navigate rivers and backwater swamps, and reach remote settlements and trading crossroads. Soon expanded as a military route to defend the United States in the War of 1812, it divided the already compromised Creek Nation and precipitated battle over the land. The road, a conduit for both travel and information, opened the Old Southwest to settlers; it promised wealth and delivered violence. As a place unto itself, it was a site of contested relations and encounters between strangers. Land use transformations that followed the road disturbed multiple ecosystems initiating protracted processes of reconfiguration. The State Legislature has identified the Old Federal Road as a route of significant historic potential that could assist rural economic development.

Beginning in the spring semester of 2011 and continuing through 2012, students and faculty in Auburn University’s Master of Landscape Architecture program have embarked on a 21st century re-exploration of the road in search of viable alternatives to the normative landscape-based tourism that so often conceals Alabama’s rich eco-cultural complexity and post-modern eclectic vernacular. Under the direction of Assistant Professor Jocelyn Zanzot in partnership with artist Dan Neil, the students will work with communities along the Old Federal Road to uncover potentials for place-making that interpret and activate the contemporary landscape of this historic route. A first series of investigations and events have been conducted at Uchee, Burn Corn and Mt Vernon, historic crossroads of significance to the Creek Nation. Results from this first work are forthcoming in Southern Spaces journal, and an on-campus exhibition of Creative Scholarship.

Daniel Bennett, Dean Emeritus of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, was presented the Alabama Architectural Foundations Distinguished Architect Award Feb. 9 at the Alabama Council of The American Institute of Architects Awards Gala at The Country Club of Birmingham.

Auburn University

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Long-time faculty member, Bob Faust, and his wife, Sherry, have established the Bob and Sherry Faust Endowed Scholarship for incoming freshmen in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. Bob served on the APLA faculty for forty-two years and is credited with developing Auburn’s highly regarded design-build ethos. He and Sherry wanted to do something meaningful for future architecture students and planned for creating this scholarship upon his retirement.

Lectures and presentations by faculty and alumni from the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture are included in the New Regionalism in North America, a book published by the College of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of San Francisco de Quito. The book compiles the proceedings from the Twelfth International Forum of Architecture at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito, Ecuador in November 2011. The Forum was dedicated to the subject of Regionalism: a recurring theme in the architectural landscape of North America and beyond. The event was coordinated by Karen Rogers, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and External Affairs in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, and brought together eight North American architects. David Hinson, Head of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture, and Auburn alumni Marlon Blackwell and Daniel Wicke were among the participants.

Students from Auburn University’s Masters of Real Estate Development program are working with business owners in the Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama to explore development potential. The students are looking at two sites in the neighborhood for possible development and investment, and are tasked with documenting the sites’ existing conditions, the area’s market data and the current financial market along with understanding and capitalizing on the sites’ unique history, culture and development process to propose a potential project. The masters program at Auburn consists of 14 graduate students from across the U.S. in their third semester of the Real Estate Development program. Directing this semester’s work is Ben Farrow with Auburn University Building Science Department and Ben Wieseman with KPS Group in Birmingham, AL.

The third issue of StudioAPLA, the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s electronic newsletter, was published last month. The International Issue:  Winter 2013 describes how APLA has provided international learning opportunities for students over 30 years, believing that exposure to new cultures enhances design education and ignites a desire to live and work abroad. The newsletter highlights alumni experiences in other countries and illustrates how APLA is becoming a more connected place as the student and faculty population becomes more diverse in the form of international students and visiting international scholars. To view the newsletter, please visit:  http://studioapla.auburn.edu/

Alabama Innovation Engine, a design-based community and economic development initiative jointly funded by Auburn University’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction, and the University of Alabama, recently received a 2012 Cahaba Vision Award from the Cahaba River Society. Engine, with The Nature Conservancy in Alabama, the Cahaba River Society, and the National Parks Service Recreation, Trails, and Conservation Assistance program, is a member of the Cahaba Blueway Partners. The team was recognized for their work developing the Cahaba Blueway, a project designed to tell the story of Alabama’s Cahaba River while encouraging economic development. Engine is working with the Cahaba River Society and the Nature Conservancy to build community partnerships and to improve access points along the Cahaba to help people discover the river, trails, history and communities of the watershed.

The Rural Studio, an undergraduate program in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture recently launched a new website. Please visit www.ruralstudio.org to learn more about the program, faculty, students, and projects and to explore participating in the Rural Studio’s Outreach Program.

Auburn University

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Professor Charlene Lebleu has been awarded the Auburn University President’s Outstanding Collaborative Units Award for her work with the Center for Forest Sustainability along with CFS partners James Shepard, Kelly Alley, Mark Dougherty, and John Feminella.

Professor Behzad Nakhjavan has been awarded an Auburn University Creative Research and Scholarship Award.  This award, one of two awards in this area made campus-wide each year, recognizes faculty who have distinguished themselves through research, scholarly works, and/or creative contributions to their fields.

Professor David Hill, of Hill Studio, and partnering with Brian Bell and David Yocum of BLDGS in Atlanta, was awarded a commission for the renovation and expansion of the Ferst Center of Performing Arts on the Georgia Tech Campus in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Auburn University

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Auburn architecture student Damian Bolden was selected as the 2012 Gensler Diversity Scholarship Second Prize winner. Damian will receive an academic scholarship as well as an internship with Gensler.

Associate Professor Charlene LeBleu’s summer 2011 studio studied the history of the emancipated slave settlement know today as Africatown, Alabama.  The US State Department has designated the area as a new park to “preserve and interpret to the public the historic and cultural properties at and near Africatown….in Mobile County.”  Professor LeBleu’s students developed designs emphasizing natural systems analysis as a basis for site planning large-scale community facilities and parks. A Dudley Galley Exhibit of the Africa Town State Park student projects is now on display in Prichard, Alabama.

Assistant Professor Jocelyn Zanzot is the lead landscape architect on a diverse international design team, Aditazz that is one of two winners who won the international “Small Hospital Big Ideas” competition sponsored by Kaiser Permanente.  Describing the Aditazz team’s approach, Zanzot stated, “We designed a small eco-conscious hospital as a vital center of health and healing within its community.  The design advances the future small hospital’s adaptive, collaborative and regenerative capacities through boundary-crossing innovation.”

Dean Vini Nathan has appointed Magdalena Garmaz, Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, as the Interim Program Chair for the college-wide Bachelors of Environmental Design major. Her two-year term appointment is effective on August 16, 2012.

“Prof. Garmaz’s selection is the outcome of a methodical and multi-step process that yielded a strong pool of candidates from the CADC, “says Dean Nathan. “In addition to her extensive depth and breadth of knowledge, Prof. Garmaz brings to this role a well-articulated vision of the possibilities embodied in this program. Her sophisticated understanding of the design domain including its pedagogies and praxis, position her to be an effective leader and champion of this program.”

For several years, Auburn architecture faculty members Behzad Nakhjavan and Magdalena Garmaz have cultivated a thesis studio that explores the possibilities of the urban revitalization of downtown Montgomery. With each passing year, the projects have become more and more relevant to the conversation about how to improve Montgomery’s urban landscape. By working with the City of Montgomery Department of Development and local architects, Nakhjavan and Garmaz have immersed their students in tangible issues, shaping their students’ hypothetical explorations into increasingly applicable design solutions.

Auburn University Architecture Thesis student work was recently featured in an exhibition during the first annual ‘Montgomery Street Fair’ held in Montgomery, Alabama on April 21st 2012.  The event had around 2000 in attendance, and was produced by Helicity Montgomery, a local non-profit that seeks to be a catalyst for the continued cultural and social development of the City of Montgomery and surrounding areas through arts and community engagement.  Several projects have been selected to be showcased further at Department of Development in a reception in Early June.

The Alabama Innovation Engine participated recently in the Design Ethos Conference, where Project director Matt Leavell and co-founder, Charlie Cannon presented an overview of Engine and some of their current projects. Leavell and Cannon also facilitated a group of local residents and designers working on a strategy for the redevelopment of a culturally significant school building in the Waters Avenue neighborhood of Savannah, GA. Instead of producing a specific solution, the group produced a series of recommendations for community engagement to highlight the importance of giving residents a voice.

Two Auburn University architecture students, Chloe Schultz and Henry Loose, together with Univ. of Arkansas teammate Chase Humphrey were recognized as finalists in the international competition Art Urbain International Competition. Sponsored by the French government, the competition focused on “Quality of Social Life, Architectural Quality and Respect for the Environment in cities of the future.”

The students developed the competition entry, entitled, “Porta Portese: Reinterpreting a Roman ‘Gateway District’” as part of their studio course for the spring semester. Along with 18 classmates from Auburn, Schultz and loose were in Rome for the spring semester as part of Auburn’s Rome program (led by Prof. Scott Finn), developed in collaboration with the University of Arkansas’ Rome Center (UARC). The students’ competition entry focused on the lively neighborhoods which comprise the districts of Trastavere and Testaccio, the former city gate of Porta Portese, and the pockets of neglected urban fabric found within.  Students from around the world submitted projects designed in the context of their own urban situations and experience.

 

 

Auburn University

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On February 23, 2013, the Town of Newbern celebrated the opening of the Newbern Town Hall, the second civic building planned for Newbern since Rural Studio began. Rural Studio student design team of Brett Bowers, David Frazier, Mallory Garrett, and Zane Morgan worked with the Town of Newbern, Mayor Woody Stokes, the Town Council, and the Newbern Volunteer Fire Department to design a civic campus. The Newbern Town Hall joins the Fire Station, designed and built by Rural Studio in 2005.

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture would like to congratulate the winners of the Alabama Council AIA 2013 State Design Awards for their contributions to architecture in Alabama. The design jury chose six winners, which included firms led by APLA alumni and faculty. The work was recognized as some of the “best and brightest in architecture” (www.aiaalabama.org). Alumni projects recognized in the design awards included: Spring House Restaurant by Dungan Nequette (Honor Award); AUM Wellness Center by Infinity Architecture (Merit Award); Silverock Thunderhouse by Dungan Nequette (Merit Award); Morgan Loft by Anderson Nikolich Design Initiative (Merit Award); Burkhalter Residence Krumdieck A+I Design (Honorable Mention). Auburn faculty work recognized included Rane Memorial Mausoleum by Behzad Nakhjavan Studio. Nakhjavan is professor and chair of the architecture program at APLA.

Asma Shaikh, a graduate student of the Master of Community Planning (MCP) program, has been selected for the Alabama Chapter of the American Planning Association (ALAPA) Individual Student Award by for the “Village Mall Parking Utilization Study.” Asma conducted the study as part of the Transportation and Mobility class led by Prof. Sweta Byahut during fall semester 2013. Bachelor of Architecture (BArch)/Master of Community Planning (MCP) dual degree students Nick Vansyoc and Joshua Vickers won the ALAPA Award for Distinguished Student Leadership. Nick and Josh are working together on a “joint” thesis project located in down town Montgomery, Alabama; led by Prof. Magdalena Garmaz (ARCH) and advisor Prof. John Pittari (MCP).

Students from Auburn University’s Masters of Real Estate Development program (MRED) are working with business owners in the Avondale area of Birmingham, Alabama to explore development possibilities. Led by Prof. Ben Farrow (McWhorter School of Building Science) and adjunct instructor Ben Wieseman (with the KPS Group in Birmingham), the students are looking at two sites in the neighborhood for potential investment. The students will focus on design and construction issues for their sites as well as the financial needs of their proposed development, while attempting to capitalize on the sites’ unique cultural and developmental history. (from “Auburn Takes Avondale”, Neighborhood News, Rev Birmingham)

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) recently hosted a group of four students and two faculty from Hannam University (HNU) in Daejeon, Korea. The delegation, on a tour of the US came to Birmingham, Alabama to tour the Urban Studio, local sites of interest, and the professional design offices of Williams Blackstock, Davis Architects, Krumdieck A+I, and GA Studio.

Auburn University

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Auburn University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) would like to congratulate Dr. Rebecca Retzlaff and Dr. Carla Keyvanian for their promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure, and to Chair of the Graduate Program for Landscape Architecture, Dr. Rod Barnett, for his promotion to Professor.  

Auburn University

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David Hinson, Head of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) was one of three faculty from Auburn University selected as SEC Academic Leadership Development Program (ALDP) fellows. The SEC Academic Leadership Development Program (ALDP) is a professional development program that seeks to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond. It has two components: a university-level development program designed by each institution for its own participants and two, three-day, SEC-wide workshops held on specified campuses for all program participants.

The School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture (APLA) is one of three U.S. Universities to receive a 2012 NCARB Award from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB for “Studio: Urban Healthcare,” a proposal developed by proposal, developed by Professor Christian Dagg and Professor Kevin Moore. “Studio:  Urban Healthcare” was designed to support APLA faculty collaborations with practicing architects and other design professionals with specialized expertise in healthcare architecture while providing critique and direction to fourth year architecture students as they design a small urban hospital.

Cheryl Morgan, Professor of Architecture and Director of the Urban Studio, has been recognized as one of this year’s SMART Women at the inaugural SMART Party, hosted by The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, on October 11, 2012 in Birmingham, Alabama. The award from the Women’s Fund recognizes Morgan, a well-known champion for underserved constituencies, and the efforts of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s Urban Studio in Birmingham, Alabama for their work with small town communities across the State.

The U.S. Green Building Council named  three alumni from the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture to the 2012 class of LEED Fellows: Carlie Bullock-Jones ’99 (Interior Design), Holley Henderson ‘93 (Interior Design), and Paula Vaughan ‘82 (Architecture) are among those named to the green building industry’s most prestigious professional designation.

The College of Architecture, Design and Construction honored its students, alumni, staff and friends on October 25, 2012. Several APLA students and faculty were honored. Outstanding Undergraduate award recipients were Allyson Klinner (Architecture), Nicholas Purcell (Interior Architecture), Marjorie Woodbury (Landscape Architecture), and Franchesca Taylor (Community Planning). APLA supporter Patrick Davis received an award for Distinguished Service, and Professor David Hill received the Outstanding Teaching Award. Three former faculty of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA), Robert Faust, D.K. Ruth and Samuel Mockbee, were named Emeritus Professors at the CADC ceremony, and recognized for their long term and significant contributions to the architecture program, and to the School.

Auburn University

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Students in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) took first place in this year’s student design competition. Held in conjunction with NOMA’s annual conference in Atlanta, GA, October 20-22, 2011, the student design competition challenged teams to balance the historic character of Atlanta’s Washington Park/Vine City communities while developing a new MARTA Transit Village that preserved and enhanced the existing corridor. Competing against 15 teams from across the country, the Auburn team’s design of The Vine City Village won the first place prize of $1,500.  Auburn University’s student team was Damian Bolden, Phillip Ewing, Sarahgrace Godwin, Kyle Johnson, Weng Lon Lao, Tanner Backman, Jordan Cox, Andrew Dolder, Yesufu O’ladipo, and  Laura Taylor.

Auburn University

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The 2013-2014 academic year marks the 20th Anniversary of the founding of Auburn University Rural Studio.  Founded in 1993 by Sambo Mockbee and D.K. Ruth, the Studio’s rich existence in rural West Alabama is rooted in building relationships and earning trust from neighbors and friends in the community while immersing architecture students in the culture. Living, learning and working in West Alabama has afforded School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture students the opportunity to apply their skills as designers, while also learning about the nature, history, culture, economy, architecture and community in this unique educational landscape. Rural Studio would like to celebrate and honor the place and its people, which have allowed them to thrive while maintaining rigor and passion.

Auburn’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture (APLA) has been gaining some recognition from some of its youngest alumnae/former students. First, Courtney Brett, and then, Rosannah Sandoval, became the AIA’s youngest licensed architects, in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Ms. Brett, who transferred to Auburn University’s School of Architecture when she was 16, was a Rural Studio participant who graduated in 2007, at age 20. Ms. Brett recently started her own firm, Casburn Brett Architecture, based out of Daphne, Alabama. Ms. Sandoval has a similar story, in that she finished school at the age of 18. At Auburn, she participated in Rural Studio. When her family relocated to California, Ms. Sandoval transferred to California College of the Arts, where she completed her degree. In 2013, Ms. Sandoval became the, now, youngest active Architect member of the AIA, at 23. She works as a designer in Perkins + Will’s San Francisco office

Associate Professor Doug Burleson has retired from the architecture program faculty this May, 2013. Prof. Burleson joined the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture’s (APLA) faculty in 1986, and the span of his teaching roles has covered a broad spectrum of studio year-levels and lecture topics. In addition to teaching in the professional curriculum, Prof. Burleson has taught the Architecture Appreciation course to non-architecture majors for the past six years.

The Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) is pleased to announce a new sponsored student competition. Marvin Windows by Dale Inc, a premier manufacturer of made-to-order wood and clad wood windows, will make an annual in support of awards for the APLA Portfolio Design Competition for fourth year architecture students. The sponsorship comes as a philanthropic gift from the company to the school through the Auburn University Foundation, and will be focused on helping students in the architecture program prepare for their professional careers. As the centerpiece of this support, the architecture program’s annual student portfolio competition has  become the Marvin Windows by Dale Inc Portfolio Competition. Marvin Windows by Dale Inc will also provide technical support for classroom instruction regarding windows and other building enclosure systems. The winners of this year’s competition are:  1st place, Justin Collier; Merit Award, Whitney Johnson, Merit Award, Taiwei Wang.

The Alabama Forestry Association has been sponsoring “wood comp,” second year architecture student design competition, for more than forty years. Participating in this competition has become a milestone experience for generations of Auburn Architecture graduates. During spring semester 2013 the 2nd year students design a branch library for a site  located in Bibb City, Georgia. To prepare for the project, the students traveled throughout the region to view examples of contemporary library designs as well as to gain insight into the changing role of this public institution in today’s electronic age. Winners of the 2013 competition are:  First Place, Kyle Kiersey; Second Place, Timothy Fuerst; Third Place, George Criminale.  Honorable Mentions were awarded to the following:  Lia Bernhardt, Kaylee Bruce, Krystal Duchene, Valyn Daconto.

Several students and faculty from the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture have been honored with annual awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects. The Campus Rain Works Collaborative Team received an ASLA Student Award of Merit for their collaborative design entitled Auburn University Daylighting of Parkerson Mill Creek. The team consisted of landscape architecture students–Maria Hines, Dale Speetjens, Pratisha Shakya, Chen Fan and Xue Hao; architecture students–Brad Green & Cynthia Baker; Jaron Benett, Building Science and Amanda Meder, Horticulture.  Faculty/ staff mentors for the project were:  Darren Olsen, Building Science; Amy Wright, Horticulture; Paul Zorr, Architecture; Charlene LeBleu, Landscape Architecture and Stephen Everett, Auburn University Campus Planning.

Xue Hao, a 2013 graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture Program, received an ASLA Student Award of Honor for Community Design & Service. Elements of the winning project, Rugged Sidewalk and Famous People Wall Elements, will be utilized for redevelopment of the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Civil Rights Trail. The Award of Honor is the highest design award given in landscape architecture. Xue Hao’s work is part of the 2012 Spring LAND 6330 Studio IV taught by Charlene LeBleu, Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture. 

HILLworks:  landscape + architecture, the design practice of assistant professor David Hill was recognized by the ASLA with two awards.  The Phrenology Project was awarded a 2013 Merit Award in Research for its investigation into the dynamic spatial qualities of plants through the seasons.  The Transformation Garden, designed for a private residence in Auburn, Alabama, was awarded a 2013 Award of Merit in Design. 

Charlene Lebleu, Associate Professor in the Master of Landscape Architecture program, presented the paper and a poster at the International Federation of Landscape Architecture (IFLA) World Congress in Auckland, New Zealand, April 11.  The peer-reviewed paper entitled “Designing Africa in Alabama, USA” describes the historic significance of AfricaTown in Mobile County, AL, an area where the descendants of the last recorded group of captive Africans brought to the United States continue to live and make their home.  The paper highlights studio proposals to commemorate the history in the form of a State Park. The poster, “Plaza Independencia—Plaza Formation & Expression: Montevideo, Uruguay,” was co-authored with Marjorie Woodbury, a 2012 graduate of the MLA program. LeBleu and Woodbury traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay in fall 2011 to study urban plazas and continue to collaborate on projects.

Professor Rod Barnett, Program Chair for the Landscape Architecture program, has authored, Emergence in Landscape Architecture (Routledge, 2013).  Emergence in Landscape Architecture attempts to describe how landscape architects can frame their practices in response to the increasingly dramatic disturbances of the 21st century and  charts the development of new realms of interaction in our cities, in forgotten industrial landscapes and across the farms, streams and woodlands of the countryside.

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