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University of Tennessee-Knoxville

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 Memphis

Living Light, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s solar-powered house, stood on the National Mall as an exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which concluded earlier this month.

The ten-day event coincided with the 150th anniversaries of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Morrill Act, which created land-grant universities. The house was one of only seventeen projects selected to represent the nation’s land-grant universities at the Smithsonian festival. 

An estimated one million people saw the home and nearly 16,000 toured it during the festival. Since its completion in September 2011, more than 50,000 people have toured the house. 

The zero-energy home demonstrated the merits of solar-powered living when a large storm struck the nation’s capital on June 29, leaving thousands of residents without power and forcing the festival to close for a day. Living Light maintained full-power during this time, producing twice the energy the house needed for all its normal day-to-day functions, such as powering its air conditioning, television, kitchen appliances, and lighting. Throughout its entire stay at the festival, the house was completely removed from the electrical grid and self-sustaining in all of its energy production.

Living Light began with students and faculty in the UT College of Architecture and Design and was led by faculty members Stach, Richard Kelso, James Rose, and Barbara Klinkhammer of the college, along with Deb Shmerler in the School of Art, Leon Tolbert in electrical engineering, and Stan Johnson and Bill Miller in mechanical engineering.

More than 200 UT students and faculty across nine academic disciplines designed the house for the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, an international competition among collegiate teams. UT placed eighth overall in the decathlon and claimed high-standing marks in several categories, including first in energy production, third in engineering, third in hot-water production, third in energy-efficient appliances, and fifth in architecture.

After the decathlon, Living Light began the Tennessee Tour. The tour is a joint effort of UT’s colleges of Architecture and Design and Engineering, and UT Extension, the outreach office of the UT Institute of Agriculture.

For more information about the house and its next stop on the Tennessee Tour—Chattanooga—visit livinglight.utk.edu/.

Southern Illinois University

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The School of Architecture at Southern Illinois University has been awarded a 100,500.00 sub-grant to support its upcoming partnership with community resource center The Delta Center in Cairo, IL. 

This sub-grant, coordinated by Assistant Professors Shannon McDonald, Laura Morthland, and Chad Schwartz, along with core project founder Professor Emeritus Robert Swenson, is part of a larger 727,500.00 grant awarded to the Delta Center by the United States Department of Labor to initiate a YouthBuild program in Cairo and surrounding Alexander County. 

YouthBuild is a community-based alternative education program that provides classroom instruction geared towards obtaining high school diplomas or GEDs along with occupational skills training in the construction industry for at-risk individuals ages 16-24. 

Amongst other responsibilities, the School of Architecture will provide the YouthBuild program with permitted construction documents for small single family residences generated by SIU architecture and interior design students while studying in a pair of building technology courses being tailored to this partnership. 

A third course, offered in the summer, will give these students an opportunity to spend four weeks in Cairo working side-by-side with the YouthBuild students during the construction process.  In addition, the faculty involved will be providing services to the program that include mentorship for women in the profession and LEED accreditation expertise.

Illinois Institute of Technology

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IIT College of Architecture celebrated Mies van der Rohe’s 127th birthday, his influence on Chicago, and the investiture of Wiel Arets on March 13, 2013. Seventy-five years ago, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe arrived in the United States to lead the College of Architecture and profoundly influence the world’s taste and built environment. Now the college begins another era of influence as it celebrates the investiture of Wiel Arets as the Rowe Family College of Architecture Dean Endowed Chair.

IIT College of Architecture Professor Harry Francis Mallgrave was inducted as an Honorary Fellow into the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on February 6, 2013, at a black tie dinner and awards ceremony in London. The ceremony honored Mallgrave and eleven other new fellows, chosen from around the world for their lifetime contributions to the field of architecture.

British architect Niall McLaughlin cited Mallgrave’s translation and critical introduction of Gottfried Semper’s Style as having popularized one of the most significant works of architectural theory of the nineteenth century.

“Professor Mallgrave’s thinking on architectural history as well as contemporary theory is pointing us away from looking at buildings as objects and toward an experience of architecture,” said McLaughlin. See his full introduction and Mallgrave’s acceptance speech here.

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor was also given the RIBA Gold Medal at the prestigious affair.

Mary Pat Mattson, Studio Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at IIT, was selected as a 2013 Research Fellow with the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) in Washington DC. LAF Fellows oversee case-study research on high-performing constructed landscape architecture projects. Professor Mattson selected Rachel Guinn, IIT Master of Landscape Architecture student (2013) as her research assistant, and will collaborate with three Chicago landscape architecture firms.

Landscape Architecture Studio “Urban Water” won 1st place in the National EPA Campus Rainworks Competition. The competition was aimed at generating innovative campus design interventions to address urban stormwater. The studio, taught by Professor Mary Pat Mattson, was comprised of landscape architecture and architecture students, and collaborated with students from civil and environmental engineering, guided by Dr. Paul Anderson, to develop the submission. The team used the competition to test design and engineering ideas for managing storm water as a key sustainability goal for the campus. First prize winners will receive a $2,500 cash award and $11,000 for faculty research on green infrastructure.  Learn more: www.epa.gov/campusrainworks/winners.

Undergraduate architecture student Jingyu Lee has been awarded a $10,000 Thornton Tomasetti Foundation National Scholarship. The scholarship review committee commended Lee “for his exceptional academic success and demonstrated interest in the integration of engineering and architecture” as pursued through his rigorous work as a dual major in architecture and civil and environmental engineering.

The Thornton Tomasetti Foundation funds fellowships, scholarships and internships for undergraduate students planning to pursue graduate studies in building engineering, design, or technology. For more information, visit: http://www.thorntontomasettifoundation.org/

Lawrence Technological University

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Adjunct Instructor Peter Lichomski had a number of watercolor paintings accepted into juried exhibitions recently, including the 2011 Michigan Fine Art Competition (sponsored by the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center), the Birmingham Community House “Our Town” art show, the Northville Art House “Outside In,” exhibit, and 1st Annual Donna A. Vogelheim Memorial “Healing Power of Art” exhibition.

Adjunct Instructors Christopher Schanck and Aaron Blendowski were featured in the show, “Cranbrook Design: Into the Network,” at Studio Couture in Detroit, September 24 -October 24, 2011. Cranbrook Design was conceived as a laboratory for design exploration and experiment for current students and recent alumni of Cranbrook’s Design and Architecture programs to contextualize their work as a product of the ‘the network society.’

Assistant Professor Steven Coy’s work as the “Hygienic Dress League” was featured in a photo exhibition at the Hamtramck, Michigan Public Pool gallery in October. Coy and his wife Dorota created the League – a faux company that exists as a real corporation – as a commentary on corporate advertising and branding.

Associate Professor Dale Allen Gyure presented a paper entitled “The crowning feature of our system”: Nineteenth-Century High Schools and American Middle Class Aspirations and Anxieties,” at the History of Education Society Annual Conference in Chicago. He also presented a public lecture, “Nature, Light, and Beauty: Minoru Yamasaki’s Design for the North Shore Congregation Israel” in Yamasaki’s sanctuary at North Shore in Glencoe, Illinois.

Illinois Institute of Technology

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Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) announced the appointment of Wiel Arets as the new dean of the IIT College of Architecture. Born in the Netherlands, Arets, an internationally acclaimed architect, educator, industrial designer, theorist, and urbanist, is known for his academic progressive research and hybrid design solutions. He is currently the professor of building planning and design at the Berlin University of the Arts. His architecture and design practice, Wiel Arets Architects, has multiple studios throughout Europe and its work has been nominated for the European Union’s celebrated ‘Mies van der Rohe Award’ on numerous occasions.

Arets, who was dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam from 1995-2002, will join IIT this fall and will lead an academic program originally shaped by the vision and work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Considered by many to be one of the founders of modern architecture and design, Mies chaired the IIT architecture program from 1938-1958 and designed the IIT Main Campus, home to many of his iconic structures including S.R. Crown Hall.

Arets currently has projects under construction throughout Europe and Japan, including the Allianz Headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland, Amsterdam Centraal Station’s IJhal, the Schwäbischer Verlag in Ravensburg, Germany and the A’ House in Tokyo. His many distinguished projects include the library on the Uithof campus of Utrecht University, the Academy of Art & Architecture in Maastricht, the Euroborg Stadium in Groningen, and the Hedge House in Wijlre, the Netherlands.

“The College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology has a global reputation and attracted outstanding candidates for dean from leading programs worldwide. It is indicative of the position of the IIT College of Architecture that we have found such an accomplished architect to lead the school in a new direction,” said IIT Provost Alan Cramb.

Arets has been a guest professor at many of the world’s preeminent architectural universities, including the AA London, Columbia University and Cooper Union—and served on the Advisory Council of Princeton University from 2003-2012. He graduated from the Technical University of Eindhoven in 1983, where he obtained his Master of Science in Architecture.

Professor Robert J. Krawczyk presented the paper “Exploring the Visualization of Music” at the  Bridges 2012 Conference, Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science at Towson University in Baltimore July 25-29, 2012. His digital image titled “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star CII” was also selected for the preconference exhibition at the College of Fine Arts Gallery at Towson University. Image at: http://gallery.bridgesmathart.org/exhibitions/2012-bridges-conference/krawczyk

A series of Professor Krawczyk’s lasercut fabrications of Indonesian music are also being presented at the exhibition titled “The Arts Converge: Contemporary Art and Asian Musical Traditions” at the Jack Olsen Art Gallery, Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois from September 4 through October 12, 2012. Images can be found at: http://bitartworks.com/notes01/gallery02.html

Lawrence Technological University

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Students from the Master of Urban Design (m.U.D.) program at the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University have won the Outstanding Student Project Award from the Michigan Association of Planning (MAP/APA Michigan) for the “Mid-Century Modern Design Guidelines” they developed for the City of Southfield, Michigan.

The award was presented on Oct. 17 at the MAP annual conference in Traverse City. Winning the award were one LTU graduate student and two graduates of the m.U.D. program, Carolina Ferrero and Michael Mason. LTU graduate student Matthew Galbraith, CoAD student representative to MAP, acted as the nominator.  In order to complete the design guidelines, the LTU students extended the internship they took for a course, Principals and Practices of Urban Design, taught by m.U.D. coordinator and Assistant Professor Constance Bodurow. Working as interns in the planning department under Planning Director Terry Croad, the students documented three districts/neighborhoods and dozens of buildings built in the Mid-Century Modern style from the 1950s to the early 1970s that are important to the architectural heritage of Southfield, which grew rapidly after World War II as a first-ring suburb of Detroit.

One of the most significant buildings in Southfield is the former Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office designed by Minoru Yamasaki, a Troy-based architect best known for the World Trade Center in New York.

The design guidelines provide the Southfield Planning Department with an essential tool to keep significant structures and districts intact. The guidelines not only define the style and identify significant structures, but also provide recommendations for enhancements through the use of case studies.

The student authors gathered input from local historians, architects, and academics in order to comprehensively identify, document, and inventory the city’s significant resources. The recommendations made by the students were considered and applied, resulting in the adoption of Low Impact Design Guidelines for the City of Southfield.

“The Mid-Century Modern Design Guidelines is a valuable asset for the Planning Department in our understanding and review of redevelopment of existing Mid-Century Modern buildings and sites,” said Terry Croad, Southfield’s director of planning who worked with the student interns.

The MAP award recognizes the high-quality design guidelines and detailed direction exhibited throughout the manual.

Southern Illinois University

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Professor Jon Davey PhD, AIA, and  Assistant Professor Shannon Sanders McDonald AIA completed an eight day design charrette providing design assistance and consultation to families who lost their homes or were partially destroyed during the recent tornado that struck Harrisburg Illinois.  With the approval of the Mayor Eric Gregg faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students and March Alumni set up an atelier (studio) in the Harrisburg Public Library.  A total of two faculty, nine students and one alumnus provided design assistance to over 23 families completing 20 new home designs and 3 structural consultations.  The Design Atelier (studio) was structured as a typical office with each student taking on one or more projects, interviewing the families and designing their new homes.   

Shannon Sanders McDonald, an assistant architecture professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale has authored a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Science and Technology edited by Robert A Meyers titled: Personal Rapid Transit and its Development.  It is a peer-reviewed coverage of sustainability science and technology from nearly 1,000 of the world’s leading scientists and engineers, who write on more than 600 separate topics in 42 sections. ESST establishes a foundation for the many sustainability and policy evaluations being performed in institutions worldwide. 

Assistant Professor Norm Lach AIA, Professor Jon Davey PhD, AIA, Assistant Professor Shannon Sanders McDonald AIA and two students participated in the AIA Leadership Institute this summer in Chicago, Il.  This bi-annual leadership workshop assists individuals with formalizing and developing broad visions for our profession and communities. 

Assistant Professor Norm Lach AIA, FALA Director of the Architectural Studies Program completed a one year term as Chairman of the Illinois Architectural Licensing Board and is also serving on the Illinois AIA Board of Directors.

Miami University

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The Department of Architecture and Interior Design is pleased to announce Mary Ben Bonham and John Humphries have been promoted with tenure to the rank of Associate Professor.

Associate Professors Mary Ben Bonham and Scott Johnston won the 2013 Interior Design Educators Council Media Award. “Lighting Across the [Design] Curriculum, “ a multi-disciplinary, multi-university approach to lighting education initiated by a group of educators and funded by the $50,000 Twentieth Anniversary Grant awarded by the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education. The Nuckolls Fund awarded a total of more than $695, 000 to institutions and individuals to support and encourage lighting education in the US and Canada. Bonham and Johnston collaborated with the following colleagues nationally: Katherine S. Ankerson (project lead) and Neal Hubbell of Kansas State University; Betsy Gabb, Lindsey Ellsworth-Bahe, Timothy Hemsath, Clarence Waters and Nate Krug, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Nancy Kwallek, University of Texas at Austin.  “Lighting Across the [Design] Curriculum” supports lighting as critical to all aspects of design, and especially promotes early engagement of lighting issues in student design education. The program is comprised of seven interactive modules (applicable to architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture as well as to architectural engineering), content, examples, definitions, and educator resources are provided, supplemented with animations, audio, and other interactive features. ACSA colleagues are invited to start using the site, accessible at http://tedore.net/Nuckolls/about/

Department Chair John Weigand was invited to join the AIA Ohio Board of Directors as representative of the four accredited Ohio schools. In this role, Weigand will be asked to keep the board apprised of activities within the schools and to help to better connect the profession with education. Professor Weigand’s article ““Rethinking Professional Identity in Interior Design.” is published in Meanings of Designed Spaces, edited by Tiiu Vaikla-Poldma. New York: Fairchild Books, 2013. 

John Blake, DesignBuild Studio Coordinator for the Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine, was quoted in the January 2013 issue of AIArchitect. The feature article, “Urban Reinvestment and Development Efforts” refers to several of the department design build initiatives in the Over-the-Rhine community. The DesignBuild studio has a semester long residency program and recently received accolades in the national competition for the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award.

 
The Department of Architecture and Interior Design was recognized with a “Presidential Citation in Recognition of Exceptional Service to the Profession and Society” at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Ohio awards conference in Cleveland. The department received the award for the Ghana Design-Build Studio created by Associate Professor Emerita Gail Della Piana, and currently facilitated by J. E. Elliott.

Alumni Chuck Armstrong, Director of Design for Corgan, and Mike Hemme, BA ‘04, of the Corgan Mission Critical studio hosted a weeklong design workshop in Dallas, TX for the second year graduate studio.  As part of the Traveling Studio experience facilitated by Graduate Director Craig Hinrichs, the studio designed a series of buildings for retail, residential and office use on a 2-acre site in the West End Historic District of Dallas.

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

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Professors George Dodds, Ph.D., and David Matthews have been named associate deans of the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  

In his role as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Research, Dodds will administer curricular development, research activities, study abroad programs, student professional and academic organizations, and admissions and enrollment activities of the college.

Dodds, a UT faculty member for nearly twelve years, has served in numerous leadership roles and been recipient to several awards. In addition to this position, Dodds was recently named Chair of the Graduate Architecture Program and received one of UT’s most prestigious awards, the Chancellor’s Honor for Excellence in Advising. In late April, UT also appointed Dodds the Alvin and Sally Beaman Professorship, a distinguished service award which honors only the very best teacher-scholars of the university.

Matthews came to UT in 2010 when appointed Chair of the Interior Design Program. He has nearly twenty years of teaching experience in interior design and architecture. Prior to coming to the College of Architecture and Design, Matthews, in addition to his faculty position, was the Director of Academic Technologies at Ohio University.

As the Associate Dean of Communications and Facilities, Matthews will oversee technology issues related to faculty research, teaching and creative activities, facility operations, renovations and equipment, and communication initiatives and efforts. 

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