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Inspiring the Next Generation of Change Makers: An Interview with UArizona School of Architecture Director Ryan E. Smith

 

University of Arizona School of Architecture Director and Professor of Architecture Ryan E. Smith, who is originally from Mesa, Arizona, is a 2002 graduate of the UArizona Bachelor of Architecture program and University of California, Berkeley Master of Architecture program. He has worked for Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Gould Evans Associates, as well as Tucson firms Swaim Associates and Gresham & Beach Architects. He has held academic positions at the University of Oregon, University of Utah and Washington State University, most recently as director of the School of Design and Construction at WSU.

Smith has been teaching, researching and consulting on housing and offsite construction for nearly 20 years. He is the founding past chair and current board member of the National Institute of Building Sciences Offsite Construction Council, a fellow of the Modular Building Institute and a member of the Ivory Innovations in Housing Affordability Board.

In this interview, Smith shares his initial vision for the School of Architecture, discusses the importance of interdisciplinarity for the school and the future of the profession, shares his passions for research on affordable housing and the importance of research in an architectural education, discusses the value of connecting with firms, provides advice to students and more.

Why did you decide to join the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture as the director of the School of Architecture?

First, the University of Arizona is my alma mater. An opportunity to come back to where I learned the value and skills of design and help the next generation be change makers is something I could not pass up. This is a full circle surreal experience. I am grateful for the School of Architecture community embracing me in this role.

The UArizona School of Architecture has earned a reputation for education and research focused on its place—a strong response to this uniqueness of Tucson, the Sonoran Desert and the Southwest with all its complexity, challenges and beauty. The school meets this challenge with a professional education that is both technically competent and creatively driven. I want to participate in this community and work with the faculty, staff and students to progress that mission.

What is your initial vision for the School of Architecture?

We are in a time of great societal need. I believe that architectural education must address the pressing and mounting challenges of climate change, water scarcity and housing affordability. This can be done through engaged research and outreach work, and most especially through interdisciplinarity. I believe that architecture, in addition to being a creative discipline, to have a positive impact on the future of society and planet, should be environmentally responsive, occupant-centered, community-engaged and research-based. I have an initial vision that adds to the professional reputation of the School of Architecture as not only a place for strong professional education, but also a place for excellence in design research, social equity and environmental resilience. I have a vision of UArizona Architecture working with Landscape Architecture, Planning, Design, Engineering, Arts, Health Sciences and other disciplines to chart a future that is inclusive, decolonized and innovative.

Though you have multiple degrees from multiple institutions, is there anything about your experience as a UArizona Bachelor of Architecture student in particular that will inform your role as school director?

The School of Architecture continues its tradition of progressing the land-grant mission and making positive change in the world. Architecture has maximum impact when it responds to place. When I came to school here, I was immersed in material making, community-based projects, technical courses and a passion and vibrancy for architecture and its role in shaping and being shaped by the environment, politics, society and economy of the region. Even at that time, there was a strong emphasis on the intersection of land ethic and material making. My education was not only one of book learning, but also field doing. I am excited to continue that legacy, especially in the post-pandemic despondency we are all experiencing. I look forward to working with faculty, staff, administration and especially students in rekindling and reengaging what I consider the greatest of architectural projects: sheltering and inspiring people.

Tell us about your research on building technology, prefabrication and housing affordability. What most excites you about this research?

When I was working for a firm after graduate school, I was designing a luxury home in the Bay Area. In a moment of reflection, I realized that I did not want to be designing homes for the 1% for the rest of my life, no matter how creative the experience was. I decided to take my interest and skills in technical design and apply them to the study of housing equity. I have since dedicated the better part of nearly 20 years to the question of housing production and the contingent social, environmental and political forces that surround it. This brought me early on to a theory and practice of offsite manufacturing and construction to realize housing affordability. Leveraging the mature and innovative manufacturing practices in other industries for design and construction holds much promise but requires research and dedicated development to realize this potential.

Do you anticipate your research changing now that you’re back in Tucson and directing the School of Architecture?

Southern Arizona is a very different context compared to other places I have worked. The demographics, politics, labor market, material supply chain, development models and procurement practices demand a unique approach to realizing housing delivery. Much of the development models for housing in the Southwest fundamentally and structurally disadvantage certain groups. Furthermore, I moved to Tucson at a time in which the housing market and inflation are creating an untenable situation for renters and first home buyers. My own children in college, for example, are staring into a future where they may not ever own a home. The economic model of the U.S. economy is based on home ownership to build equity and wealth. That system is broken for the rising generation. This should be a topic of concern for architects, but traditionally is not something to which the discipline has paid much attention. I have great interest in researching, teaching and studying how architecture can serve the 99% through advocacy in policy and finance reform as well as design and construction innovation in housing.

How important is research—and learning how to conduct and report on research on the built environment—for architecture students?

I led a research center for many years at the University of Utah and was associate dean for research for a time there. I think the future of architecture is research-based. The UArizona Architecture program has instituted the final three semesters of the B Arch professional education as research-based, coordinated by groups of faculty who lead students in probing timely questions relevant to social and environment justice in the built environment. I am excited to participate with the faculty in this promising structure of design research.

How important is interacting with design and other built environment firms—such as through internships, mentoring, networking events, panels and reviews—for students and for the School of Architecture in general?

The college and the School of Architecture are already doing great things to connect and partner with architecture and built environment professionals. My predecessor, Professor of Architecture Rob Miller, has developed an incredible rapport with Tucson and Phoenix firms, as well as firms throughout the country. He is also introducing me to many alumni and friends of the school in my first few months. My intention is to continue to build these relationships by having professionals teach in the school, as well as fostering the CAPLA Job Interview Fair and internships for our students while encouraging our faculty and students to attend professional events. We are supporting students and faculty in attending the upcoming AIA Arizona 2022 State Conference in October, for example. I am grateful to Rob for the strong legacy he has continued at UArizona Architecture and I hope to continue that tradition.

Interdisciplinarity is important at CAPLA and beyond as we work to solve the grand challenges of the built environment. How can the school and college foster more interdisciplinary work among faculty and students?

My immediate previous position was directing the School of Design and Construction at Washington State University, which was home to programs in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and construction management. Interdisciplinarity was the modality of the education with an entire shared first year and points of intersection and integration throughout the education between disciplines.

To address the mounting challenges of the 21st century, a systems thinking approach is needed requiring many disciplines, perspectives, communities and expertise. For example, returning to housing, this is a topic that is complex relating to policy, finance and technology. Housing is political and community-engaged and touches on multiple disciplines and expertise. I will be asking the faculty and staff in the school to actively consider how we can address grand challenges, including housing and beyond, amongst the community in the school and college, as well as other disciplines on campus and in the professions.

Do you anticipate teaching in your role as director of the school?

Directing the school demands my full attention at the present. However, I believe that to be an effective leader, I will need and want to get into the classroom and interact with students. I would like to teach housing and technology in the future. This could be in a seminar or lecture format or even in a design studio context. I have also taught professional practice, collaboration and leadership to an interdisciplinary group of designers that was rewarding and stretched my teaching abilities in a positive way. I also enjoy and embrace collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching and will look for those opportunities in the future.

What advice do you have for architecture students?

The discipline of architecture is being redefined every day as the demands of the context—society, environment and economy—change constantly. Therefore, I would advise students to put their preconceptions about architecture aside and keep an open mind when starting their education. There are many different career directions with an architecture education, and our college is also home to undergraduate programs in Sustainable Built Environments and Landscape Architecture, and we participate with College of Engineering in the Architectural Engineering program while partnering with the School of Art and School of Information on a new Bachelor of Arts in Design Arts and Practices. The future of built environment work is at these intersections.

Beyond your leadership, research and related School of Architecture work, what are your passions?

I am attracted to learning about new cultures and places. I have lived in Korea and the United Kingdom and enjoy traveling. I am passionate about housing—so outside of the school, I also advise companies, governments and organizations on housing production and serve on boards related to housing innovation and affordability. I do this work under the auspice of a consulting company named MOD X. I am passionate about trying to solve homelessness. I am a family man with kids and enjoy getting out into the Sonoran Desert with them. I love exercise and making and building projects on the side.

What does the CAPLA experience mean for you?

CAPLA is a community. We are dedicated to social and environmental justice and working to respond to the changing demands of the contemporary world. The education at CAPLA is dynamic, community-engaged, professionally oriented and interdisciplinary.

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UArizona Team Led by Architecture Professor Jonathan Bean and Engineering Professor Wolfgang Fink Wins $200,000 ‘American-Made Challenge’ E-ROBOT Prize

wall-EIFS, a robotically applied, 3D-sprayable exterior insulation and finish system for building envelope retrofits, is one of 10 finalist prize winners of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies Prize, or E-ROBOT Prize. Each finalist team is awarded $200,000. View the team’s winning video entry.

The E-ROBOT Prize’s goal is to catalyze the development of minimally invasive, low-cost and holistic building envelope retrofit solutions that make retrofits easier, faster, safer and more accessible for workers. Jonathan Bean, assistant professor of architecture, and Wolfgang Fink, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, created the wall Exterior Insulation and Finish System, or wall-EIFS, in collaboration with Energy Quest Technologies President Dewey Benson.

“One of the biggest opportunities to address the climate crisis is improving the energy performance of existing buildings,” says Bean. “Technically, it’s tough to add insulation without compromising occupant health or building durability. And too often, energy improvements take away from, rather than enhance, the appearance of a building.”

wall-EIFS is a robot that operates from a stage track or scissor lift. The system evaluates existing conditions of a building and the quality of the insulation application in real-time using sensing technologies, saving more than 50% in time, labor and materials.

“The wall-EIFS system offers durable insulation and aesthetic flexibility, executed with robotic precision in a fully automated manner,” says Fink. “wall-EIFS is intended to expand the market and accelerate retrofits of existing buildings. By creating a new skilled trade of robotic building retrofit operators, the system will facilitate the retrofit of buildings at scale in a safe manner while significantly reducing cost, as well as the energy footprint of the nation.”

“The patent-pending wall-EIFS is an innovative, market-responsive solution—a significant advancement in autonomous robot technology that can really move the energy-efficiency retrofit industry forward,” adds Doug Hockstad, assistant vice president of Tech Launch Arizona, which along with UArizona Research Development Services’s Brian Adair supported the team.

For School of Architecture Director Robert Miller, the E-ROBOT Prize represents “a perfect alignment with school, college and university strategic goals of meeting the grand challenges of the built environment head on. wall-EIFS is an innovative, practical response that builds on our shared excellence in environmental research. ”

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Head Tamal Bose agrees: “Through the synergy of engineering and architecture, UArizona faculty such as Wolfgang Fink and Jonathan Bean are at the cutting edge of creating solutions that meet the grand challenges of a rapidly changing world. wall-EIFS is a prime example, and the team’s award is well-deserved and exemplifies the power of interdisciplinary scholarship at the University of Arizona.”

The E-ROBOT competition is one of a series of “American-Made Challenges” sponsored by the U.S. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). These challenges are designed to “incentivize the nation’s entrepreneurs to reenergize innovation and reassert American leadership in the energy marketplace,” according to DOE representatives. NREL and 16 other national laboratories serve as key technical partners to work directly with teams to validate, build and test products and solutions. The teams also work with fabrication and manufacturing facilities to turn their proposals into working products.

The E-ROBOT Prize is composed of two phases, each designed to fast-track efforts to “identify, develop and validate disruptive solutions to meet building industry needs,” according to the DOE. Each phase includes a contest period where teams rapidly advance their solutions: Phase 1, Individual Solutions, selects up to 10 winners and offers a total of $2 million in cash prizes while Phase 2, Holistic Solutions, selects up to four winners, awarding another $2 million in cash prizes.

Though only Phase 1 winners may enter the Phase 2 competition, there is no requirement to do so. Bean, Fink and Benson have yet to decide whether they will advance wall-EIFS to Phase 2.

Bean, who joined CAPLA in 2017, is a PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant and serves on the board of the Passive House Alliance U.S. He also serves as scholarship chair for the Society of Building Science Educators. His architecture student teams have participated in the last four DOE Solar Decathlon Design Challenges, where they have developed the innovative SunBlock distributed district energy system concept. A faculty advisor for the Master of Science in Architecture Sustainable Market Transformation Concentration, Bean’s research transits the fields of building technology and energy use, consumer research, human-computer interaction, architecture and design with a focus on taste and consumption. He holds a PhD in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley.

Fink joined the College of Engineering in 2009 after serving roles at the California Institute of Technology, University of Southern California and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is the inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair with joint appointments in UArizona’s Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Systems and Industrial Engineering, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Ophthalmology and Vision Science. Fink is the founder and director of the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory at Caltech and UArizona, and the University of Arizona Center for Informatics and Telehealth in Medicine. He also serves as vice president of the Prognostics and Health Management Society. His research comprises autonomous robotic space exploration, human and brain-machine interfaces with particular focus on artificial vision implants for the blind, smart service systems, biomedical engineering for healthcare and computer-optimized design. An AIMBE fellow, PHMS fellow, SPIE fellow, College of Engineering da Vinci fellow, UArizona ACABI fellow and senior member of IEEE, Fink holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Tübingen and has more than 250 publications and 25 US and foreign patents to date.

Benson is the founder and president of Energy Quest Technologies, a technology and manufacturing company that specializes in integrated, multi-energy cooling, heating and power systems. He received his master’s in controls from Arizona State University and worked at Honeywell Aerospace for 28 years. While at Honeywell, he was awarded 19 patents, leaving the company as technology fellow in controls and electronics in 2014 to continue his work at Energy Quest full-time.

View story online at https://capla.arizona.edu/studio/2021-e-robot-prize.

About the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture

At the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, we are solving the grand challenges of the built environment. With the Sonoran Desert as our laboratory—in courses offered on campus and online—students learn to plan, develop, design and build innovative places that endure. CAPLA is comprised of the School of Architecture and School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, which together offer undergraduate degrees in architecture, landscape architecture and sustainable built environments; master’s degrees in architecture, landscape architecture, real estate development and urban planning; and graduate certificates in heritage conservation and real estate development. Additionally, the Drachman Institute fosters interdisciplinary research on the built environment while enhancing the student experience and supporting communities.

Press Contact

Simmons Buntin
Director of Marketing and Communications
College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture
The University of Arizona
520-241-7390 cell | 520-626-9935 office
sbuntin@arizona.edu

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Publications

Associate Professor Lisa Schrenk authored “Design Evolution: Art Deco at the Century of Progress International Exposition,” one of five leading essays in the just released book Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America, edited by Robert Bruegmann and published by Yale University Press. To read more about Lisa’s work and the publication http://capla.arizona.edu/awards/lisa-schrenk-essay-published-new-book-chicago-art

Nader Chalfoun, PhD., professor of architecture; Ivan Gaxiola, MS.Arch alumus (2016), and Colby Moeller, architecture lecturer; have recently published their work in the “International Journal of Design and Nature Economics.” The article, “Architectural Implementation of Vegetated Cover from Agriculture and Restoring Human Thermal Comfort and Mitigating the Urban Heat Island Effect in Arid Regions,” is available via www.witpress.com/journals/dne

Assistant Professor Alethia Ida released a book chapter titled “Energetic Forms of Matter” on October 22 in the book publication Reusable and Sustainable Building Materials in Modern Architecture by IGI Global Press, Eds. Gulsa Koch and Bryan Christiansen. https://www.igi-global.com/gateway/book/201930

Assistant Professor Altaf Engineer’s book, Shedding New Light on Art Museum Additions: Front and Back Stage Experiences published by Routledge. https://www.amazon.com/Shedding-New-Light-Museum-Additions/dp/1138215856/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505147667&sr=1-1

Assistant Professor Jonathan Bean’s book, Taste Consumption and Markets: An Interdisciplinary Volume published by Routledge.

Residency

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein received a second Visual Arts Residency at the Cite` International des Arts, in Paris for Spring 2019. www.citedesartsparis.net/

Grants

Assistant Professor Courtney Crosson received National Institute for Transportation & Communities Small Starts grant for the research entitled, “Urban Trasportation System Flood Vulnerability Assesment with Special Reference to Low Income and Minority Neighborhoods” with Dr. Daoqin Tong at ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. http://capla.arizona.edu/awards/courtney-crosson’s-grant-funded-through-nitc

Assistant Professor Alethia Ida received $500,000 from Microsoft for the research entitled, “Cloud Infrastructure Renewal Center (CIRC)” with Microsoft Global Datacenter Design and Engineering, collaborating with Professors Bob Norwood and Dan Kilper of Optical Sciences, and Assistant Professor Kerri Hickenbottom of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-and-microsoft-create-cloud-infrastructure-partnership-train-tomorrows-leaders?utm_source=uanow&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign

Awards

Assistant Professor Anna Koosmann received an Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Core Certificate of Research Excellence for the study entitled, “Evaluating the Impact of the First Filipino Design-Build University Program”. https://www.edra.org/page/2018_core_recipients

Associate Professor Susannah Dickenson’s capstone studio wins Architect Magazine Sloan Award. http://capla.arizona.edu/awards/dickinsons-capstone-studio-wins-sloan-award?utm_source=CAPLA+Connections+-+September+26%2C+18&utm_campaign=September+26%2C+18+Connections&utm_medium=email

2018 AIA Awards

Arizona

Aletheia Ida, Assistant Professor, Research Design Award entitled, “Symbiotic Matter”.

Oscar Lopez of Space Bureau, Associate AIA, Lecturer, Associates Award and Interior Architecture Award for Anello in Tucson, AZ

Dan Hoffman, AIA, Professor of Practice, Educator of the Year Award

Dust partners Jesus Robles Assistant Professor of Practice, and Cade Hayes, former Lecturer, Component Design Award

Western Mountain Region

Oscar Lopez of Space Bureau, Associate AIA, Lecturer, Design Excellence Award for Local Nomad in Phoenix, AZ and Anello in Tucson, AZ

Southern Arizona

Oscar Lopez of Space Bureau, Associate AIA, Lecturer, Interior Architecture Award for Anello in Tucson, AZ

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Associate Dean Mary Hardin received two awards from AIA Southern Arizona in a December, 2013 awards ceremony. She received an Honor Award for the “Split House”, a low-cost residence designed and constructed in Tucson with her design-build studio in 2011-12. The residence is a hybrid of rammed earth and frame construction, designed to conserve energy by the strategic placement of thermal mass walls, framed walls with apertures, and roof overhangs. The residence also employs a roof water collection system to reduce water use for the landscaping around it. It was purchased by a low-income family in June, 2012. She also received a Merit Award for the “Barrio Rowhouse”, her own courtyard residence built on an infill lot near downtown Tucson. For both projects, Hardin served as architect and contractor.

Lecturer Luis Ibarra and Adjunct Lecturer Teresa Rosano, AIA LEED AP, of Ibarra Rosano Design Architects have won Best of Houzz 2014 for design. They designed three of the “12 Desert Buildings Raising Arizona’s Architectural Profile” on Architizer’s blog: http://architizer.com/blog/desert-homes/  The Levin Residence, one of the three projects, was featured on ArchDaily and HGTV’s Extreme Homes.

Design Intelligence has named Lecturer Michael Kothke one of 30 most admired educators for 2014. 

Adjunct Lecturer Teresa Rosano was a speaker at the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit in October 2013.

Sustainable City Project director and Architecture department faculty member Dr. Linda C. Samuels has been awarded a $60,000 grant from the University of Arizona’s Renewable Energy Network. These funds support her interdisciplinary urban design studio and ongoing research focused on the I-11 SuperCorridor connecting Las Vegas to Nogales. This studio is working collaboratively with studios on the same topic at UNLV (under Ken Mccown, Director of UNLV’s downtown design center) and ASU (under Jason Boyer of Gensler Architects, Phoenix). An additional $70,000 has been awarded to the i11 SuperCorridor studio and research work by the Walton Sustainable Solutions initiative at the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU. 

Assistant professor Chris Trumble’s paper, titled “An Introductory Pedagogy of Sustainable Structures for Architecture Students” has been accepted for publication and presentation at the 2014 Sustainable Structures Symposium at Portland State University, April 17-18. His paper titled “Bus Shelter Prototypes in the Sonoran Desert” has been accepted for publication in the July 2014 Special Issue of the Journal of Architecture and Planning (JAP) of King Saud University on “Sustainability in Hot Arid Regions”. 

Chris Trumble has been awarded a $24,000 public art commission for the City of Tempe, Arizona. He was initially selected as the Public Artist for the University Drive Streetscape Project. The commission has since been transferred to the El Paso Gas Line Multi-use Path Project. 

Four of Chris Trumble’s projects have been accepted for presentation and exhibition at the 2014 ACSA Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, April 10-12: “Research + Application | Bus Shelter Prototypes for the Sonoran Desert” (Design Research in the Studio Context),  “What’s in a Bus Shelter?” (Urbanism), “Interstitial Installation | Site Specific Furniture as an Architectural Microcosm”  (Architecture in an Expanded Field), and “Wood Cantilevers” (Materials). 

Chris Trumble has been named an executive board member on the “Thinking While Doing” grant, a $2.48m endeavor led by Ted Cavanagh of Dalhousie University, sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; other board members include Ted Cavanagh and Arlene Oak (University of Alberta). The grant is dedicated to studying best practices in educational design build. Chris has also been named director of the design build Exchange (dbX), an initiative to facilitate the exchange of information, knowledge, and practices critical to educational design build endeavors in North America.  Members of dbX include Ted Cavanagh, Geoff Gjertson (University of Louisiana Lafayette), Patrick Harrop (University of Manitoba), Greg Snyder (University of North Carolina Charlotte), and Stephen Verderber (University of Toronto).  The dbX will be holding a working session at the ACSA Annual Meeting.

In collaboration with Coastal Studio led by Ted Cavanagh of Dalhousie University, Chris Trumble is directing a design build studio delivering a 4000sf gridshell dining hall for the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, near Canning, Nova Scotia.

Beth Weinstein, Associate Professor, has been appointed the new Master of Architecture Program Chair.  In relation to her research on Theater and Performance Design, Prof. Weinstein will participate in the July 2014 Performance Studies International Conference, at the Shanghai Theater Academy. With Dr Dorita Hannah (Aalto University, Finland) she will be spearheading PSi’s new Performance+Design working group and holding that group’s first panel session and workshop. In addition she will present a paper, “UN|DISCIPLINED,” on her research into interdisciplinary collaborations that push the boundaries of and critique disciplinary border, and in late July she will participate in the 2014 World Congress of the International Federation for Theater Research (IFTR-FIRT), held at the University of Warwick (July 28-August 1). Her presentation will address “Bringing Performativity into Architectural Pedagogy.”

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Beth Weinstein has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure, and is spending her sabbatical fall semester between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia and Paris, France.

While in Melbourne, she was a guest of the dance company BalletLab, and a contributor to their current performance project, TOMORROW. (http://www.balletlab.com/works/upcoming/double-bill-and-all-things-return-to-nature-/-tomorrow/phils-5)

Weinstein recently published “Performance Space: Distributed v. Consolidated” as a chapter within The Disappearing Stage: Reflections on the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. The book reflects on the recent 12th edition of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, and also includes chapters from an international list of theorists and artists: Marvin Carlson (USA), Christopher Baugh (UK), Thea Brejzek (DE), Guy Gutman (IL), Barbora P_íhodová (CZ), and Arnold Aronson (USA). The book’s essays look at various aspects of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, and serve as a starting point for a deeper theoretical evaluation of contemporary theatre and scenography.”

Weinstein lectured in the Spannweiten (span widths) series at the Technische Universität Dresden on May 30th in conjunction with the TU Dresden Department of Architecture installation of the Collaborative Legacy of Merce Cunningham exhibition, curated and designed by Weinstein.

In June, Professor Weinstein participated in a curated panel at the Performance Studies International Conference  #18 in Leeds, entitled “Beyond Training: Event Experience in Education” with Dr. Rodrigo Tisi (Dean of Art, Architecture & Design: UNIACC Santiago, Chile) and Dr. Dorita Hannah (Wellington, NZ). In this context she presented University of Arizona students’ built designs for performance environments and interventions in public space.

Architectural historian Associate Professor Lisa Schrenk has joined the faculty of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. In May she traveled with Norwich University architecture student Katherine Anderson to Cuba while advising Anderson on her summer research fellowship, which explored pre- and post-revolutionary-era architecture in Havana and Puerto Rico. Prior to moving to Tucson, Professor Schrenk received a 2012 Excellence in Research award and was named as a Charles A. Dana I Award recipient for excellence in teaching, research, and service at Norwich.

Visiting Professor Brian Delford Andrews recently published a pamphlet entitled “Militaristic Detritus”, which documents his tenure as the 55th Hyde Chair of Excellence at the University of Nebraska, School of Architecture.  The booklet documents his work on the award winning project, “The House of War”, as well as detailing the student’s work on four various projects that dealt with the concept of Militaristic Detritus.

Adjunct Lecturers Luis Ibarra and Teresa Rosano, AIA LEED AP, of Ibarra Rosano Design Architects, have won their 8th AIA Southern Arizona Home of the Year Award for their latest project. The Levin Residence will air on HGTV’s Extreme Homes in the fall of 2012, and is featured on the cover of Tucson Lifestyle Magazine and in the fall issue of LUXE magazine.

 

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Associate Professor Eve Edelstein, joins CAPLA and the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona as Deputy Director of Research. Dr. Edelstein is developing curricula for students and professionals in research-based design, and is currently teaching an interdisciplinary seminar on Neuro-Architecture, revealing how architecture, planning and landscape architecture influences the brain, body and biosphere.  Dr. Edelstein was an invited speaker at the Glass Mind Workshop in London UK where the international faculty discussed the application of neuro -architectural concepts and 3D virtual reality immersive CAVE techniques to explore how natural and architectural surfaces impact perception and actions by measuring neural and psychophysiological responses.  Dr. Edelstein is participating in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Summit on Green Building & Human Health to promote recognition of the connection between sustainable building methods and human health in order to advance and development practices and policies for improved outcomes.

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein, Ellen McMahon, and Ander Monson, editors of the recently published book Ground/Water: The Art, Design and Science of a Dry River will hold a signing and take part in “Bat Night and the Rillito River Project”: A discussion with Creative Director of the Rillito River Project Ellen Skotheim, bat expert Yar Petryzyn, UA Professors Gregg Grafin (Institute for the Environment) and Beth Weinstein (School of Architecture) focusing on the art, design and science collaborations done for Bat Night 10.

Adjunct Lecturer Brian Andrews’ new book Architecture Principia: Architectural Principles of Material Form has just been published by Pearson. The 600-page reference guide was co-authored with Gail Peter Borden of USC and “provides a comprehensive look at the foundational themes of architecture. Simultaneously fundamental and advanced, the text employs comparative precedents, case studies from across the history of architecture, consistent and clear graphic language, and a parallel visual and textual presentation of each architectural principle. Written by designers, for designers, the text is intended to serve as an analytical handbook of the concepts behind these diverse, formal principles as viewed through the history of architecture.”

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Associate Professor Martin Despang´s post-fossil (Passive House standard) Ecowoodbox kindergarten for the city of Hannover has been presented by Barbara Widera, Faculty of Architecture, Wroclaw University of Technology in “Passive and Low Energy Architecture in Education of Contemporary Architecture” at the PLEA 2011 / 27th International conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture and Sustainable Development in Brussels (July 2011).

Assistant Professor Beth Weinstein will publish “Turned Tables: Public as Performer” in Architecture as a Performing Art, Marcia Feuerstein and Gray Read, eds. Her essay on Architecture and Performance will be included in the catalogue for Prague Quadrennial 2011, Arnold Aronson, ed. Weinstein will present the scenographic works realized with students at the SEAM2011 Symposium in Sydney, Australia (Fall 2011). Finally, she has been invited to the EFLA Regional Congress of Landscape Architecture in Tallinn, Estonia (November 2011) as well as the ACSA Fall Conference “Local Identities/Global Challenges” presenting research and design proposals on water issues.

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Wendell Burnette, of Wendell Burnette Architects and Adjunct Lecturer, received a 2013 AIA Western Mountain Region Award of Excellence for his Desert Courtyard House; the project also received a 2013 AIA Arizona Honor Award.
 
Professor of Architecture and Environmental Science, Dr. Nader Chalfoun and his Masters of Science in Architecture “House Energy Doctor” program and studio 601 has been featured in the UA Global Reach November 2013, vol. 12, No. 1 issue http://issuu.com/uaoc/docs/global_reach_fall_2013 and described as “Beautiful Program Encourages International Sustainability”

Professor Nader Chalfoun, Ph.D., LEED AP, CEA, Director of the “House Energy Doctor” program and Chair of CAPLA’s Masters of Science in Architecture program has been awarded and gained national recognition as a “Legend in Energy” by the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) on Tuesday September 24, 2013 in Washington DC.

Professor Nader Chalfoun’s paper titled ” ‘A study and analysis of the effect of Natural ventilation on housing in Hot and Humid Climate’ has been accepted for publication and oral presentation at the International Sustainable Built Environment conference 28-30 January 2014, Intercontinental Doha, Doha, Qatar.

Assistant Professor Dr. Clare Robinson participated as an expert on Student Unions in a panel discussion Can the Center Hold? Reactivating the Student Center on the Modern Campus organized by Gensler’s Chicago office in late August. The student center discussion was a part of a series on student spaces on college campuses.

Assistant Professor Dr. Clare Robinson presented a paper in late September “Modern Mid-Century Student Union Buildings for Middle-Class College Culture” at the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians conference at the University of North Carolina.

Mark Ryan, of Mark-Ryan Studio and Assistant Lecturer, received a 2013 AIA Western Mountain Region Award of Merit for his RE-JUV project for the Colorado River Indian Tribes.  

Dr. Linda C. Samuels, Sustainable City Project Director, was selected to receive a $60,000 Faculty Research Grant from the University of Arizona’s Renewable Energy Network. The grant will be utilized to explore more sustainable alternatives to the limited-use focus of the typical interstate highway. Part of the larger CANAMEX project intended to link Canada and Mexico through the United States, this research provides a unique opportunity to reimagine the old infrastructure paradigm. SCP will focus on the segment linking Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson in partnership with faculty from the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and University of Nevada – Las Vegas.

Assistant Professor, Chris Trumble, was awarded the 2013 AIA Arizona Educator Award.

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein participated in the Performance Studies International Conference #19 at Stanford University in June 2013. During the conference she participated in a Curated Panel: Event-Space Now (& Then) :: Architectures (in & out) of time with a presentation “Choreographing Space, Structuring Dance,” a paper titled “Borrowed Space and Time” addressing narrative as the springboard to performance collaborations, and a praxis session/presentation related to SHUTTLE: a mobile performance desert laboratory. 

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein, on November 16th, gave a performative presentation, “Shuttling: conditioning, co-creating, situating,” at SEAM 2013 in Sydney, Australia, with Dr. Mick Douglas (RMIT University, Melbourne) and Dr. James Oliver (University of Melbourne). The presentation explored how acts of curating, authoring and ‘audiencing’ might open up to the dynamic flux of creative processes and how creative practices may extend beyond human agency to explore how non-human and elemental forces contribute to performative encounters.  The presentation unfolded as a multi-writer/reader text in three movements that elaborated (I) conditioning, (II) co-creating, and (III) situating. At SEA2013 Weinstein also chaired a session at SEAM on the topic of  “Legacies.”

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein attended the Conference of the International Federation of Theater Research, and presented a paper “Bringing Performativity into Architectural Pedagogy and Practice “ in the context of the Theater Architecture Working Group (Barcelona. July 23, 2013).

Associate Professor Beth Weinstein’s Recent publications include “Performing Architectures: Closed and Open Logics of Mutable Scenes,” in Performance Research Journal 18.3 : On Scenography.  161-168 + “Performing the [Spatio-Material-Temporal] Interval,” published in the Proceedings of the Dhillon Marty Foundation’s Community Week 2013: Material Equilibrium. + At the invitation of faculty at the Ecole Nationale Superieur d’ Architecture de Clermont-Ferrand, The Collaborative Legacy of Merce Cunningham exhibition will be on view November 18 – Dec 7, 2013.

University of Arizona

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Associate Professor Martin Despang´s post-fossil (Passive House standard) kindergarten for the University of Göttingen has been published in the 6.2011 issue of the international AIT / Architecture Interior Technology magazine.  He has also been published in the Frechmann Kolón book, Wood Houses (2010), for Despang Architekten’s renovation of the half-timbered farm house “Voges Redux.”

Associate Professor Christopher Domin, Master of Architecture Program Chair, presented applied building skin research developed in CALA’s Materials Laboratory at the World Sustainable Building Conference in Helsinki, Finland.  Another joint research investigation into Regional Technology issues was presented at the International Passive and Low Energy conference in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium over the summer.  This work was co-developed with Professor Larry Medlin along with advanced graduate and undergraduate CALA students.

The College of Architecture & Landscape Architecture initiated an interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Heritage Conservation in conjunction with the UA School of Anthropology and Department of Materials Science & Engineering.  The program is coordinated by Professor R. Brooks Jeffery and focuses on a service-learning model of education.  More information is on the program’s website, http://cala.arizona.edu/heritage. 

Assistant Professor Beth Weinstein has been invited to join the Design Committee of the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE). Since 2009, she has served as a member of the JAE’s Editorial Board and Reviews Board.

New members of the Architecture Faculty, Luis Ibarra + Teresa Rosano, have won their 7th Southern Arizona Home of the Year Award for a house designed for Patagonia, Arizona.

Adjunct Lecturer Wil Peterson, has been named one of five finalists in the furniture category of the ACADIA 2011 Design + Fabrication Competition.

Adjunct Lecturer Mark Ryan has won the competition for Avendia Rio Salado / Broadway Road (ARS) in Phoenix, AZ.  The proposal for an 8-mile stretch of the Broadway Road will create a series of Community Beacons that will be visible day and night, acknowledging the historic diversity of agriculture and industry between two adjacent village neighborhoods.  The installations will also function as passive cooling towers and drinking fountains.

University of Arizona

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The Biosphere 2 Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) will consist of three massive landscapes constructed inside an environmentally controlled greenhouse facility.  A scale-model built by Assistant Professor Susannah Dickinson and two third-year architecture students, David Kim and James Carrico, will be displayed for visitors at Biosphere 2.  For more info visit: http://leo.b2science.org/node/36

OF ARCH #118: International Magazine of Architecture and Design features the Tucson Zoo and Natatorium in Reid Park, by Burns Wald-Hopkins Shambach Architects with design consultation on fabric structures by Professor R. Larry Medlin.

Adjunct Lecturers Teresa Rosano and Luis Ibarra (Ibarra Rosano Design Architects, Inc.) have three projects featured in Contemporary Villas, Strahan, McMillan, and McMillan, eds. (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub Ltd, 2011).

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