Vinayak Bharne has been appointed Executive Editor of the India and Netherlands based quarterly, “My Liveable City.” In this capacity, he will help expand its global reach and direct its future issues and themes. He was also a speaker in the USC Urban Growth Seminar Series at the Price School of Public Policy. His talk titled “Urban Design: The Pluralism of Practice” elaborated on his ongoing projects in the United States, Panama, China, India and Japan. Bharne is currently editing “The Companion of Global Heritage Conservation,” for Routledge Press, London. This 40-chapter volume examines the relationship of heritage conservation planning with the specific agencies, governance structures and cultural expectations across the world. The volume is slated for release mid 2017. 

Steven Ehrlich will be speaking at the AIA National Convention in May, in Philadelphia as part of the College of Fellows 2 + 2 program. The program supports mentorship by showcasing the work of two Fellows alongside the work of two recent national recipients of the AIA Young Architects award. The work of Steven Ehrlich and Takashi Yanai was recently recognized by the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards, two projects (John M Roll Courthouse and McElroy Residence) were awarded for their achievements in design. The projects will be part of a traveling exhibition titled “New Los Angeles Architecture” which will be opening in June of 2016.

Jose Sanchez has released Block’hood, a city-building simulation video game that focuses on notions of ecology, decay and coexistence. The game was released on the Steam platform getting a very positive review from the media and the community. The game will enable research on crowdsourcing, problem solving, systems education and how games can impact reality. The game will continue development for the rest of the year.

Rob Berry’s essay “In Defense of the Drought” was published as an op-ed in the Winter 2016 issue of the LA Forum Newsletter. This spring he is serving as a juror on the review panel for the Cavin Family Travelling Fellowship. With his practice Berry and Linné, he recently completed two collaborative public space projects: a parklet in Rancho Cucamonga, in collaboration with utopiad.org, and Todos Juntos, a public plaza at the Benjamin Franklin Public Library in Boyle Heights, in collaboration with Lyric Design + Planning.

Assistant Professor Travis Longcore (Landscape Architecture program) was an invited speaker for a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop panel on Ecology, Physiology/Human Health and Light at the Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences & Engineering in Irvine, California.