Scott Uriu along with his business partner Herwig Baumgartner have been chosen as one of the 2014-2015 COLA Master Artist Fellowship – Cultural Grant Artists for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.  The prestigious City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Fellowships honor a selection of the best of Los Angeles contemporary arts. These awards allow very accomplished artists to focus on creating a new work to be exhibited at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in May of 2015. Uriu and Baumgartner have been chosen as one of the 2014-2015 COLA Master Artist Fellowship – Cultural Grant Artists for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.  The prestigious City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Fellowships honor a selection of the best of Los Angeles contemporary arts. These awards allow very accomplished artists to focus on creating a new work to be exhibited at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in May of 2015. Uriu has been selected to be one of the speakers at the TxA Emerging Design + Technology Conference where Baumgartner+Uriu will make a presentation on Responsive Architectural Environments in Houston TEXAS.  Baumgartner+Uriu’s installation Apertures uses sensors and sound feedback loops to immerse the visitor in his or her own biorhythms. The TxA Emerging Design + Technology conference Nov7th-8th brings experimental research and exploration among academics and practitioners to a broad audience of designers, practicing architects, construction industry executives, building products manufacturers, students, and other researchers.

USC faculty member Laurel Consuelo Broughton (WELCOMEPROJECTS) presented work and participated in a symposium at Princeton SOA on November 15, 2014, titled “F_i_r_m_n_e_s_s_,_ _C_o_m_m_o_d_i_t_y_,_  & Delight,” along with Mark Foster Gage (Mark Foster Gage + Associates), Andrew Kovacs (Archive of Affinities), Jimenez Lai (Bureau Spectacular), and Michael Loverich (Bittertang).  On November 1st, 2014 Broughton’s project in collaboration with Andrew Kovacs, Gallery Attachment (www.galleryattachment.com) opened in Chinatown in Los Angeles with a corresponding show of drawings, As Builts at Jai and Jai Gallery. In October she released The Miranda, a collaboration with writer, director, and artist Miranda July with a short film that launched on Vogue.com.  As well throughout the fall, Laurel was also featured in the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design’s Out There Doing It which invites young architects to present their work in a series of events and discussions. 

The University of Southern California School of Architecture announces the appointment of Kelly Shannon as Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Program and Landscape Architecture Discipline Head, effective January 1, 2015. She joins the USC faculty as Professor of Architecture. Dr. Shannon is currently Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape of the Oslo School of Architecture. She also holds a part-time appointment as Professor of Urbanism, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture at KU Leuven. “The landscape program at the USC School of Architecture has grown steadily, and with a new director as accomplished as Kelly Shannon, the program is poised for global impact in cross-disciplinary research and cross-territorial practice,” said Dean Qingyun Ma. The USC landscape architecture program has a longstanding commitment to urban and environmental discourse. Its impact has expanded with the leadership of retired director Robert Harris and through cross_-disciplinary connections with the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Spatial Sciences Institute of the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. The Master of Landscape Architecture First Professional Curriculum and Advanced Standing Curriculum are accredited by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board.

USC Landscape Architecture student work proposing new uses for the Santa Monica Airport will be exhibited at the Writers Boot Camp Gallery, Bergamot Station, on Thursday, October 23, 6-9 pm. “Reimagining Santa Monica Airport – Part 1” features work from Christopher Sison, Chen Liu, Zeek Magallanes, and Yongdan Chunyu, all students from a USC graduate landscape architecture studio taught by Aroussiak Gabrielian. The exhibit is sponsored by Airport2Park, a coalition supporting the creation of a park on the land that is currently the Santa Monica Airport. First used informally as a landing strip by pilots flying WWI biplanes, the 227-acre site was the home of the Douglas Aircraft Company, and in the 1970s, it became a general aviation airport, currently serving about 300 people daily who fly privately. As the airport is surrounded on all sides by residential areas, noise and air pollution have long been local community issues. ‘’What is amazing about getting students involved in projects that address sites currently in transition, like the airport site, is the capacity of their visions to affect policy change, as well as provide advocacy of worthwhile community efforts through design speculation,” said Gabrielian.