Assistant Professor Dr. Elizabeth Grant, Ph.D., R.A., is the principal investigator for a grant of $45,000 awarded to The Center for High Performance Environments (CHPE) at Virginia Tech. The grant was awarded by the RCI Foundation to investigate the effect of roof reflectivity on air and adjacent surface temperatures. The EPDM Roofing Association (ERA), the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association (ARMA), and the Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association (PIMA) contributed to the grant award. Elizabeth Grant will be collaborating with Carlisle Construction Materials to conduct the study on the Blacksburg campus of Virginia Tech.

Associate Professor Michael Ermann’s forthcoming book, Architectural Acoustics Illustrated, was awarded the Virginia Society AIA Prize for Design Research and Scholarship. The text, which aims to translate the field of building acoustics into the graphic language of architecture will be published in November of this year (Wiley). The jurors recognized that his submission “covered an interesting and important subject, noting that the content has great depth and could become an standard textbook for architecture education.”

Professor Dr. Markus Breitschmid, Ph.D., S.I.A., is the author of the article “Architektur leitet sich von Architektur ab.” The article was published in the Zurich-based architecture journal Werk, Bauen + Wohnen in its September 2014 edition.