2007 Teachers Seminar


June 28 - July 1, 2007 | Cranbrook Academy of Art
Co-chairs: Daniel S. Friedman, Joyce M. Noe, and Norman H. Strong.

Theme 

A special joint session of the ACSA Cranbrook Teachers Seminar and the AIA Educator Practitioner Network Summer Practice Institute. Cranbrook 2007 will explore the impact of emerging project delivery methods on the professional curriculum. Design as we know it will be leveraged by powerful virtual modeling technologies that involve early collaboration with the full spectrum of participants in the building production process. The integrated practice world thus challenges common assumptions about roles, responsibility, and risk—and so, too, the skills that graduates of professional programs will need to thrive. Some see integrated practice as the return of the master-builder; some see it as the harbinger of profound organizational transformation; some see it as a rare opportunity to rethink our entire educational system. In this spirit, educators and practitioners are invited to Cranbrook 2007 to explore alternative pedagogies, performance criteria, curricular infrastructures, and program formats that more productively articulate the critical objectives of architectural education within an integrated practice framework.



Panelists

Panel 1: Ethics & Responsibility
Co-chair: Norman Strong, FAIA, Miller Hull

SHERRY AHRENTZEN, Ph.D., Arizona State University              
         
For over twenty years, Dr. Sherry Ahrentzen’s scholarship has focused on new forms of housing to better accommodate the social and economic diversity of U.S. households and families. Her work has been published extensively in journals and magazines, such as Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Harvard Design Magazine, Planning, Builder, Journal of Social Issues, and Progressive Architecture, and she has presented her work at numerous conferences, universities and professional organizations. In addition to co-editing the book New Households, New Housing, she has over 50 published articles, chapters, and reports, and has received more than 20 research and instructional grants from various agencies. Professor Ahrentzen has consulted overseas, in China and Indonesia, and has also served as member of the Board of Directors of the Environmental Design Research Association, and associate editor for book reviews for the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research.

Her research with Linda Groat and Katherine Anthony has focused on the conditions of architectural education that enhance or hinder development of social and pedagogical diversity. Articles of this work have been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, among other venues. Her own teaching efforts are directed towards demonstrating the application of research and social theory to architectural design and planning. She teaches at undergraduate,
Master’s and doctoral levels.

As Associate Director for Research of the Stardust Center at ASU, Dr. Ahrentzen’s efforts are directed towards producing and fostering research that acts as a catalyst for debate, action, and innovation. The Center’s research products and forums give constituents reliable information and new insights to inform design, development actions and policy decisions.                                                                         
   
VICTORIA BEACH
  Victoria Beach is the sole architect to serve as a Faculty Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Ethics and the Professions and now writes and speaks nationwide on topics in architectural ethics. She is a registered architect and principal of Beach Designs of Monterey, California, an award-winning architecture, landscape, and furniture design practice, established in 1996. The same year, she founded Design Foundations, a nonprofi t through which aspiring architects have given hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pro bono services to under-served communities. Victoria spent some years working on public housing with the city of New York and also as a Fulbright/DAAD scholar in Berlin, has volunteered on AIA, ASCA, NAAB, and NCARB committees and boards, and recently has been delving into urban issues as a planning commissioner in California. She has taught building and landscape design, history, theory, and ethics at Harvard University and elsewhere. Victoria earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Philosophy and Economics from Yale University and Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design.
   
WILLIAM BRAHAM, Ph.D., FAIA, University of Pennsylvania
  Dr. William W. Braham FAIA is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently Associate Chair, and Director of the certificate program in Ecological Architecture. He received a degree in civil engineering from Princeton University and an M. Arch and Ph.D. Arch. From the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1988. At Penn he teaches graduate courses on ecology, technology, and design, and coordinates the second year design studios.  He practices with the TC Chan Center  and as a design consultant for Ivalo Lighting.

In 2006 he published a book called Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory, and In 2002 published a book called Modern Color/Modern Architecture: Amédée Ozenfant and the genealogy of color in modern architecture. He is working on another book project called Conditioned Space: Architecture and the Environment.
   
JAMES P. CRAMER, Hon. AIA, Design Futures Council, Atlanta
  James P. Cramer is the Chairman and Principal of the Greenway Group, Inc., a management consulting, research, and publishing organization specializing in the architecture, real estate, and management.  He is a foresight advisor, futurist, and trends authority in the architecture, design, and construction industry.  He is the editor of Design Intelligence, a design management change and innovation journal and the author of four books including the critically acclaimed book How Firms Succeed: A Field Guide to Design Management and The Next Architect: A New Twist on the Future of Design.  He is the editor of the annual Almanac of Architecture & Design, praised as the “essential and definitive tool for architecture and design facts” by The American Institute of Architects.

He is the founding co-chairman of the Washington DC based think tank, The Design Futures Council.  The Council’s mission is to explore trends, changes, and new opportunities in design, architecture, engineering, and building technology.

Greenway’s strategic consulting clients have included organizations in 46 states and nine foreign countries.  Clients have included The Salk Institute, The National Building Museum, the Aga Khan Foundation (Geneva), IBM, The State of New York,  Business Week, The Royal Institute of British Architects, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, The National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian), the Design/Build Institute, as well as many national and international award winning design firms. 

Jim Cramer served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The American Institute of Architects for six years from 1988 to 1994.  He is the former President and CEO of the American Architectural Foundation and for seven years was the Publisher of Architecture magazine.  He was the co-founder of the National Design Council and a Director of the national Society of Architectural Historians.


Panel 2: Practice & Criticism
Co-chair: Daniel S. Friedman, FAIA, University of Washington

NATHANIEL Q. BELCHER, Florida International University           
         
                                                                   
MARTIN FELSEN, UrbanLab, Chicago
  UrbanLab was founded in Chicago in 2000 by Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn as a collaborative office practicing architecture and urbanism. UrbanLab has been the recipient of numerous honors, and has developed a reputation as a professional practice know for its innovative solutions to, and long-range strategies for, the problems of both public and private communities. UrbanLab undertakes work of different sizes and scales, from small residences to urban interventions, but its primary interest is in forward-looking projects that speculate on a more sustainable and resourceful tomorrow.

UrbanLab is also a research laboratory engaged in examining cities: projects such as “chil.us” (www.chil.us) examine Chicago’s status as a global city, and “sprawlcity.us” (www.sprawlcity.us) examines American-style urbanism. Both research projects are funded by the National Science Foundation.   
Since 1996 Martin Felsen has been an Associate Studio Professor in the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. And Since 2006 he has been a Facilitator at Archeworks, an alternative design school located in Chicago.
   
KIRA GOULD, Assoc. AIA, William McDonough + Partners
  Kira Gould, Assoc. AIA, LEED® AP, is Director of Communications with William McDonough + Partners, a leader since the 1980s in eco-effective design that emulates natural systems, envisions a solar-powered world, celebrates diversity, and anticipates design evolution. Before joining McDonough’s firm, she worked with Gould Evans, a large multi-disciplinary design firm co-founded by her father in 1974. She has written for GreenSource, Architectural Record, The Boston Globe, and other publications. She served as managing editor at Metropolis magazine for several years and continues to write about sustainability and design for that magazine and others. She is the 2007 chair of the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE) and was co-author of Ecology and Design (AIA, 2006), a COTE report about ecological literacy and architecture education. She has organized COTE’s workshop serioes, Biomimicry for a Sustainable Built Environment, taught by the Biomimicry Guild at AIA chapters around the country; this program’s newest component is a gallery of student work influenced by biomimicry and related concepts. Gould and co-author Lance Hosey recently published their first book, Women in Green: Voices in Sustainable Design (Ecotone Publishing, 2007). Gould grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, studied journalism and English at the University of Kansas, and earned a master’s degree in design and architecture criticism at Parsons School of Design in New York. Today, she calls Boston’s South End home, though she can often be found in Charlottesville and San Francisco, in the studios of William McDonough + Partners.
   
JAMES O. JONASSEN, FAIA, MRAIC, NBBJ, Seattle
 

As Managing Partner at NBBJ, Jim Jonassen focuses on developing and teaching the values and philosophical basis of the firm.  He has led the development of NBBJ’s unique studio culture.  Jim has developed the national and, ultimately, international healthcare practice, and built NBBJ’s overall practice in Asia.  Jim is an architect with extensive experience in the design and planning of healthcare, laboratory, and technical facilities. 

Since joining NBBJ in 1965, he has participated in the conception and design of many of NBBJ’s most important projects and his design expertise and leadership has consistently enabled NBBJ to win prestigious awards. His projects have include major projects for the University of Washington Medical School, Swedish Medical Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center and Children’s Hospital and Medical Center locally; Battelle Memorial Institute, Richland and St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Portland, regionally; Mayo Clinic, Stanford University Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital, nationally; and Capital Coast Health, Wellington New Zealand, Resource Plaza Towers and Children’s Hospital, Shanghai, Samsung Kangbuk Hospital, Seoul and Hamad Medical Center , Doha, Qatar internationally.

He has been and is on a number of Boards and directorships including currently, The Health Insights Foundation (chairman) and the Executive Committee of the large firm roundtable of the American Institute of Architects.

His education includes a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Washington, and Masters of Science in Architecture from Columbia University. He teaches on the Practicum Faculty at the University of Hawaii.

   
JAMES TIMBERLAKE, FAIA, KieranTimberlake Associates
  James Timberlake received his B.A. from the University of Detroit, with honors, and his Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, with honors. He has 30 years of professional experience and is a founding partner of the firm along with Stephen Kieran, FAIA.  A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Mr. Timberlake has served as Design Partner for the Melvin J. and Claire Levine Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, Atwater Commons at Middlebury College, and the West Campus Residential Initiative at Cornell University among many other projects. He is currently Design Partner for the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s Suzanne Roberts Theatre, and The Institute for the Study of Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE) at the University of Calgary.

Mr. Timberlake was a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (1982-83), and has served as Eero Saarinen Distinguished Professor of Design at Yale University and Max Fisher Design Chair at the University of Michigan, both along with Mr. Kieran. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. He has lectured extensively at major universities and symposia throughout the United States and abroad.  Along with Mr. Kieran, Mr. Timberlake co-authored two books, MANUAL: The Architecture of KieranTimberlake, 2002, Princeton Architectural Press, and refabricating ARCHITECTURE, 2003, McGraw-Hill Publishing.  His work has been featured in many publications including Architectural Record, Cambridge University’s Architectural Research Quarterly, Interiors, Interior Design, TIME, WIRED, World Architecture (Beijing), The New York Times, and the 50th Anniversary Issue of I.D. Magazine in which KieranTimberlake Associates LLP was named as the design firm representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Panel 3: Research & Design
Co-chair: Joyce Noe, FAIA, University of Hawaii

JULEE HERDT, AIA, University of Colorado     
         

Julee Herdt is an award-winning architect and professor whose work focuses on biomass, petroleum-alternative building material research, commercialization and application, and renewable energy design and construction. Her environmental research and educational projects have been funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the University of Colorado, and the Department of Energy.  Her recent work has been published by such sources as the International Solar Energy Society, the American Solar Energy Society, the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and the Colorado A.I.A.  In 2002 and 2005, Julee Herdt was the Architecture Faculty Advisor leading the University of Colorado’s student teams in back-to-back, first-place award-winning international Solar Decathlon competition projects.
At CU, a unique and specific focus of Julee Herdt’s applied research has been invention of engineered molded fiber, (EMF) biobased building materials and application of these materials in full-scale renewable energy architecture projects.  Herdt and students recently filed a patent for their new building material invention, BioSIPs™, a high strength-to-weight, petroleum-alternative structural building panel system fabricated from consumer waste and agricultural/recycled material source insulation. Herdt and students have continued to develop a new architectural typology from this system called “BioMOD™,” in which they integrate biobased resources, renewable energy systems, re-used, and recycled materials in high tech, high performance building design and construction.  Feedstocks for the BioMOD typology read like leftovers from a health-food buffet and include such ingredients as: soy, sunflowers, wheat, rye, corn, canola, bamboo, hemp, jute, flax, coconut, kenaf, cotton, wastepaper, waste wood, and recycled plastic – to name a few.  The first generation of BioMOD architecture was built and tested as the 2005 CU Solar Decathlon residence.  The Serial Box™ residence, from newly-patented second-generation BioSIPs, is scheduled for construction in 2008.
As an architecture professor, Julee Herdt conducts her teaching in classrooms, laboratories, on construction sites, and in architectural and engineering competitions.  Award-winning projects by Herdt and students include solar-powered design and residential constructions, a solar-powered addition to a CU recreation center, a solar tracking device for the college’s new architecture research center, and others. Herdt and students’ work at the University of Colorado has resulted in two entries into U.S. Congressional Records and presentation of CU projects to the President of the United States.
Julee Herdt has worked professionally in the U.S. and Europe with firms including Morphosis Architects, Los Angeles, and Coop Himmelblau, Vienna.   She was an A.I.A. Latrobe Prize finalist in 2007.

     
   
KIEL MOE, Northeastern University
 

Kiel Moe received his B.Arch from the University of Cincinnati, his M.Arch from University of Virginia, and a M.DesS from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Advanced Studies Program. He taught previously at Syracuse University and the University of Illinois, Chicago. At Northeastern, Moe teaches design studios and lectures on the topics of Architecture and Energy and Integrated Building Systems. Moe has worked for WW, Doug Garofalo, Hargreaves Associates, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and many other offices. He has a design/build practice for small, research-driven projects and contracts for other architects on the design of integrated material and energy systems for larger projects.

His book, Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture, will be published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2008. His funded research focuses on thermally active surfaces as the means to amend both construction and energy practices in the United States.
   
DAVID MORTENSON, Mortenson Construction, Minneapolis
 

David Mortenson is a Senior Vice President with M.A. Mortenson Company; a 53 year-old family owned international design-builder, general contractor, and construction manager. After graduating cum laude from Colgate University, David spent three years as a ship driver and the Combat Information Center Officer in the United States Navy. David joined the family business in 1991. He worked his way up through the project management ranks, undertook the company's first international design-build project, and was the Project Director during the preconstruction and initial construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Since his involvement on the Disney Concert Hall in the 1990's, David has been focused on driving Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) into his company and the industry. He has focused on integrated delivery, a commitment to total customer service, and the development of significant cost and time delivery improvements.

He oversees some of the company's fastest growing most innovative operating groups in the Northwest, on the west coast and in Asia. He is a recognized industry pioneer and leader in integrated delivery, 3D&4D technology, and lean construction. He is past President of the Northwest Chapter of the Design Build Institute of America, the leader of Mortenson's Center for Construction Innovation (CCI), and a regular participant in the Construction industry Institute's globalization round table.


DAVID ORR, Ph.D., Oberlin College
  David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College and a James Marsh, Professor at large at the University of Vermont. Born in Des Moines, Iowa and raised in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, he holds a B.A. from Westminster College (1965), a M.A. from Michigan State University (1966), and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania (1973). He and his wife have two sons and three grandchildren.

He is the author of five books: Design on the Edge: The Making of a High Performance Building (MIT Press, 2006); The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment (Island Press, 2004); The Nature of Design (Oxford, 2002); Earth in Mind (Island, 1994/2004); Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992) and co-editor of The Global Predicament (North Carolina, 1979) and The Campus and Environmental Responsibility (Jossey-Bass, 1992); and the Sage Reader on Environment and Society (2007). He has published 170 articles in scientific journals, social science publications, and popular magazines.

He is best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and his recent work in ecological design. He raised funds for and spearheaded the effort to design and build a $7.2 million Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin College, a building described by the New York Times as “the most remarkable” of a new generation of college buildings and by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of thirty “milestone buildings” of the 20th century.

He is the recipient of a Bioneers Award (2003),  a National Conservation Achievement Award by the National Wildlife Federation, a Lyndhurst Prize awarded by the Lyndhurst Foundation “to recognize the educational, cultural, and charitable activities of particular individuals of exceptional talent, character, and moral vision.” He was named “an Environmental Hero for 2004” by Interiors & Sources Magazine.  He holds three Honorary Doctorates and has been a distinguished scholar in residence at University of Washington, Ball State University and Westminster College in Salt Lake City. In a special citation, the Connecticut General Assembly noted Orr’s “vision, dedication, and personal passion” in promoting the principles of sustainability. The Cleveland Plain Dealer described him as “one of those who will shape our lives.”

Dr. Orr is a contributing editor of Conservation Biology. He has served as a Trustee of the Educational Foundation of America, the Compton Foundation, and the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. He serves on the Boards of the Rocky Mountain Institute (CO), the Aldo Leopold Foundation, the Center for Ecoliteracy (CA), and the Center for Respect of Life and Environment. He is also an advisor and consultant to the Trust for Public Land, the National Parks Advisory Committee, and other organizations. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities in the U.S. and elsewhere
   
ELVA RUBIO, Gensler/UIC, Chicago
 

Elva Rubio is Executive Vice President, Creative Director at Bruce Mau Design and is a co-founder of his Chicago-based studio, Rubio Studios. Most recently, Rubio was design director for Gensler’s Chicago office. In that position, Rubio led the design of the Center on Halsted, which recently opened to widespread praise. Under her direction, the firm also won commissions for Chase Bank, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Hyatt Regency, the latter of which was featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s green architecture exhibition, “Sustainable Architecture in Chicago: Works In Progress.” Rubio’s work for Pond Studios won both Distinguished Building and Interior Architecture awards from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1997.  She has also received 20+ AIA awards for work ranging in Urban Design, Architecture and Interiors. 

Rubio serves on the board of the Chicago Architecture Club, is chairman of the Burnham Prize, and co-founder of the Chicago Prize and Emerging Visions competition.

Rubio’s work was featured in the Ten Visions exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and through the Mayor’s Institute on City Design. She was named “One to Watch” by Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin in 2004, and her work was showcased in the Women in Chicago Architecture exhibit at the Art Institute.

Rubio has complemented her professional practice with teaching engagements at the School of the Art Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She currently is an associate professor at UIC’s School of Architecture, where she teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level studios.


Respondent

EDWARD ALLEN, FAIA, University of Oregon
         

Edward Allen taught architecture full time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for thirteen years before leaving to develop his architectural practice and author a series of textbooks.  His titles include Stone Shelters, How Buildings Work, Fundamentals of Building Construction, The Architect’s Studio Companion, Shaping Structures: Statics, Fundamentals of Residential Construction, and Architectural Detailing: Function, Constructibility, Aesthetics.  These have been adopted as texts in nearly every school of architecture in North America and many foreign countries, and have been published in a number of foreign language translations.  He is the founder and for many years was editor and publisher of Connector, a newsletter that has been influential in changing the way technical subjects are taught in schools of architecture.  He has lectured and taught on four continents and has conducted architectural research on a fifth.  Following an appointment as Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Professor of Architectural Design at the University of Oregon, he has retained a visiting appointment at that institution, where he was instrumental in founding the world’s only graduate program in technical teaching for teachers of architecture.  He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.  In 2005 he was awarded jointly by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education.