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University of Virginia

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The conditions of 21st-century life – an aging population, environmental pollution, rapid urbanization, increased poverty, the rising cost of medical care, the need for preventive medicine and developments in social and medical science – have created a host of challenges and opportunities for those who design and plan environments that aid and nurture health and well-being.

Recognizing the relationship between design and health, the University of Virginia School of Architecture on May 12 launched the Center for Design and Health [link to: http://uvadesignhealth.org/] to pursue cross-disciplinary research to advance the design and planning of patient-centered facilities and healthy neighborhoods, towns and cities.

The goal of the center is to empower faculty and community collaborations, according to the center website. It will act as a catalyst, providing seed funding to new research and projects already under way that bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to address design challenges that incorporate the expertise of design professionals, policy planners and health professionals.

“City planners and urban designers rarely understand, or have systemically studied, the long-term health effects of their work,” said Timothy Beatley, the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the School of Architecture. “The activities of the center in focusing on the measurable health effects of, say, green features such as trees, community gardens, trails and nearby nature, will help to change that.”

Beatley and Reuben M. Rainey, William Stone Weedon Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture, co-direct the center.

Initial collaborations include a post-occupancy study for the Shands Cancer Center in Gainesville, Fla.; a partnership with the U.Va. Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center that resulted in the inclusion of original works of art throughout the center that complement the building’s natural light-filled spaces and natural materials, part of the center’s mission to provide cutting-edge care in a patient-friendly facility; and biophilic cities work around the globe. This spring the Architecture School and School of Medicine partnered on a Medical Center Hour, symposium and exhibit focused on photographs taken inside and outside of abandoned mental health facilities by Christopher Payne.

Although based in the School of Architecture, the center aims to engage the school’s faculty, alumni and students who seek or are working in careers in health-related design and planning, with faculty from areas across the University who have expertise in physical, emotional or community health, including the schools of Medicine and Nursing, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the departments of Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology.

In addition, partnerships with design and planning professionals working on health-related projects as well as faculty at other universities will be welcome, Beatley said.

The center’s research efforts will focus primarily on the work of planners and designers, and the body of knowledge produced will be relevant to the concerns of administrators of medical facilities, medical and nursing schools, schools of public health, public officials and citizen advocates concerned with creating, sustaining and supporting healthy environments, Beatley said.

Projects may include research related to aging in place, healing landscapes, health and public spaces, food and nutrition, disaster housing and recovery, healthy design for hospitals and other health care facilities, and biophilic cities that embrace the concept of incorporating nature into the urban fabric with elements, such as urban farming and green rooftops, that take advantage of the healing power and life-enhancing potential of reconnecting to the natural world. The center’s website will provide information on the research activities.

“The center is intended, in part, to create spaces and opportunities for designers to work together and learn from other disciplines concerned with health. No one discipline has all the answers, and the health and design agenda is necessarily multidisciplinary,” Beatley said.

The center is seeking emerging scholars to participate in the inaugural Faculty Fellows Program [link to: http://uvadesignhealth.org/fellows]. Three fellows, chosen from full-time faculty of any department or school at the University other than the School of Architecture, will be offered for the 2011-12 academic year. Chosen fellows, who will work to develop long-term scholarly research agendas related to health implications of design and planning the built environment, will receive a $3,000 stipend. Fellows are expected to participate in the life of the Architecture School and to begin collaborations with faculty there.

Also, research grants of up to $3,000 per project are available to Architecture School faculty with innovative research questions and projects.

Fellowship and grant applications will be accepted through July 1 and the fellowships will begin Sept. 1.

The grants and fellowships are intended to be catalytic and to help lay the foundation for larger awards from other funding agencies, including University grants, state and federal agencies, foundations, corporations and private individuals, Beatley said. Individual members of the center are responsible for securing funding for research projects.

The center’s role is to foster synergistic relationships and grant proposals through its activities, including symposia, lectures and roundtable discussions where ideas are vetted, as well as a Web presence that will encourage researchers with complementary interests to find each other, he said.

The center’s Design and Health Lecture Series will explore practice and emerging new ideas in design and health. The series will feature three to five lectures each year, given by University faculty, practitioners and visitors. The center also will co-sponsor lectures organized by the Medical Center Hour, the U.Va. Medical School’s weekly forum on medicine and society.

An important long-term aspect of the center’s work will be to develop new courses and curricula focused on health and the built environment. To start, the center will post a list of such existing courses offered by faculty across Grounds on the center’s website.

Down the road, the center plans to identify and help create new courses and curricula to help strengthen educational opportunities in the area of design and health, Beatley said. New courses might include a series of short courses on specialized design and health subjects, such as healthy hospital design, community design for walkable and healthy cities, or semester-long classes co-taught by professors and researchers in various fields with a focus on building new insights about multidisciplinary practice.

Also under exploration is the idea of a new design and health certificate that would initially be available to students in the School of Architecture and eventually to students in allied fields across the University.

“The center builds on work already being carried out in the School of Architecture and looks to embrace other disciplines to expand and enhance research related to issues of design and health that have implications for individuals, our public spaces and the planet,” Architecture School Dean Kim Tanzer said.

University of Arkansas

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A National Endowment for the Arts grant is a first step toward the revival of the historic, 60-block Pettaway neighborhood in Little Rock, by blending new development within the fabric of that turn-of-the-century urban neighborhood. 

The $30,000 grant, awarded to the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp., will fund the creation of the Pettaway Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. 

The grant recipients were among 1,145 nonprofit national, regional, state and local organizations recommended for a grant as part of the NEA’s second round of fiscal year 2011 grants. This design grant was part of the federal agency’s Access to Artistic Excellence Program. In total, the NEA will distribute more than $88 million to support projects nationwide. 

The Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, works to advance creative development in Arkansas through education, research and design solutions that enhance the physical environment. The Community Development Corp. steers investment activity in the Pettaway neighborhood and develops single-family housing in the area. 

The Community Design Center will spend 10 months generating the Pettaway Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. Designers hope to develop methods for urban infill that integrate contemporary innovations – such as green streets, transit-oriented development, urban agriculture, low-impact development live-work housing configurations – with existing historic buildings. They are using models they’ve already developed and applying them at a broader, neighborhood scale. 

“Like all well-established urban areas, the Pettaway neighborhood offers a rich mixture of lifestyle opportunities in the architecture and land uses close to downtown,” Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center. 

The plan will combine urban development with affordable housing and public transit planning. Ecological-based storm water management methods will be studied, including green streets, low-impact development, rainwater gardens, bioswales and stream restoration. Designers will propose that the city extend its downtown trolley system into a commuter streetcar system along a trunk line, which will connect the Pettaway neighborhood to the downtown business district and North Little Rock’s downtown. 

Affordable housing configurations with mixed uses will cater to artists and others employed in creative, innovative fields, while serving the neighborhood’s established constituents. The project team will explore an open space and landscape plan that will link underused parks with new pocket parks, drainage corridors, community gardens, recreation areas and pedestrian areas. 

Though the neighborhood is already strongly committed to and supportive of changes, this plan will better guide the development corporation actions. “Something like this can bring the bigger vision for what the neighborhood can be,” said Scott Grummer, executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp. “This, in turn, helps guide the corporation, the neighborhood and other developers in decisions they make for future developments.” 

The revitalization plan will be presented to the Pettaway neighborhood next spring. 

This plan will build on the MacArthur Park District Master Plan – a plan created by the Community Design Center that has won five national and two state design awards. Segments of that plan are slated for construction this year. In that plan for MacArthur Park, which borders the Pettaway area, one of the more visionary options was to build a pedestrian bridge over the interstate, which literally divided MacArthur Park, and reconnect the park and downtown to the Pettaway neighborhood. 

“There’s so much revitalization potential currently being exhibited in Little Rock that will allow it to flourish as a great mid-sized city,” Luoni said. “This plan will return low-density urban neighborhood options to the table, providing a mix of classes with affordable choices for living downtown.” 

For the past two years, the Fay Jones School of Architecture has partnered with the Community Development Corp. to design and build two affordable, sustainable homes in the Pettaway neighborhood. Both homes are located on East Commerce Street. 

Luoni said the school’s design/build program and this new neighborhood plan approach revitalization from different scales. “We’re going to look at the building blocks of good neighborhood development and planning, with an aggregate thinking that exceeds what one can accomplish on a single piece of property,” he said. “The design/build program serves as an exemplary model for what can be accomplished through building typology at the micro-scale. They are building stunning, high-concept houses that are affordable.” 

Illinois Institute of Technology

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Seventeen student projects from the first-year IIT Architecture 114 Studio 2 class are currently on display on the grounds of the Farnworth House in Plano, Illinois. The final project was entitled “Shade,” and students worked in groups of two or three to design and construct projects consistent with that theme. The work was an academic exercise, but the materials used for the project—cedar and corrugated plastic—were selected knowing that the projects would be displayed outdoors. In early April the entire class of 100+ students visited the Farnsworth House to understand the site conditions and tour the house. The projects were then designed for specific sites, qualities of light, and views on the Farnsworth grounds. The seven IIT instructors involved in the project are Kathy Nagle, Paul Pettigrew, Jill Danly, Coleen Humer, Lukasz Kowalczyk, Alex Paradiso, and Amanda Williams, exhibited in cooperation with Farnsworth House Executive Director Whitney French. The projects will be on display at the Farnsworth House at least through the end of the summer.

IIT Architecture Dean Donna Robertson will serve as the Vice-President/President-Elect of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). She began her term as vice president on July 1, and will begin a one-year term as president in July 2012. Robertson joins ACSA with a long record of service in the profession. She served as an ACSA representative to the NAAB board of directors, including one year as president in 2003. While serving NAAB, Robertson chaired the 2003 Validation Conference, during which the organization revised its Conditions for Accreditation. The ACSA is a non-profit membership association founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. The ACSA has more than 250 member schools representing more than 5,000 faculty. The association maintains a variety of activities that influence, communicate, and record important issues. Such endeavors include scholarly meetings, workshops, publications, awards and competition programs, support for architectural research, policy development, and liaison with allied organizations.

A July 15 Inside Higher Ed article looks at the gender makeup of university academic leadership, noting that at IIT women “lead three of the university’s schools — including engineering and architecture.” http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/07/15/at_university_of_richmond_women_hold_majority_of_academic_dean_jobs

Donna V. Robertson FAIA is featured in the May/June 2011 Issue of Chicago Architect Magazine.

http://ctbuh.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=8g942yWDZzg%3d&tabid=62&language=en-US

Donna V. Robertson FAIA was the Keynote Lecturer for the Hunter Douglas’ Archiprix Tour 2011. The study trip is with 190 people from 22 countries. The majority of the audience members were architects of the better to best level in their respective countries. The event was held on Tuesday, 7 June 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Chicago, IL

Adjunct Associate Professor, John DeSalvo, Wins AIA Chicago Small Projects Honor Award. John DeSalvo Design, won the top honor award at the AIA Chicago Small Projects Awards on June 10th for the Retreat House/Church Residence. The summer beach home in Michigan City, Indiana uses natural and local materials and features a metal exterior.

DeSalvo’s project was also featured in the June 2011 issue of Dwell Magazine.

Read the column, “My House: Come Sail Away”.

Adjunct Professor Barbara Geiger’s book Low-Key Genius: The Life and Work of Landscape-Gardener O.C. Simonds [Paperback] is recently released and available at Amazon.com.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported on July 8 that President Obama has appointed IIT Adjunct Professor Terry Guen as a member of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Guen is president and principal of Terry Guen Design Associates, Inc. and teaches in the landscape architecture program.

Adjunct Professor Thomas Roszak designs New Welcome Gallery at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Completed in June 2011, the new Clark Family Welcome Gallery at Adler Planetarium, Chicago, IL may now be added to the growing list of unique and interesting projects of Thomas Roszak Architecture, LLC.  Through smart and collaborative design, Roszak led the team to meet project goals by creating a multifunctional space that provides a welcoming gathering area while also initiating an exciting pre-show experience necessary in optimizing the planetarium’s main event, the Sky Theater. http://thomasroszak.blogspot.com/2011/06/thomas-roszak-architecture-designs-new.html

Tenure-Track, Assistant Professor, Christopher D. Rockey of Rockey Structures, participates as a judge in the 2010-2011 ACSA/AISA Steel Design Student Competition for a Homeless Assistance Center. Criteria for the judging of submissions includes the creative use of structural steel in the design solution, successful response of the design to its surrounding context, and successful response to basic architectural concepts such as human activity needs, structural integrity, and coherence of architectural vocabulary.

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Marshall Brown is featured in the July Brooklyn Rail article chronicling the recent efforts of activists to steer the troubled Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in Brooklyn in a new, more community-focused direction, includes quotes from IIT Assistant Professor of Architecture Marshall Brown, who is a founding member of the UNITY group proposing an alternate development plan for the area. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/07/local/unity-a-desperate-plea-for-adult-supervision

Associate Professor John Ronan just won the Rudy Bruner award, see here: http://www.brunerfoundation.org/rba/index.php?page=News-2011Awarde

Catholic University of America

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Photo by Danya Bateman

Closing this Fall Series, the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America will be presenting the lecture “Mies van der Rohe: A Negative Theology” by Professor Thomas Mical, November 20th at 6:00pm. Professor Mical will reflect upon tactics of negation, absence, and a focus upon subtractive processes within the architecture and legacy of Mies van der Rohe, while drawing upon the under-examined spiritual context of the avant-garde recodings of historical and technological forces driving modernity. The lecture reinterprets Mies van der Rohe later glass, concrete, and steel design provocations as an incomplete negation, with details persisting as hosts of telling traces or minimal differences exposed in the historical turbulence of the twentieth century. Modern architecture after Mies is repurposed as a demonstration of what must remain almost hidden and nearly silent within the spatial arenas of modern transparency. Thomas Mical is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of South Australia, where he does research in the history of modern thought in architecture. He has published widely on surrealism, transparency, and cinematic urbanism and taught in several universities in the U.S. and internationally, including the Illinois Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Carleton University, and the Vienna University of Technology. The lecture will be at the Koubek Auditorium, Crough Center for Architectural Studies, The Catholic University of America, 620 Michigan Ave. N.E. Washington D.C. All are welcomed.

University of Puerto Rico

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Dean Francisco Javier Rodriguez and Professor Sotirios Kotoulas are organizing the symposium The Education of an Architect Hedjuk and Cooper Union forty years later, to be held on May 2011 at the School of Architecture.

Professor Elio Martinez Joffre, director of Taller Comunitario, and architect  Fernando Pla are developing  together with Omega Engineer AIA vice president Jaime Sobrino and a selected group of students the Ricky Martin Foundation project.

Professor Manuel Bermudez is conducting a joint design studio at the Pedro Enrique Urena University in the Dominican Republic. This joint effort will result in an exhibition on the cities in the Caribbean and will include design studio projects already developed in Havana, New Orleans, and Cartagena.

Professors Anna Georas and Manuel Bermudez coordinated the  Monserrate Studio together with architect Winka Dubbeldam and Ferda Kolatan from University of Pennsylvania and architect Julio Salcedo from the City College of New York. The  community based urban project was sponsored by Interlink.

Dean Francisco Javier Rodriguez and Prof. Darwin Marrero recently published the book Arquitectura Contemporanea en Puerto Rico 1993-2010

Prof. Jorge Lizardi organized the symposium Vivir y pensar la comunidad moderna, historias y memorias de la vivienda social,  which will result into a publication on the development of social housing in the 20th century.

Prof. Lilliana Ramos Collado was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in order to develop a Masters Program on the History of art in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.

Professors Jorge Ramirez Buxeda, Manuel Bermudez, Pedro Cardona, Darwin Marrero, Francisco Rodriguez, Carlos Garcia, and Universidad Politecnica professor Ivonne Marcial conducted the design charrette Ciudades del Futuro (Cities of the Future) wich  took place at the Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas de Puerto Rico.  The project was a collaboration between University of Puerto Rico, Universidad Politecnica, and the Colegio de Arquitectos.

For the fourth consecutive year the School of Architecture will participate in the Stanford Studio project under the leadership and coordination of professor Humberto Cavallin. 

Professors Javier Isado and Edgardo Arroyo will be developing the Solar Decathlon together with the Elisava School of Architecture in Barcelona.

Professors Carlos Garcia and Carlos Perez are finalists in the GET Competition sponsored by the Galeria Nacional/Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena.

Dean Francisco Javier Rodriguez presented the lecture Three Short Stories without an ending at Tulane University. The lecture focused on the architectural context in Puerto Rico.

Professor Javier Isado was part of the symposium on digital narratives in the Dominican Republic.  The conference was organized by Unibe’s professor Marcos Barinas and will result into a publication.

Professors Crisitna Algaze and Brenda Martinez are conducting the LEED sustainability studio at the School of Architecture.   

University of Minnesota

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Blaine Brownell, Assistant Professor
This year, Princeton Architectural Press published Brownell’s fourth book, entitled Matter in the Floating World: Conversations with Leading Japanese Architects and Designers. The book considers Japan’s sophisticated design and material culture, and is organized along four primary themes—lightness, atmosphere, flow, and emergence. The book includes interviews with twenty individuals including Hitoshi Abe, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and Kazuyo Sejima. Brownell continues to write a monthly one-page column entitled “Mind & Matter” in Architect magazine, in addition to a blog that appears twice a week on Architect’s website. In July, Brownell wrote “An Uncertain Future” about Japanese architects’ perspectives on rebuilding Japan in a supplement to the London Times. His article “Peering into the Floating World” about Japanese designers’ approaches to light and materials appeared in the June issue of Architectural Lighting. Christopher Kanal interviewed Brownell for his article “Houses of the Rising Sun” in the November issue of Sublime magazine. Brownell also gave lectures entitled ““Material Evolution: Assessing Disruptive Change in Technology and Nature” at Harvard University on September 16 and “Material Resilience: Innovative Technologies for Adaptable Buildings and Cities” at the University of Southern California on September 13. Brownell continues to co-direct the Master of Science in Architecture–Sustainable Design program with Jim Lutz at the University of Minnesota.

Marc Swackhamer, Associate Professor of Architecture
The Weisman Art Museum (WAM) at the University of Minnesota announced in October that a team led by School of Architecture Adjunct Professors Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James of VJAA, working with Associate Professor Marc Swackhamer and Blair Satterfield of HouMinn Practice and artist Diane Willow, Associate Professor in the University of Minnesota School of Fine Art, was announced the winner of the Weisman Art Museum’s Plaza Design Competition. The competition focused on the plaza at the east end of Washington Avenue Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. This is a busy thoroughfare for bikers and pedestrians. Students, staff, faculty and visitors to the Twin Cities Campus, over 20,000 people per day, use this important public space. The next phase of the project will be to hold meetings with the winning team, and the campus community, in the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration to refine the design and implement the plan.

John Comazzi, Assistant Professor of Architecture
John Comazzi (Assistant Professor of Architecture and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture), was an invited presenter and moderator at the annual conference of the Association of Architecture Organizations in Philadelphia, PA.  Comazzi is a co-chair of the organizations Architecture and Design Education Network (A+DEN).  He has also been invited to join the planning committee for the upcoming Midwest regional conference for the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) to be held in Minneapolis in April 2012.  

Professor Julia W. Robinson
Julia Robinson is teaching an undergraduate design studio that is working with the Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood of the city of St Paul, exploring how to design dense housing acceptable to the neighborhood on a 2 1/2 acre site.

Illinois Institute of Technology

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Donna V. Robertson FAIA, Dean, John and Jeanne Rowe Chair was the Keynote Lecturer for the Hunter Douglas Archiprix Tour 2011. The study trip is with 190 people from 22 countries. The majority of the audience are architects of the better to best level in their respective countries. The event was held on Tuesday, 7 June 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Chicago, IL.

Associate Professor, Frank Flury, participated as a Design/Build/Learn panelist at the Gene Siskel Film Center in the  “Design Directs Everything” Architecture & Design Film Festival on May 5-9, 2011, Chicago, IL.Welcome to the nation’s largest film festival celebrating the creative spirit behind some of the worlds’ most remarkable architecture and design. At this year’s festival, we are showing 39 films from 11 countries that range in length from two minutes to 93 minutes, and run the gamut from feature length films to seldom screened documentaries and prize-winning shorts.

Assistant Professor, Marshall Brown appears in a documentary film about the Atlantic Yards Project, The Battle for Brooklyn, in which he has been involved for the past eight years. The film played at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Saturday, 4 June and Wednesday, 8 June 2011.

Assistant Professor, Sean Keller discusses the design of the Willis Tower, for a Medill Reports article last Tuesday on Chicago skyscrapers.

John Ronan Architects and Ross Barney Architects were recognized with merit awards at the American Institute of Architects’ Educational Facility Design Awards. AIA’s press release notes that the program aims to “identify trends and emerging ideas, honor excellence in planning and design, and disseminate knowledge about best practices in educational and community facilities.” Associate Professor John Ronan’s  firm, John Ronan Architects, received a merit award for Chicago’s Gary Comer College Prep, a design which the committee thought “reflects the youth and optimism of [the school’s] faculty and students.” Adjunct Professor Carol Ross Barney’s firm, Ross Barney Architects, was also recognized with a merit award for James | Swenson Civil Engineering Building in Duluth, Minnesota.  The LEED Gold certified building highlights design elements related to the field of civil engineering.

Assistant Professor Christopher Rockey participated as a jury member in the ACSA/AISC Steel Student Design Competition in Washington, D.C.

College of Architecture Board of Overseer, John Syvertsen of OWPP / Cannon Design, was also a jury member.  https://www.acsa-arch.org/files/competitions/Steel/10-11_AISC_Website/judging.html

Adjunct Professor, Barbara Geiger just published a book titled, Low-Key Genius: The Life and Work of Landscape-Gardener O.C. Simonds.

Adjunct Associate Professor, John DeSalvo. The June 2011 issue of Dwell highlights “Church Residence,” a Michigan City, Ind. home designed by IIT Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture John DeSalvo and his firm, John DeSalvo Design. The house serves as a weekend home for Chicago-based surgeon Nancy Church and her husband.

 

University of Oklahoma

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The University of Oklahoma dedicated Gould Hall for the College of Architecture in a public ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 14. It is the first time that students from all five disciplines – architecture, construction science, interior design, landscape architecture, and regional and city planning – are housed under one roof. The result, says College of Architecture Dean Charles Graham, will be greater opportunities for interdisciplinary study and a more rounded learning experience. The newly renovated building features a two-story, vaulted gallery – the Buskuhl Gallery – that allows for the flexibility of lighting and space necessary to adequately accommodate the students’ work in a professional manner, as well as a beautiful space in which to host receptions, symposia and traveling exhibits. Among the innovative features of the new building are a “Super Studio,” featuring two 40-inch plasma televisions and an interactive technology table, which allows six students to share their work with the professor and other students, and a full and mini “Learn Lab.” Learn Labs differ from traditional classrooms in that they have no typical “front”; rather, space is arranged in such a way as to encourage interaction among the students and professor. Three projectors allow students to share their work on one or all of the screens, and a ceiling-view document camera can be used to zoom in on an object and display it on one or more of the projector screens.

Oklahoma educator and urban designer Blair Humphreys was named Executive Director of the Institute for Quality Communities at the OU College of Architecture. The Institute for Quality Communities, founded in 2008, builds on OU’s success as an outstanding research university. Humphreys will guide the Institute in its work to build more vibrant, sustainable and equitable communities throughout Oklahoma and provide more research and educational opportunities for OU students. In spring 2011, Humphreys was the faculty adviser for a group of students from OU’s College of Architecture and Michael F. Price College of Business competing in a national urban design competition for The Urban Land Institute. The team placed in the top four, competing against 152 others from across the United States and Canada.

Ron Frantz, an architect who specializes in small-town design and preservation has joined the Institute for Quality Communities as the director of Small Town Studios. Frantz, who has done extensive work with both national and state Main Street programs, also has been named a Wick Carey Professor and will teach in the college’s Division of Architecture.  Frantz will provide design and planning experience by pairing faculty and students to projects in small towns across the state.

New York Institute of Technology

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Amale Andraos of WORKac served as Visiting Professor of Architecture for the Spring Semester.

Students at New York Institute of Technology are designing a sustainable model for school buildings in underserved school communities in the Dominican Republic; this is in collaboration with the Hostos Dream Project. In December 2010, a group of students were also awarded the grand prize for their design of an energy-efficient hangar for the historic U.S.S. Intrepid.

Professor Victor Deupi delivered a presentation on “Santissima Trinità degli Spagnoli and Ibero-American Patronage in 18th-century Rome” at the CAA annual conference in New York on February 12, 2011.

Professor Gabriel Fuentes recently delivered a paper entitled “Between History and Modernity: Searching for Lo Cubano in Modern Cuban Architecture” at the 2011 Cuba Futures: Past and Present International Symposium hosted at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). His essay will be published as part of an edited volume entitled Cuban Intersections of Urban and Literary Spaces published by SUNY Press in late 2011. Fuentes also  presented “Expanded Territories: Engaging the Emerging Urbanisms of the Developing World” at the 2010 ACSA Northeast Conference, Urban/Suburban Identity hosted by the University of Hartford.   

Professors Michael Schwarting and Frances Campagni delivered a lecture at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation on the Aluminaire House.  Professor Schwarting gave a paper entitled “Gestalt Theory in Architecture” at the Politecnico di Milano, where he also sat on studio reviews. Professor Campagni’s paintings and drawings were the subject of a solo exhibition on March 1-April 26 in Port Jefferson, NY.

Professor Vossoughian’s ground-breaking first book, Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis, has just been reissued in paperback. In the summer of 2012, Professor Vossoughian will also be a visiting scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. 

Rhode Island School of Design

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Professor Silvia Acosta and her colleagues in the core studio Architectural Design will realize a design/build project for a community garden in Pawtucket, RI, supported by Pawtucket Developer Louis Yip, the Pawtucket Foundation and New Urban Farmers. Clients include members of the Chinese Christian Church of RI, elders from Community Housing., and Heritage Park YMCA. 

Dan Wheeler FAIA, Wheeler Kerns Architects and RISD Architecture alumnus and publisher Lars M_ller were recent lecturers at the Department.  Mr. M_ller also led a workshop with students from the Graphic Design, Digital Media and Architecture departments.  German historian and former curator of Contemporary Architecture at MoMA Andres Lepik was among participants in the symposium Teaching Architecture beyond the Desk-Top Horizon.   Silvia Acosta, Thomas Gardner, Brian Goldberg and Enrique Martinez presented community engagement work completed at RISD in the past five years. 

RISD’s newly formed American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) presented The Façade Media Festival: Playing at Full Scale co-sponsored by art nouveau, curbs & stoops and Group GS.  The event showcased selected student works projected onto the north façade of the architecture building.

Students from Aki Ashida’s course installed Luminous Washi Lantern at the Japan Society in New York as part of a benefit for earthquake victims, which included a day-long workshop on lantern making.  The project was supported by grants from the Japan Society and the Center for Global Partnership.

In April, the Architecture Department launched a new website http://architecture.risd.edu. 

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