McGill University architecture graduate Jason Tsironis is the 2012 winner of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners.  Tsironis will examine the role of architecture in shaping national self identity through his project, Monuments and the Fabrication of New Identities – Architectural Transformations and Erasures in Post-Soviet Cities. His research will take him to 11 cities in seven countries of the former Soviet Union, including Moscow (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), Kiev (Ukraine) and Tbilisi (Georgia).  The $34,000 Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners is awarded to a recent graduate of one of Canada’s ten accredited schools of architecture who demonstrates outstanding potential. The prize winner is given the opportunity to visit significant architectural sites abroad and to intern at an architecture firm of international stature.  Tsironis will work with David Chipperfield Architects in Berlin, Germany, a firm at the forefront of designing in vulnerable historical contexts.

The School of Architecture is pleased to welcome Professor Ipek Türeli as a new faculty member in January 2012. Professor Türeli received her PhD from UC Berkeley in 2008, following professional training at the Architectural Association in London (1998).  Professor Türeli is teaching in second-year studio.

 

Andrew King is our Gerald Sheff Visiting Professor for winter and summer of 2012.  Professor King will teach in the third-year studio, followed by a Masters studio dedicated to healthcare infrastructure design in May and June.  He will deliver a lecture in our evening series on February 13.

 

Emeritus Professor Radoslav Zuk was awarded the State Prize of Ukraine for Architecture for 2011 for the design of the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the city of Lviv.

 

Retired Professor Pieter Sijpkes’ innovative research on ice was featured in WIRED (January 2012): www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/st_3diceprinting/

 

Professor Aaron Sprecher‘s Laboratory on Integrated Prototyping in Hybrid Environments (LIPHE), funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, is now operational. This sophisticated digital fabrication laboratory aims at generating transdisciplinary research projects between architects, industrial designers and engineers. LIPHE features high-end equipment such as a unique large-bed, multi-material 3D printer, a large six-axis robotic arm, and CNC plasma cutter.  Professor Sprecher is currently engaged in a series of research projects with Professors Damiano Pasini (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) and Jorge Angeles (Centre for Intelligent Machines).  Professor Sprecher is co-chair of the upcoming 15th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics (ICGG) that will take place at McGill University in August 2012.