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Study Architecture ProPEL

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

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Renowned landscape architect and planner Drew Wensley has been appointed a visiting professor of practice in the University of Tennessee, College of Architecture and Design.

Wensley is chief executive officer of Canada-based Moriyama & Teshima, a globally recognized planning and landscape architecture firm. He will visit the College of Architecture and Design numerous times a semester, and work remotely with faculty and students on various projects.

“Drew is a great addition to the Landscape Architecture Program for several reasons, not the least of which is his firm’s global reach,” said Gale Fulton, chair of the UT Landscape Architecture program. “His wide range of professional experiences, including large-scale planning projects and exquisitely detailed built works from South America to the Middle East, will add a new dimension to the local and regional work in which our faculty and students are currently engaged.”

UT professor of practice positions are set up so faculty can provide detailed hands-on education in specific areas. There are about twelve such positions across various UT colleges. Wensley will relay his experiences and his professional practice activities through topics taught in the Landscape Architecture Program’s design studios.

Wensley has contributed to some of the largest and most significant city building and environmental restoration initiatives in the Middle East, Asia, and North America. In 2001, he started the vision and implementation of the Wadi Hanifah Comprehensive Development Plan in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a bio-renewal effort producing a 120-kilometer-long oasis with forty-two kilometers of recreational trails, three lakes, six parks, and nearly 40,000 trees.

The project marked a shift in how environmental systems and natural resources are treated and preserved and their importance in building strong sustainable cities in the future. As a result, Wensley presented the plan to the Council for Sustainable Development and Delegates at the United Nations in New York as a leading example of sustainable urban renewal.

Wensley’s consulting work with Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM), a leading urban planning, architecture, and engineering firm, on urban planning initiatives around the world led to his involvement with Philip Enquist, the UT Governor’s Chair for High Performance Energy Practices in Urban Environments. Wensley is a contributing partner in the Governor’s Chair’s collaboration between SOM, UT, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to research and create solutions for resilient cities.

“Developing more resilient cities requires this highly integrated partnership among numerous disciplines, and I am excited that UT is becoming a hub for this type of research and practice,” Fulton said. “Graduates of our program will benefit greatly in their future careers as a result of these opportunities and experiences.”

As a leader at Moriyama & Teshima, Wensley has contributed to more than $1.2 billion of construction internationally. Projects include the new campus plan for Kuwait University, a new home for 40,000 students, and the Comprehensive Environmental Plan for the city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia. In Canada, projects include Calgary’s East Village Riverwalk, the Lakehead University Campus Plan, the Havergal College Campus Plan, the Canadian War Museum, and ongoing work with His Highness the Aga Khan in Toronto and Ottawa.

Wensley is a graduate of Ryerson University in Canada. His design drawings are housed at the Ontario Archives in Toronto and were recently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Denmark. For more information about Wensley, visit the faculty profile page of the UT Landscape Architecture Program website.

North Dakota State University

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DATES: March 26-27, 2015
LOCATION: Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre, Fargo, North Dakota

March 26th, 1pm to 5:30pm:
Greg Lynn, FORM, UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design
Garth Rockcastle, MSR Design
Alice Twemlow, D-Crit and co-founder SVA MFA Design Criticism program

March 27th, 7:30am to 12pm:
Mahesh Daas, chair of the Department of Architecture and ACSA
Distinguished Professor, Ball State University, College of
Architecture and Planning
Tom Fisher, Professor and Dean of the College of Design, University of Minnesota
Kristine Jensen, landscape architect, Arkitekt Kristine Jensen, Denmark

To expand critical dialogue on design education, engaging the public,
academia, and practice, the NDSU Department of Architecture and
Landscape Architecture will host a symposium addressing “the future of
design education,” featuring panel discussions and open forums between
diverse participants of strong national, regional, and local
reputation in design fields.

The symposium is proposed to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of
the founding of the Department, and in this context, will provide an
opportunity for participants to critically reflect on the trajectory
of design education over a considerable time period, even as they
speculate about future directions.

Through the venue of panel discussions and open forums scheduled over
a two-day period, invited speakers will address aspirations,
challenges, and anticipated goals for design education from their
unique perspectives. By bringing a diverse roster of speakers
together, the symposium also seeks to build collaboration and catalyze
future inquiry.

Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information, please go to the website.

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

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In the five years since a massive earthquake rocked the island nation of Haiti, UT faculty and students have helped the country’s rebuilding efforts by designing a secondary school, housing, and a clinic that are now in various stages of construction.

Next up: the design of preschools to address the education needs of the country’s youngest citizens.

“Since 2010, UT’s Haiti projects have given students hands-on experience in creating designs for real spaces and real people that bring about change,” said Ali Alsaleh, a fifth-year architecture major who took part in a fall 2014 Haiti studio class. Today marks the fifth anniversary of the earthquake.

“In architecture and design studios, our clients are usually hypothetical,” said Alsaleh, who helped design one of the preschools that will be built.

He traveled to Haiti in the fall with a UT team to learn more about the country and its needs.

“Our involvement in Haiti has actually had real outcomes. We got to speak to the actual people who will be using our buildings. It made me realize that architecture can help rebuild a community and refocused my passion for architecture as a humanitarian field.”

The UT Haiti Project, led by the College of Architecture and Design and a collaboration between various UT programs, has made students more sensitive to cross-cultural differences, how to respond to the needs of others, and how to work well across disciplines, said Architecture Professor John McRae, who helped launch the project.

“That’s important in their overall professional development,” he said.

UT has partnered with the Haiti Development Fund and its executive director, Jean Thomas, on all its projects. The organization pays for the construction of the buildings, and members of the UT Haiti Project provide some oversight, McRae said.

Knoxville nonprofit HaitiServe helped defray the cost of travel for UT faculty and students.

A look at the UT-designed Haiti projects and their status:

  • L’Exode Secondary School: UT faculty and students in spring 2011 designed a three-phase school master plan, which will serve students in grades seven to twelve. The first phase of construction— five first-story classrooms, restrooms, and the cafeteria-meeting hall—was completed in 2012, and the school welcomed its first students that fall. The school is in Fond-des-Blancs, seventy miles outside the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

This month, construction begins on the second phase of the school—an outdoor athletic stadium. The school will eventually include more classrooms, a library and dormitories. It currently has 100 students and will eventually serve up to 500 children.

  • Housing: In spring 2012, the UT Haiti Project designed fourteen houses for the Fond-des-Blancs community. So far, one has been constructed. The home currently houses participants of the Caleb Fellows Program, which trains young men and then sends them out into the community to provide leadership and be catalysts for change.
  • Medical clinic: In spring 2013, the College of Architecture and Design, in partnership with the College of Nursing, US organization Friends of Fort Liberte, and Knoxville architect Chris King, designed an addition and the complete overhaul of a medical clinic in Fort Liberte, a community about eleven miles from the Dominican Republic border. Funds are currently being raised for the work.
  • New gate: In spring 2014, the Haiti Project designed a new steel gate for the L’Exode Secondary School. Local artist Preston Farabow built it, and he and McRae will go to Haiti in May to install it.
  • LIFEHouse guidebook: UT created the book to address the urgent need for adequate building standards in the country and emphasize the lesser-known relationship between housing design and disease prevention. The book will be translated into French, English, and Creole, and will showcase how Haitians can build secure and healthy homes using local materials and methods.
  • Preschools: In fall 2014, the Haiti studio designed a preschool for Fond-des-Blancs that will serve up to 450 youngsters. A group of architecture students and faculty, along with Robyn Brookshire, director of the UT Early Learning Center, traveled to Haiti to learn more about the country’s early childhood education system to help them come up with the design. Based on the work done in the fall 2014 studio, students in a fall 2015 studio course will design more preschools for rural Haitian communities.
  • Haiti disaster response master’s thesis: A master’s thesis project by Mallory Barga proposed new direction for rebuilding and transitional housing in the country. Barga’s project, which won the College of Architecture and Design’s top award in spring 2014, provided input for the work done in the Haiti studio in fall 2014. A copy was sent to the Haiti Development Fund.

“We’ve tried to capture the vision of what everyone hopes is a new Haiti,” McRae said.

Learn more about the Haiti Project on its website.

ACSA Update 1.30.15

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January 30, 2015

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acsa

2015 Architectural Education Award Winners

ACSA is pleased to announce the 2014-2015 Architectural Education Award Winners. Each year, ACSA honors architectural educators for their work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, and service. Award winners inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base, and extend their work beyond the borders of academy into practice and the public sector. Congratulations to all the award winners! Read about the winning submissions on our website, and be sure to join us in celebrating the winners in Toronto at the 103rd ACSA Annual Meeting.

 

acsa

ACSA 103: Register today to save $130!

ACSA will be in Toronto for this year’s Annual Meeting. We have a fantastic set of keynote speakers, tours, and sessions lined up. Be sure the check out the schedule of events on our website. Advanced registration ends February 4th. Register today and save $130.

 

acsa

Each year, ACSA welcomes new members to its national board of directors to help shape the direction of the organization. Visit the ACSA website to learn more about this year’s slate of candidates. Faculty Councilors must complete the ballot by 5pm PT, February 10, 2015.

 

acsa

Submit Your Abstracts to the ACSA Fall Conference

Syracuse University School of Architecture will host this year’s ACSA Fall Conference, October 8-10. The goal of the conference is to use a debate-style, cross-examination to find the potential of a new architectural object that can be informed by the tension between opposing views and changing realities that offer new, dynamic conditions. Abstracts are due April 1, 2015.

 

acsa

Submit to JAE 69-2 S,M,L,XL

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the publication of Rem Koolhaas/OMA’s S,M,L,XL, this special issue of JAE will serve as a platform to revisit, expose, and otherwise reevaluate the book’s ineluctable influence(s) on the practice and writing of architecture. Submission deadline is March 1, 2015.

The Architecture Library Today: Results of a Recent Survey

Specialized library collections are often treated differently from more general academic collections. There is rarely a separate reference desk, subject floor, or branch for humanities or social sciences resources. Yet it is quite common to find a law library within the academic building and often operated by the actual law school. The Association of Architecture School Librarians recently conducted a survey on the topic of branch libraries for architecture.

ACSA CAREERS

ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE
Washington State University

 

 

Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education.

 

University of Minnesota

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Thomas Fisher, Dean: After nearly two-decades as Dean at the University of Minnesota, Thomas Fisher has announced that he will step down from that position in the summer of 2015. After leaving the deanship this summer, he will assume the positions of Dayton Hudson Land Grant Chair in Urban Design and director of the University’s Metropolitan Design Center. In that capacity, he will continue his research and teaching in conjunction with metro-area partners and grant makers. Professor Fisher also finished the manuscript for his next book, Some Possible Futures, as well as two introductions to books on the work of Pugh + Scarpa and Fernau & Hartman, and two chapters on books dealing with architecture labor and public-interest design. He continues to write for the last page of Architect magazine every other month and for a variety of other publications. Professor Renee Cheng, who served as Head of the School of Architecture from 2004-2014, and stepped down from that position on July 1 to assume a new leadership role as Associate Dean for Research and Outreach at the College of Design. During her tenure Professor Cheng established the nation’s first and only Bachelor of Design in Architecture (BDA), and more recently the Master of Science in Research Practice (MS-RP), which aims at halving the amount of time from high school to licensure for architects–from an average of 14.5 years to 7. Associate professor of architecture Marc Swackhamer has been named head of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. He has served as the director of the University’s Master of Architecture program since 2012 and is the co-founder of HouMinn Practice, which focuses on full-scale prototyping of lightweight, responsive, and digitally pre-fabricated construction systems. “The discipline of architecture is undergoing tremendous change,” says Swackhamer. “Schools must quickly and nimbly adjust to those changes, yet remain clear and stable with regards to the disciplinary core of the profession. I envision a program that will lead the discipline through a dynamically changing landscape, while simultaneously clarifying and stabilizing the long-held skills that distinguish architecture from other fields of study.” Associate Professor Ozayr Saloojee (Architecture) was awarded the University of Minnesota Imagine Chair in the Arts, Design and Humanities for 2014-2016. He will work on a collaborative project over a two year cycle of programming that includes an exhibition, symposia and coursework with faculty from across the University (in the Twin Cities and in Duluth campuses of the University of Minnesota). Additionally, Professor Saloojee and a collaborative team (including James Wheeler-Architecture, Vince deBritto-Landscape Architecture, and Jamuna Golden-Landscape Architecture) from the University of Minnesota were awarded a Bush Foundation Community Innovation Grant for a two year cycle of work in partnership with the St. Louis River Alliance and Duluth-LISC (Duluth). This group will work in and with communities, stakeholders, public, private, local and state partners in Duluth to help imagine and develop a resilient and sustainable urban future for the St. Louis River Corridor. Associate Professor Blaine Brownell is the new Director of the Master of Architecture program and the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. He is also the 2014 Materials and Products Chair for Hanley Wood’s Vision 2020 program, and presented “Visible Green: New Material Opportunities in Sustainable Design” at the Vision 2020 symposium at Greenbuild in October. He published an article of the same title in EcoBuilding Review (Winter 2014), as well as “Material Resilience in Two Dimensions” in the Journal of the National Institute of Building Sciences (April 2014) and the essay “Manipulating the Material Code” in Materials Experience (Elsevier, 2013). He continues to contribute regularly to the Mind & Matter column in Architect magazine. Associate Professor John Comazzi delivered a lecture on the life and career of the architecture photographer Balthazar Korab in Columbus, IN (November 20). Korab is the subject of Comazzi’s book Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012). Comazzi was also a panelist at the recent AIA-MN Convention on the subject of Design-Build in the academy. He was joined by Marc Swackhamer, Head of the Architecture Department at UMN to discuss the opportunities for collaboration with practitioners, community organizations, and industry on design-build projects.

University of Colorado Denver

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CU Denver offers undergraduate architecture degree in Colorado

DENVER (January 26, 2015) The University of Colorado Denver College of Architecture and Planning is pleased to announce the creation of the Bachelor of Science in Architecture program. The new degree is the only program in Colorado to offer architecture specific coursework to undergraduates.

CU Denver received approval from the Board of Regents to initiate a four year BS in Architecture degree program in October 2012. The new program has now completed four semesters and has grown from 32 students in the first semester to 213 in the Fall 2013 semester.  The program has also attracted over 35 international students, including a cohort of 23 students from Brazil in an agreement with the Brazilian government, and numerous community colleges and out of state transfers.

As a pre-professional program, the BS in Architecture program prepares graduates to enter accredited professional Master of Architecture (MArch) programs at CU Denver and across the country. Students who complete the BS in Architecture degree and enroll in the MArch program at CU Denver have the advantage of completing the MArch degree in two years instead of the usual three and a half years to complete a Master’s program. _ The MArch degree is the NAAB accredited professional program.

“The CU Denver undergraduate and graduate Architecture programs offer citizens in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain region, and beyond, a clear path to the practice of architecture,” said Program Director Phillip Gallegos. “Students in our BSArch program benefit and learn from close contact with graduate students, practicing architects and other design, construction and real estate professionals working in the field.”

The University of Colorado Denver provides a quality academic experience through engagement with gifted faculty members, exposure to original research and real-world learning. Located in the heart of downtown, CU Denver offers its 14,000 students unparalleled internship, career and networking opportunities. Part of the fabric of the city, CU Denver has evolved into a leading urban public university boasting eight schools and colleges, and offering bachelor through doctoral degrees. CU Denver is a community where students learn with purpose and benefit from a range of opportunities that enhance their lives and careers.

For more information please contact:

Phillip Gallegos, Arch D

Associate Professor

Director, Bachelor of Science in Architecture Program

Phillip.gallegos@ucdenver.edu

Ekaterini Vlahos, Professor

Chair, Department of Architecture

Kat.vlahos@ucdenver.edu

Washington University in St. Louis

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IN THE NEWS

Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association is the first public museum exhibition of drawings from the private collection of Boyarsky, arguably one of the most influential figures in 20th-century design education and the longtime chair of the Architectural Association in London. It also explores Boyarsky’s role as a collector of drawings and, metaphorically speaking, of the ideas and people that have come to define a key moment in architectural history. The exhibition is co-organized by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum). It is curated by Igor Marjanovi_, associate professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School, and Jan Howard, curator of prints, drawings and photographs and curatorial chair at the RISD Museum. Marjanovic participated in numerous programs related to the exhibition, including gallery talks and a panel discussion with Chris Bardt, Jan Howard, and Lesley Lokko.

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Assistant professor Derek Hoeferlin and associate professor John Hoal presented a MISI-ZIIBI workshop studying climate change issues in Brisbane, Australia, during the Deltas in Times of Climate Change conference. Hoeferlin and  Hoal, were both instrumental in the redesign of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In addition, the two faculty took a ride down the Mississippi River with KPLR’s Patrick Clark in an effort to encourage St. Louis residents to look towards the future. Work for MISI-ZIIBI: Living with the Great Rivers was also featured in an exhibit at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference. Their exhibit, funded in part by a WUSTL I-CARES grant, will display multidisciplinary research that deploys a workshop framework methodology and climate adaptation performance model for climate change scenario planning for multiuse “fluvial zones” along the Mississippi River basins and abroad. Lecturer Jonathan Stitelman produced the exhibit design.
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Associate professors Sung Ho Kim and Heather Woofter, co-founders of Axi:Ome, discussed ways urban spaces can connect through art at the CEL Center for Architecture + Design, as part of St. Louis Design Week.

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Associate professor Zeuler R. Lima, PhD, delivered the opening lecture for the exhibition 3 Sites, Lina Bo Bardi, organized in collaboration with the Johann Jacobs Museum in Zurich. He we also deliver a lecture on his book “Lina Bo Bardi” at the 4th Symposium of Museum Architecture at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. In addition, Lima traveled to Germany to help set up a video he produced for the exhibition Lina Bo Bardi, 100, on view November 13-February 22 at the Architekturmuseum at the Technische Universität München. Lima also delivered a November 14 lecture at the symposium that accompanied the launch of the exhibition catalogue. On December 11, Lima delivered a lecture in Paris on his book and presented “Lina Bo Bardi, curator,” the short pedagogical film he wrote and produced about the architect’s museological experience and thought-provoking proposals. Last, the curators of the Museum of Modern Architecture at MAXXI, Rome, recently interviewed associate professor Lima about “Lina Bo Bardi,” his biographic book on the Italian-Brazilian architect. The interview will be included in the museum’s exhibition about Bo Bardi’s Italian experience, along with a video documentary Lima prepared for the show, which is on view December 18-March 15.
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Robert McCarter, the Ruth and Norman Moore Professor, discussed his new book on the work of Alvar Aalto in a lecture at the Saint Louis Art Museum. The Finnish architect and designer was one of the 20th-century’s most popular and accessible Modernist masters. A book signing will follow the lecture.
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Kelley Van Dyck Murphy and Lavender Tessmer, both lecturers in architecture, were among the winners of Sukkah City STL 2014: Between Absence and Presence. Presented by St. Louis Hillel and the Sam Fox School, the contemporary design competition challenged participants to reimagine the traditional Jewish sukkah through the lens of contemporary art and architecture. Ten cutting-edge sukkahs by architects and designers from around the nation were installed on campus.

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Senior lecturer in architecture Pablo Moyano Fernández presented the abstract Self-sufficient Housing in St. Louis at the Housing Education Research Association conference. The abstract speculates about why and how the city of St. Louis lost an alarming part of its population and suggests possibilities for the future. The presentation showcases a selection of design studio projects that address emergent challenges for future generations of designers.  

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Associate professor John Hoal, a founding partner of H3 Studio, is leading a team of local, national, and internationally known experts as finalists in a global design competition to improve river management and the rebuilding of the lower Mississippi River Delta. Titled Changing Course: Navigating the Future of the Lower Mississippi River Delta, the competition aims to halt land loss and restore the delta ecosystem while improving navigation and strengthening the resilience of local communities and industry. In addition to Hoal, WUSTL is represented with assistant professor Derek Hoeferlin, and several alumni serving on the H3 Studio design team, including project manager Matthew Bernstine (MUD14), as well as Laura Lyon (MArch00), Bryan Robinson (MArch04), Tim Breihan (MArch/MUD08), Courtney Cushard (MUD11), Colleen Xi Qiu (MArch/MUD12, MSAS13), and Junru Zheng (MLA14). In addition, Hoal sat down with a diverse panel of water experts and offered an important thought on “How we can reconstruct our neighborhoods, our cities, and our region to actually be water responsive, water-based cities” as part of Nine Network’s Stay Tuned.

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Visiting assistant professors Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller collaborated with artist Wendy Mark on an installation that is featured in Mark’s exhibition Beginning with Square One. Cloudspace is a custom-fabricated spatial and optical device that interprets and expands Mark’s work. Kripa and Mueller designed, fabricated, and installed the project; their project team included MArch students Yu Xin and Bin Feng, who assisted with the digital design and production files. Other students assisted in the prototyping process in the School’s fabrication lab.

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HUB: Hybrid Urban Bioscapes, a project led by assistant professor Catalina Freixas and senior lecturer Pablo Moyano, has been awarded a Neighbors Naturescaping grant. Their project aims to increase biodiversity in Old North St. Louis through the implementation of a rain garden and a nectaring garden. These small planting areas will allow the HUB team to register the project as part of the Milkweeds for Monarchs Initiative and help St. Louis reach its target of 200 new monarch gardens in 2014.
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The West End Neighborhood Sustainability Plan, produced by Master of Urban Design students, is the recipient of this year’s Outstanding Student Project Award from the Missouri Chapter of the American Planning Association. The plan was produced for the spring 2014 course Contemporary Practices of Sustainable Urbanism, taught by associate professor John Hoal, with Colleen Xi Qiu (MArch/MUD12, MSAS13) serving as a teaching assistant.

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Over the past two decades, the rise of “material studies” has energized various disciplines by proposing objects as the very object of study, thereby opening up new and vital questions about many well-trodden topics. This two-day symposium explored how material culture and artistic production have helped generate political change from antiquity to the present. Several members of the Sam Fox School discussed their papers: Jesse Vogler, visiting assistant professor, Monika Weiss, associate professor, Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and chief curator. In addition, Anna Vallye, postdoctoral research associate, moderated comments and discussion as the discussant for the panel on Spatialization.

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In 1974, more than 450 students, scholars, and practitioners from across the country came to Washington University to have courageous conversations about the status of women in architecture and allied fields. On November 7-9, the Sam Fox School marked the symposium’s 40th anniversary with Women in Architecture 1974 | 2014, a three-day event that celebrates the achievements of the last four decades but also underscores the need for continuing conversation–and action.

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Art + the Brain: Stories and Structures explored the complex histories, practices, and interconnections between art, architecture, medicine, and neuroscience with the human brain as a central focus. Participants included the Sam Fox School’s Sung Ho Kim (associate professor of architecture), Ron Leax (Halsey C. Ives Professor of Art), and Patricia Olynyk (director of the Graduate School of Art); WUSTL Arts & Sciences professors Rebecca Messbarger, Kathy Miller, and Larry Snyder; and Mark Cohen and Jim Gimzewski, and was co-sponsored by UCLA’s Art | Sci Center and Lab, the Sam Fox School, and WUSTL’s Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

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The O’Fallon Neighborhood Community Development and Design Program is one of 10 recipients of this year’s Outstanding Local Government Achievement Awards, presented by the East-West Gateway Council of Governments. The program is a collaboration between the Brown School’s Alliance for Building Capacity, Lou Colombo, the City of St. Louis, the O’Fallon Community Development Organization, and the North Newstead Association. As part of a fall 2012 course, visiting assistant professor Justin Scherma and Colombo led a team of students from both the Sam Fox School and the Brown School–including Alfredo Zertuche (MArch14), Binqi Luo (MArch15), Dustin Garness (BA11/MSW13)–in working with the community on housing and commercial center plans for the project. Neighborhood residents provided long-term vision statements, described desired outcomes, and prioritized strategies. The plans will be submitted for adoption by the City of St. Louis and provide a model for university-enabled neighborhood planning that is designed to give voice to disadvantaged citizens interested in working to improve their neighborhood.

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This fall, Downtown STL, Inc. and the Sam Fox School partnered to explore adaptive reuse possibilities for the Railway Exchange Building, working in cooperation with the owners of the iconic structure. At a December 10 reception and exhibition, students from Metamorphic Cities: Sustainable Strategies for Adaptive Reuse, a graduate architecture studio led by assistant professor Catalina Freixas, presented their responses to a call for innovative design ideas to reimagine the 21-story high-rise building, reinvigorate the surrounding area, and contribute to the continuing transformation of downtown St. Louis.

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Eric Mumford was appointed the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and a Faculty Scholar, Institute for Public Health, at Washington University in St. Louis. He also recently published two peer-reviewed articles: Eric Mumford, “The Changing Forms of Metropolitan North America,” in Evelien van Es, et al. eds., CIAM 4 and comparative analysis (Bussum, the Netherlands: Thoth, 2014) and Eric Mumford, “Alvar Aalto’s Urban Planning and CIAM Urbanism,” Alvar Aalto-Second Nature (Weil-am-Rhein, Germany: Vitra Design Museum, 2014).

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The curators of the Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Argentina awarded the Montessori Children’s School project submitted by Raymond E. Maritz Professor Adrian Luchini “Distinguished” honors (the equivalent of second prize) in the Landscape and City category. The project, which features an addition to an existing facility in St. Louis, sought to “operate within those aesthetic canons that normally define the lack of concrete identity in all suburbia in the U.S., while trying to radically change the existing image of a building from the ’60s.”

 

 

 

Washington University in St. Louis

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The curators of the Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Argentina awarded the Montessori Children’s School project submitted by Raymond E. Maritz Professor Adrian Luchini “Distinguished” honors (the equivalent of second prize) in the Landscape and City category. The project, which features an addition to an existing facility in St. Louis, sought to “operate within those aesthetic canons that normally define the lack of concrete identity in all suburbia in the U.S., while trying to radically change the existing image of a building from the ’60s.” 

University of Texas at Austin

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Faculty News January 2015

The School of Architecture received news of a $1 million grant from the Still Water Foundation, an Austin-based foundation that supports the arts and other causes.  The award is to support the renovation of the school’s Battle Hall (Cass Gilbert 1910), the West Mall Office Building, and to build the John S. Chase addition to the School of Architecture.

Associate Professor Emeritus Owen Cappleman passed away in Austin, Texas, on September 25, 2014, at the age of 76.

The T3 Parking Structure, designed by Associate Dean Elizabeth Danze and Senior Lecturer John Blood, Danze Blood Architects, has won the American Architecture Award for 2014 from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, together with The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and Metropolitan Arts Press. 

Two UTSOA faculty members have received 2014 University Co-op Research Awards.

Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla was awarded a $5,000 Creative Research Award for “Mixtec Stonecutting Artistry: 16th Century Ribbed Vaults in Mixteca, Mexico,” an exhibit that showcases three cathedral vaults using a 3-D laser point scanner and printer. Senior Lecturer Rachael Rawlins was awarded the $5,000 Best Research Paper Award for “Planning for Fracking on the Barnett Shale: Urban Air Pollution, Improving Health Based Regulation, and the Role of Local Governments,” Virginia Environmental Law Journal. The article undertakes the most comprehensive review and analysis of air quality monitoring, regulation, and health effects assessment on the Barnett Shale. 

Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe  presented the Guadalupe Garage Green Wall project research at the ACADIA 2014 Conference.

 

What is Old Becomes New

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Written by Barbara Opar
Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors

Internet giant, Google, reports that the impact of older journal articles is growing. This impact is being measured by citations.

Google Inc. researchers state that the impact of older articles is growing rather than decreasing. In 2013, 36 percent of citations referred to articles that were at least 10 years old, up 28 percent since 1990. Google staff determined nine broad areas of research and 261 specific subject categories when beginning their work. The subject categories were taken from the 2014 edition of Scholar Metrics.

Scholar Metrics is Google Scholar’s tool to measure the visibility and influence of scholarly articles in a specific field. Scholar Metrics lists the twenty top publications in each subject category,  generally  limiting them to English language publications.  The Scholar Metrics inclusion criteria requires a minimum of 100 articles published, at least one article from the journal between the years 2009 and 2013 to be cited, as well as adherence to Google Scholar’s  indexing guidelines.  Architecture is included as a subdivision of the social sciences. See the results at: http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=soc_architecture.

According to Google, the impact of older articles has grown in seven of the nine subject categories and 231 of the 261 subject divisions. To quote the article:

“In the introduction, we mentioned two broad trends that have the potential to influence the fraction of older citations. First, finding and reading relevant older articles is now about as easy as finding and reading recently published articles. This has made it easier for researchers to cite the most relevant articles for their work regardless of the age of the articles. Second, there has been a dramatic growth in the number of articles published per-year. This has significantly increased the number of recent articles that researchers need to situate their work in relation to by citing.

Our results suggest that of the two trends, the ease of finding and reading the most relevant articles, irrespective of their age, has had the larger impact. For most fields, retrospective digitization as well as inclusion in a broad-based search service with relevance ranking occurred in the second half of the period of study. As mentioned earlier, this is also the period that saw a larger growth in the fraction of older citations.”

Perhaps not surprisingly the highest growth has been in the category of Humanities, Literature & Arts where 51 percent of the citations for 2013 were to older articles. The Social Sciences saw a 43 percent rise in the use of older citations.  Business, Economics and Management also saw significant change. Chemical, Material Science and Engineering, though, have seen a drop in the number of older citations used.

With respect to architecture, the journals included as well as the articles cited may be somewhat surprising to those in the education field. Certainly there is an emphasis on the technical, be it digital fabrication or sustainability. One would presume given this predilection that the user would be looking for the newest articles on the topic of daylighting.  However, coinciding with Google’s findings, the articles consulted in the included journal titles are on average at least four years old, many in the realm of the “older” distinction of ten years.

As the full article notes, there have been other and earlier impact studies, some with different results. But Google contends that online availability does not result in use only of recent materials, but rather makes for ease of use of all articles, thus allowing the scholar to find the best and most appropriate body of knowledge to support the research. Online repositories and other means of scholarly communication as well as groups like Hathi Trust have helped make this happen. Thus older articles are now being cited with far greater frequency.

To read the full article, go to:
http://arxiv-web3.library..edu/pdf/1411.0275v1.pdf

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