University of Southern California

Assistant Professor Rachel Berney and Visiting AC Martin Chair Oliver Schulze are guiding students through an investigation of the Mobile City of LA in our current studio course, ARCH 642 “The Mobile City – People, Transport, & Public Life.”  While we tend to link the city of Los Angeles with the automobile (think: Missing Person’s “Nobody Walks in LA”), the reality of transportation in LA is far more complex. The city pioneered large streetcar systems in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The last incarnation of those systems – the red line – was collapsed in favor of embracing freeway construction in the mid 20th century. Since the 1970s, however, public transportation networks and services have grown rapidly in LA. The city now has the largest bus system in the United States and there has been more transit building in the last decade in LA than in any other city in the United States. LA also hosts the most-traveled urban commute rail line in the country – the Blue Line – with 80,000 trips per weekday. The next iteration of Los Angeles is that of THE MOBILE CITY, one connected and networked via public transit options with higher density housing at nodes and with opportunities to reweave the urban fabric of the city to incorporate visible and legible natural systems and public space. It is a crucial time for reinvention and change in the city’s life. The challenge is great. The possibilities for design greater.

Laurel Consuelo Broughton was named one of the fifteen 2014 Racked.com Young Guns of Fashion for her collection, WELCOMECOMPANIONS an offshoot from her design studio WELCOMEPROJECTS. Her residential project Shed House is now under construction in Malibu, CA and slated for completion January 2015. In July she gave the talk Soft Abstraction as part of UCLA Jumpstart’s Series, Endlessly Worthwhile Dilemmas. Her project Retrospective City is on view at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles until August 31, 2014. Gallery Attachment, a collaborative project with Andrew Kovacs, was selected to participate in the Storefront For Art and Architecture’s exhibition program WorldWide StoreFront, forthcoming fall 2014. 

Patrick Tighe, FAIA (Professor Adjunct) USC School of Architecture received the IDEAS 2 Award for Excellence in Steel Frame Building Design from the American Institute of Steel Construction for an affordable housing project in West Hollywood. The Sierra Bonita Affordable Housing project for people living with disabilities also won an Award of Merit for Structural Engineering from the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California (SEOSC).

Chu+Gooding Architects (Annie Chu and Rick Gooding) has recently completed design and drawings for a 110,000 sf Collection Storage, Conservation and Research Facility for the new Autry Resource Center in Burbank. A 110,000 sf Collection Storage, Conservation and Research Facility which is scheduled to start construction in January.  Chu+Gooding Architects is also in the design phase for the 100-Room Tiverton House Renovation at UCLA. Rick Gooding’s Subterranea drawing exhibit in the Napa Gallery at Cal State University Channel Islands from November 13 to December 5 and will include about a dozen of the USC Student 3rd Year Models from this past Spring Semester.

Adjunct Associate Professor Eric Haas’s firm, DSH // architecture, was the recipient of Honorable Mentions for both the Para Los Niños Family Center and the Villa Tangente in the Re-Thinking the Future 2014 Awards. 

Assistant Professor Alison B. Hirsch received the James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund Grant to develop her next book, Landscape as Thick Description. She conducted a new MLA research studio titled “The Geography of the LA Riots: Designing the Public Realm in the Insurgent Spaces of the City.”  

Lauren Matchison, NCARB, will serve as Interim Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture program for the remainder of 2014.

Professor G. Goetz Schierle is preparing a book on fabric structures.

Ed Woll is enjoying a re-organized practice focusing more completely than before on design of affordable housing.  The re-organized firm — TWG Architects Inc — is a troika/collective with three equal principals and is currently in production on two substantial projects: one in LA (Eagle Rock neighborhood — 46 units at 4 stories over parking) and one in the Bronx (120 units at 13 stories with no parking!).  Both projects are for special needs clients and incorporate extensive social service provisions; both feature site development that includes some urban farming. 

Sofia Borges, Lecturer, released two new books in August. Hide and Seek:The Architecture of Cabins and Hide-Outs and Building Better: Sustainable Architecture for Family Homes are now available on Amazon and bookstores worldwide.

 

University of Texas at Austin

The UT Austin Center for Sustainable Development (CSD) is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Allan W. Shearer will be joining Dr. Richard L. Corsi as co-director staring this fall.

The August 2014 Architectural Digest cover story, “Texas Triumph,” highlights Laura and George W. Bush‘s residence in Crawford, Texas, designed by Professor David Heymann and completed in 2001, just after Mr. Bush became president.

Senior Lecturer Fran Gale participated in the 39th Annual California Preservation Conference at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California, this past spring.

Drs. Barbara Brown Wilson and Steven A. Moore have been awarded the esteemed 2014 Great Places Award in the place research category for their ongoing work at the Green Alley Demonstration Project in east Austin.

Associate Professor Fernando Lara contributed an Op-Ed, titled “Don’t Wait for Mega-events to Build Public Projects,” in the June 10, 2014, edition of the Houston Chronicle.

Assistant Professor Clay Odom‘s bike-powered farm stand project for the HOPE Farmers Market was highlighted in the May 9, 2014, edition of the Austin Chronicle.

“Drawing Lines,” a community-based art project by Lecturer Sarah Gamble [M.Arch. ’05] and community and regional planning Ph.D. student Lynn Osgood was selected by the City of Austin Economic Development Department to receive one of two grants from ArtPlace America.

Auburn University

Professor Charlene LeBleu, FASLA, has been appointed Interim Program Chair and Interim Graduate Provisional Officer of Landscape Architecture effective August 1 until July 2015.  National Vice President of Research for the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), her primary areas of interest and research have been focused on green building and water quality issues, especially issues related to low impact development design.  

LeBleu replaces Rod Barnett, PhD, who has been appointed chair of the Master of Landscape Architecture program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

On Auburn’s campus, Professor LeBleu has recently been involved in the restoration Parkerson Mill Creek, a campus project that has incorporated experts in engineering, horticulture, soil science, environmental sciences, landscape architecture and urban planning. Watch a video about the Parkerson Mill Creek restoration here.

The August issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, the magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects, features the work that Charlene LeBleu, FASLA, and her students have done on a marine spatial plan for Dauphin Island Penninsula. “The Whole Shore,” in LAM’s Foreground NOW section, has an interview with LeBleu, APLA’s interim program chair of Landscape Architecture, beginning on page 22. For more, click here.

The Executive Committee of the Birmingham chapter of the American Institute of Architects recently named architect and Auburn alumni Joel Blackstock, of Williams Blackstock Architects, as its 2014 recipient of the “Birmingham Accolade Award.”  The Award is the highest honor the Chapter can bestow on one of its members, and indicates peer recognition of an exemplary achievement or service to the Chapter, profession or society.

Through the years of working on projects that have forever changed the City and surrounding areas, Joel Blackstock has earned a reputation for being a visionary for the City, a great listener to his clients’ needs, dreams and desires….a small measure of proof of his passion and influence on revitalizing, restoring and preserving Birmingham can be seen on more than 30 blocks throughout the downtown area.”

Professor Magdalena Garmaz has been named chair of Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design Program (BSEV) in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction. Garmaz, who holds the Ann and Batey Gresham professorship, joined the CADC faculty in 1990 in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA). Her research and teaching has focused on the relationship of architecture and textiles, exploring different textile techniques and their application in the architecture making process. With work featured in Metropolis magazine and in the book Exploring Materials by E. Lupton and I. Alesina (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010), Garmaz has won grants from the Alabama Arts Fellowship and the Graham Foundation and been a visiting artist as the American Academy in Rome, Italy. For more, click here

University of Houston

The University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture Participates in the Venice Biennale

The much anticipated Time Space Existence collateral event at Palazzo Bembo and Palazzo Mora for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale brought together a diverse group of 100 architects from six continents in an “extraordinary combination.” …. The 32 rooms in Palazzo Bembo mainly highlight solo-presentations, by architects such as Ricardo Bofill, AHMM, and White arkitekter, or research projects such as that of the University of Houston.

100 Architects From 6 Continents Discuss “Time Space Existence” at the 2014 Venice Biennale

Virginia Tech

Professor Henri T. de Hahn, S.I.A., has been named director of the School of Architecture + Design. A Canadian-Swiss dual citizen, de Hahn was educated as an architect at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology located in the city of Lausanne. Henri de Hahn completed additional studies at The Cooper Union and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. He has practiced architecture with Atelier Cube and Musy et Vallotton in Lausanne. Prior to his most recent role as Provost at the NewSchool of Architecture + Design in San Diego, Calif., de Hahn was the Department Head at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California from 2006 to 2012. Previously, de Hahn was a professor at the University of Kentucky. Henri de Hahn also taught for several years at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich and the Aayojan School of Architecture in Jaipur, India. De Hahn is a registered architect in Switzerland, a member of the Swiss Institute of Architects (S.I.A.) and numerous professional societies both in America and Europe.

Associate Professor Vance Hunter Pittman, R.A., has been named the chair of the graduate programs in architecture at the School of Architecture + Design. He oversees the two-year and three-and-a-half-year Master of Architecture programs, the Master of Science in Architecture program, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture and Design Research degree program.

Professor Susan Piedmont-Palladino, R.A., has been named director of the School of Architecture + Design’s new graduate concentration in urban design, a stream within the Master of Science in Architecture program. The Urban Design concentration enrolls its first class in Fall 2014. Based at the Washington Alexandria Architecture Center (WAAC), the new program builds on the interdisciplinary structure of the WAAC and draws on current graduate programs in architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and public policy. In addition, Piedmont-Palladino, who is a curator at the National Building Museum, has been awarded the 2014 John ‘Wieb’ Wiebenson Award for Architecture in the Public interest by the Washington Architecture Foundation and the AIA/DC. The award is given to an architect who has spent a career championing design in the public interest. 

Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Laura McGuire, Ph.D., has been appointed to teach lecture courses in history and theory of architecture. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and her B.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University. McGuire joins the architecture program from Vienna, Austria, where she has been a curator at the Kiesler Foundation.

Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors has approved the following promotions of architecture faculty members:

Professor Kathryn Clarke Albright, A.I.A., has been promoted from the rank of Associate Professor to Full Professor.

Professor
Dr. Markus Breitschmid, Ph.D., S.I.A., has been promoted from the rank of Associate Professor to Full Professor.

Professor Joseph Wheeler, A.I.A., has been promoted from the rank of Associate Professor to Full Professor.

Associate Professor
James Bassett has been promoted from the rank of Assistant Professor without Tenure to Associate Professor with Tenure.

Associate Professor Dr. Hilary Bryon, Ph.D., has been promoted from the rank of Assistant Professor without Tenure to Associate Professor with Tenure. 
    
Professor Dr. Mehdi Setareh, Ph.D., P.E., a structural engineer, was a team member, led by Zaha Hadid Architects, London, UK, that designed the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. The building won the 2014 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) award from the American Institute of Steel Construction. Mehdi Setareh, principal investigator, and undergraduate architecture students Kelly McCarthy and Sarah Spanski, were awarded a grant from the Research Experience for Undergraduate program of the National Science Foundation to study vibration serviceability of buildings. The on-going project is the recipient of NSF grants in the total amount of $213,000.

Smith Creek Park (the Masonic Amphitheatre and Smith Creek Pedestrian Bridge Projects) in Clifton Forge, VA, designed and built by 3rd-year architecture students in the design/buildLAB, led by Assistant Professors of Practice Keith Zawistowski, A.I.A., and Marie Zawistowski, has been named the winner of the A+ Award in the fourth annual AZ Awards program. The award program is an international competition honoring excellence in design and architecture, sponsored by AZURE, Canada’s leading contemporary architecture and design magazine.

Assistant Professor
Aki Ishida, A.I.A., and Lynnette Widder were awarded a Professional Runner-Up in the Strategy & Research category for the Core77 Design Awards 2014 program. The Project Making the Giraffe Path created workshop events and artifacts for the not-for-profit CLIMB (City Life is for Moving Bodies) to explore, record, and enhance the relationship between five parks along Northern Manhattan’s major escarpment and the communities along their edges.

Instructor Rengin Holt, longtime professor of the architecture program’s printing laboratory, had her print entitled “Secret Gardens” selected from over 600 entries and exhibited in First Street Gallery of New York City’s 2014 National Juried Exhibition. The print will be included in her forthcoming book “Constructive Geometry.”

University of Southern California

Assistante Professor Rachel Berney is preparing a new ONLINE fall course to be taught in the School of Architecture. ARCH 521 Health and the Designed Environment will address issues of health, equity, and sustainability vis-à-vis how designers shape the built environment.  Rachel Berney has been re-appointed to USC’s University Research Committee for the 2014-2015 school year where she is working with a team of faculty from across the university on topics such as improving research mentorship and research administration processes.    

Assistant Professor Doris Sung has received the 2014 R&D Award from Architect Magazine for her project “eXo”, which uses the dynamic movement of thermobimetals during construction to make lightweight structural surfaces.  Her work will be featured in the UK edition of Wired Magazine next month.

Geoffrey von Oeyen, Lecturer, recently installed an exhibition of his work, lectured, and participated in press interviews at the Architectural League of New York as a winner of the 2014 Architectural League Prize. For more information refer to http://archleague.org/2014/04/geoffrey-von-oeyen-design/

On July 10, Russell Fortmeyer presented a talk on his book, “Kinetic Architecture,” to New York’s Urban Green Council. New project work includes the replacement hospital for Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, as well as a new consulate for the State Department’s Overseas Bureau of Operations in a confidential location.

Professor Diane Ghirardo gave a presentation on Lucrezia Borgia’s entrepreneurial activities in June, for the city of Ferrara. She also recently revised her courses on Women’s Spaces to meet University requirements for general education. 

Justin Brechtel has recently been hired as a Computational Designer and Research Architect in the Los Angeles office of Perkins+Will.

Lauren Matchison and Lee Schneider created and taught a new online graduate course entitled Visual Literacy in Media for Architecture and Design.  The master class developed students’ media making skills and showed them how to design, produce and distribute their videos over social media channels. The class also introduced students to key concepts in crowdfunding. 

Simon Chiu founded Tensile Evolution North America in Irvine, and Tensile Evolution GmbH in Vienna, Austria, with architectural membrane structure experts Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Robert Roithmayr and Dipl.-Ing. Horst Dürr.  The organization focuses on architectural membrane project consultation, research and development on product and software, higher education and practical training workshops.  The trailer of forthcoming documentary film “FREI OTTO: SPANNING THE FUTURE” will be featured as a part of the upcoming exhibition “Building with Textiles” at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, Netherlands.  The exhibition opens on September 27, 2014 until January 25, 2015.  This documentary film is being produced in partnership with PBS Colorado Public Television.  The documentary featured interviews with Frei Otto himself, as well as Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schmacher of Zaha Hadid Architects, Professor Goetz Schierle and Associate Gail Peter Borden of USC School of Architecture, among others.  

Catholic University of America

Associate Professor Eric J. Jenkins, as an AIA District of Columbia chapter board member, is organizing a two-part portfolio and résumé workshop. The fall session will be a “how to” of graphic layout and content with a spring session will be one-on-one “desk critiques” with an architect and student.  Students and recent graduates from the area schools of architecture are invited to attend these free workshops.

Associate Professor Adnan Morshed, PhD, will present two talks based on his forthcoming book, Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder (University of Minnesota Press, Fall 2014). The first is at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University in Miami Beach on Sept. 19, 2014 and the other at the Birkbeck, University of London, on Oct. 23, 2014. Professor Morshed will serve on the keynote panel at the Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Dec. 2014.

Auburn University

David Hill, assistant professor of landscape architecture in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture and principal at D.I.R.T. studio, was a Resource Team member in the 59th National Session of the Mayor’s Institute on City Design (MICD), June 4-6, 2014, in Louisville, KY. MICD, a National Endowment for the Arts Leadership Initiative in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and the United State Conference of Mayors, organizes two-and-a-half-day sessions in which mayors engage leading design experts in case-study problems to find solutions to the most critical design challenges facing their cities. For more, click here. 

David Hill’s award-winning repurposing and renovation of a warehouse into his stunning home on Bragg Avenue is profiled in the July/August 2014 issue of Dwell. Read “Family-Friendly Renovation of a Brick Warehouse in Alabama by clicking here.

Cheryl Morgan, Auburn architecture alumna, professor and director of the Urban Studio, was inducted into the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows at an Investiture Ceremony at the 2014 National AIA Convention in Chicago on June 27.    Prof. Morgan was nominated for the College of Fellows by the Birmingham Chapter of the AIA, in recognition of her innovative approaches to instruction and outreach and the impact of her work in these arenas on the careers of her students and in the lives of small towns and communities across the state, region and nation. Morgan’s non-traditional approach to teaching has evolved through her thirty years of studio teaching and through her work with under-served people and places in Alabama. For more, read here.

Professor and Chair of Architecture Behzad Nakhjavan recently participated in the Washington University architecture alumni exhibition titled ”Drawing.”   The intent of the exhibit was to show a range of interpretations of what drawing means today from sketches and conceptual drawings to construction and fabrication drawings.

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s summer edition of the newsletter has been released. To catch up on our amazing alumni, diverse faculty, and hard-working students, please visit StudioAPLA.

Rural Studio projects and alumni have been featured  in different publications recently: The Lions Park Scout Hut in Architectural Record: the 20K House project is featured in GreenBuildingAdvisor: and Rural Studio Alum Daniel Splaingard reflects on his time at the Rural Studio.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Associate Professor Mohamed Boubekri was selected as a 2014-15 Fulbright Scholar.  He will be working in building technology at Arel University in Turkey.   

Assistant Professor Kenny Cupers has authored/edited two new publications: Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture (Routledge, 2013, ed.); and The Social Project: Housing Postwar France (University of Minnesota Press, 2014, author).  

Assistant Professor Kenny Cupers also received full funding from the Campus Research Board for six-weeks of summer travel for his continued research on “Architectural Modernism and Environmental Science in Imperial Germany.”

 

Associate Professor Lynne Dearborn has received the 2013-2014 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement in recognition for her work of many years with public and community organizations in the Midwest and internationally, including the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance in St. Clair County, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, and the Olivette Park Neighborhood Association.  In addition, she has been invited by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture to be the lead instructor in the ACSA Haiti Design Challenge International Service-Learning Studio in the summer of 2014.  

Assistant Professor Kevin Erickson was recently invited by actress Bette Midler and her non-profit organization the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) to participate in a design competition for a boat storage facility and outdoor classroom in Sherman Creek Park along the Harlem River in Upper Manhattan, along with eight other emerging New York based architects. In addition, Kevin was also invited by Winnipeg-based 5468796 Architecture to collaborate in their Canadian Prix de Rome Prize Project “Table for Twelve,” a traveling research project that invited prominent voices in eight international cities to discuss the factors that create a strong commitment to architecture in these places. Kevin hosted the NYC dinner along with Kyle May, editor of CLOG Journal.  

The urban design work of Associate Professor Erik Hemingway was a Selected Featured Project for the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennial, Open Professional Category International Competition.  Hemingway’s residential design work was 1 of 54 International projects selected for the publication Global Architecture Houses Project 2014 A.D.A. Edita, Tokyo.  His project was also featured in the exhibition at Global Architecture Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.

Associate Professor Paul Kapp was selected as a 2013-14 Fulbright scholar.  He is currently completing his resident research at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.    Associate Professor Paul Kapp was also the keynote speaker at the Sixth International Conference on Industrial Heritage at the University of Rijeka in Rijeka, Croatia on April 25, 2014.

 

Associate Professor Joy Malnar’s co-authored book New Architecture on Indigenous Lands (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) was reviewed by Choice and the Art Libraries Society of North America. It was also listed on A Daily Dose of Architecture as one of John Hill’s select group of recommendations for the 2013 year. During the 2014 summer she will be giving presentations on her book at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas and at the AIA 2014 National Convention in Chicago. Her article, “Architectural Design for Living Artifacts,” was published in Multi-sensory Museum: A Cross-disciplinary Perspective on Multiple Modalities of a Museum Experience edited by Dr. Pascual-Leone and Dr. Nina v. K. Levent (AltaMira, Press, 2014). She will be presenting material from this chapter at the The Inclusive Museum Conference in Los Angeles. Her book, Sensory Design (University of Minnesota Press, 2004) was the topic of Cyrus Stuart Kerr’s paper, “A review of the evidence on the importance of sensory design for intelligent buildings,” in the journal Intelligent Buildings International, 2013 Vol. 5, No. 4, 204–212. She will be a keynote speaker at the ScentWorld conference in New York.

 

Associate Professor Heather Minor has been awarded full funding from the Research Board for summer research for her project entitled “The Art of Winckelmann: Preliminary Research.”  

Professor and dF Chair Jeffery Poss, received a Mies Van Der Rohe Special Recognition Award for his project Meditation Hut III “Victor” in the 2014 AIA Honor Awards. The design award recognizes innovation in overall concept design or detail.

 

The Nathan Clifford Ricker Award recognized Assistant Professor Mark Taylor, Associate AIA, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for his dedication and talent as an AIA Associate member architecture educator in Illinois. A large component of Taylor’s humanitarian work in Haiti and in the agricultural U.S. has an educational component, and he often brings his research into the classroom where he hopes to inspire the next generation of architects to work with underserved communities. His students at the University of Illinois welcome the opportunities he provides to use their skills in real-world situations, such as an assessment of a hospital partially destroyed by the 2010 Haitian Earthquake and the development of a new master plan. Taylor also aims to reach a wider audience through online open source resources and informative videos.  

Assistant Professor Mark Taylor was recognized at the 2014 AIA Illinois Honor Awards and received the Nathan Clifford Ricker Honor Award for his dedication and talent as an AIA Associate member architecture educator. He consistently brings his humanitarian work in Haiti and in the agricultural U.S into the classroom, to inspire the next generation of architects to work with underserved communities.  Taylor also aims to reach a wider audience through online open source resources and informative videos.

 

Assistant Professor Therese Tierney has received Honorable Mention award from the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) Prizes for her research entitled “Reappropriating Social Media: Internet Activism, Counterpublics & Implications”, April 8, 2014.  

 Assistant Professor Thérèse Tierney also had an Invited Interview: “Is Paris a Smarter City than New York?” PRIME HubTech, August 23, 2013

Assistant Professor Tierney recently authored, “Will 3D Printing RevolutionizeArchitecture?,” Illinois MakerLab, BIF Design Education, February 6, 2014. In addition, she was an Invited Lecturer and Panel Moderator: “How Can Big Data Boost Urban Resilience?” The conference was organized by California France Forum on Energy Efficiency Technologies (CaFEET), Stanford University, CA, November 22, 2013.    

Assistant Professor Marci Uihlein has received full funding from the Campus Research Board for her research on “The Structural Engineer as Designer: Architecture’s Creative Partner.”   

Assistant Professor Marci Uihlein received the 2013 Building Technology Educators’ Society (BTES) Emerging Faculty Award.  This national award recognizes a “rising educator in building technology education who has demonstrated particular excellence in teaching and innovation during the formative years of their architectural teaching career.” 

 

On the Urbana campus, Lorado Taft’s Alma Mater bronze sculpture has been restored and re-dedicated. For the school’s contribution to the dedication time capsule, Visiting Instructor Brian Vesely designed a  “Primitive Hut” artifact of hydraulic cement cast into a 3D printed mold. The surface articulation on the sides of the artifact is binary code – a protruding sphere indicating 1, and a subtracted sphere indicating 0. The binary code describes the School’s Spring 2014 Lecture Series.  

Heritage Architecture, China’s first ever multi-disciplinary journal on historic preservation, has named ACSA Distinguished Professor James Warfield as featured columnist for the quarterly publication.  “Value in the Vernacular” will begin “The Warfield Column” in the premier issue of the journal in Summer 2014.          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

University of Southern California

Dr. Joon-Ho Choi was recently selected for the ARCC New Investigator Award in 2014. His research, entitled “Human-Building Integration for Assessment of Indoor Environmental Quality for Human Health and Environmental Sustainability:  Pupil-Size Based Visual Environment Control in the Workplace” was submitted and reviewed as an emerging and innovative research topic. This experimental research provides unique knowledge concerning how an individual’s physiological signals can be translated to estimate his/her visual sensation and comfort level, as a function of pupil sizes, their fluctuations, and time frequencies. Therefore, the research outcome will be potentially applicable as a control and diagnostic tool for designing a workplace environment, where the occupants’ environmental health, work productivity, and energy performance are critical.

Professor Kyle Konis, Ph.D, AIA was invited by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) to speak at its annual conference, Nov. 2-4 in Pittsburgh on the topic of daylighting design impacts on health.

Jose Sanchez is coordination a session and presenting at Smart Geometry in Hong Kong. He is also presenting in the ‘Serious Games’ conference at USC cinema school.

Anders Carlson recently presented his concepts for an interactive seismic map at the national workshop, “New Audiences, New Products for the National Seismic Hazard Maps” sponsored by the Science Application for Risk Reduction Project. Researchers in 18 fields were gathered to discuss opportunities and he proposed a map or app that would allow users to see the strongest shaking a building has felt, what it is expected to feel, and an estimate of what level of shaking it was designed to resist.

Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture, Yo-ichiro Hakomori, and landscape architecture professor Takako Tajima conducted a joint 2 week urban design workshop with USC graduate landscape students and graduate architecture students from Meiji University School of International Architecture and Urban Design in June of this year.  Participants examined a development project by Forest City Enterprises in downtown San Francisco at the epicenter of urban transformation south of Market Street.  During the visit to San Francisco, students received a tour of the site and presentation of the project by the developer, as well as visits to Gensler, SOM, and AECOM.  The design workshop was later conducted on the campus of USC with a final presentation to the developer of the work produced by the students via Skype.  “I was so impressed with the level of detail and creativity the students were able to produce in such a short period of time.” says the Project Manager from Forest City. 

This spring, Chris Warren taught a studio in Como, Italy for the USC MXP Study Abroad in Italy program.  Also, in June, the construction was completed on A.P.C. Melrose Place, a new 2,500sf flagship store for the French clothier.  He is in now in the process of completing new stores in Downtown LA and Silverlake for the retailer, as well as moving into construction on a new home in Venice.

Patrick Tighe Architecture was shortlisted for the 2014 World Architecture / Inside Award. The shortlisted projects and the winners to be lauded at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore in the Fall. Patrick Tighe Architecture also recently completed 2 stores for fashion designer Rick Owens, a flagship store in Milan and another shop in London.

Mic Patterson is on the scientific review committee for Glasscon Global, which just completed its inaugural three-day conference in Philadelphia in July, and where he presented a paper entitled: The Millennium IGU: “Regenerative Concept for a 1000-Year Insulated Glass Unit,” and chaired a session “energy performance of buildings influenced by glass.” Mic is also in the Advisory Group for the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and will attend their world congress in Shanghai in September, where he will present another paper: “Curtainwall Lifecycles: Evaluating Durability and Embodied Energy.” 

Mario Cipresso AIA was recently a juror for the 2014 AIA Orange County Student Design Competition.

Rob Ley and his firm, Urbana, recently completed a 13,000 s.f. interactive facade for Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis, IN.  The project and design methodologies behind its inception and fabrication will be presented at this years’s ACADIA Conference, held at USC, October 23-25, 2014 

Professor G. Goetz Schierle is preparing a research grant and book on Fabric Structures

Gail Peter Borden won three grants [USC-URAP and two USC-URSPs] to support his work in material age and surface and was named one of 100 Notable Professors at Top Research Universities, [the only architect on the list] by onlinephd.org. He has been selected to participate in the prestigious Dallas based Architect vs. Artist Exhibition and will serve as a juror for the ongoing Marfa Housing competition.

Susanna Seierup has begun design on a new residential project in Santa Cruz, California. 

Eric Nulman recently presented his paper “Pedagogy at Full-Scale” at the 2014 ACSA International Conference in Seoul, Korea. The paper considers the value of full-scale prototyping in architectural education, and outlines an alternative model of pedagogy that utilizes prototyping exercises to cultivate material agency in studio projects. The presentation highlighted recent undergraduate coursework completed at USC, and how full-scale exercises were employed as an instructional tool towards achieving a desired learned outcome. 

Alexander Robinson recently negotiated and arranged for the signing of a joint research agreement between the USC School of Architecture and the Los Angeles branch of the Army Corps of Engineers, with the intention of strengthening and supporting a collaborative research program on the future revitalization of the Los Angeles River.  Also, following a successful studio review about the sourcing the water for the Los Angeles River with the attendance of nearly a dozen Los Angeles City officials Alexander was invited to become a stakeholder in the One Water LA planning effort and attend and comment on a landmark planning effort about the future integration of water in Los Angeles. 

Vinayak Bharne spoke on his recent book Zen Spaces and Neon Places: Reflections on Japanese Architecture and Urbanism at the USC Pacific Asia Museum on July 20. He is also one of the invited contributors to the forthcoming 50th Issue of the DOCOMOMO Journal. Bharne’s article titled “Rereading Our Recent Past: Notes on Chandigarh and New Gourna” examines the ongoing dilemmas surrounding the future of two contemporaneous iconic modern places, Le Corbusier’s largest urban project in India, and Hassan Fathy’s groundbreaking adobe village in Egypt.

Scott Uriu’s firm Baumgartner+Uriu has been feature at the Morphos “Sustainable Empires” exhibition at the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice, Italy in collaboration with the International ArtExpo which opened June 6th, 2014.   

Douglas Noble and Karen Kensek coordinated a four-day architecture licensing workshop in Los Angeles in May.  Twenty-eight classes were taught to more than 800 attendees.  Kensek and Noble have been organizing licensing programs for just over seven years, with more than 325 class taught and over 12,500 participants.  There are 2000 members of the “Not Licensed Yet” group, known as NotLY.  Whenever a member becomes licensed, they are ceremoniously thrown out of the group.  NotLY received an ACSA award in March, and was the subject of a presentation at the AIA National Convention in Chicago in June.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang has been featured as a “Next Progressive” by ARCHITECT Magazine in a 5-page profile & interview entitled “The Synthesis of Digital Craft” in the June 2014 issue of the magazine. Additionally, his firm Synthesis Design + Architecture has recently won a public art commission for the Silver Line Metro in Los Angeles.  He is currently co-chairing the 2014 ACADIA Conference with David Gerber and Jose Sanchez (October 23-26 in Los Angeles).