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Penn State

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Stuckeman architecture professor awarded inaugural Obel teaching fellowship

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Laia Celma, assistant teaching professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State, was named an inaugural recipient of the OBEL AWARD Teaching Fellowship, a premier teaching and research fellowship from the Henrik Frode Obel Foundation.

The fellowship is named for Danish architect Henrik F. Obel. The foundation devotes most of its funds to the OBEL AWARD Teaching Fellowship “to promote sharing of new ideas globally and highlight architecture’s transformative power to create more humane environments for the common good,” according to the foundation’s website.

Celma will instruct a new research studio course at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile starting in August 2024. Celma’s design studio, which is intended for master’s degree students, will study Mina Invierno, an open-pit mine operating in Isla Riesco, in Patagonia, until 2020. Students will travel to the mine and conduct research on the mine’s impact on the region.

“They were using blasts to mine low-grade coal [at Mina Invierno], and they were permitted to do so because they said they were supplying Chile’s demand for coal, but that is not what they did,” she said. “They were selling this coal to China. It stopped because over 50 community groups complained.”

Celma’s work regarding mine fires and extraction with Pep Avilés, associate professor of architecture, is currently on display at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Heinz Architectural Center in Pittsburgh. Their piece — “Dystopian Carousel” — highlights the continued emissions from mine fires, reflecting data collected on gas emissions, soil temperature, microbial life and the landscapes affected by coal extraction.

The OBEL AWARD fellows will share their curriculum and research results with the foundation to form an open library for other institutions to continue the experience beyond the one-year fellowship, according to the Henrik F. Obel Foundation.

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture expands graduate school downtown

 

Graduate students studying architecture, real estate, and historic preservationat Tulane School of Architecture (TuSA) will soon have a new space to call home in the vibrant Central Business District of New Orleans.

The school is taking over 25,000 square feet of classrooms, studios, offices, and meeting space on the fourth and second floors of NOCHI (also home of the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute), located at 725 Howard Avenue, along Harmony Circle near the Pontchartrain Expressway.

“We are excited to welcome everyone to the NOCHI building as the latest addition to TuSA’s facilities and the new home of our graduate school.”

-Iñaki Alday, dean of the Tulane School of Architecture

“The space has great flexibility and enables us to enhance our students’ experience and foster collaboration between programs,” programs,” said Iñaki Alday, Dean and Koch Chair in Architecture at TuSA. “We are also now next to the Ogden Museum of Art, on the St. Charles public transportation corridor, and within walking distance to numerous historic and modern architectural landmarks.”

This fall, students in the Master of Science in Historic Preservation program set up a studio and began holding classes in the space. By Spring 2023, the school anticipates that most TuSA graduate students will be located in the building, as well.

The school’s move to NOCHI is a perfect match, highlighting the importance of architecture, historic preservation and real estate development in supporting the local culinary, hospitality and tourism industries. In New Orleans, these industries rely extensively upon preserving the unique environmental and architectural character of the region, along with growing the local economy through sustainable development practices.

Throughout their coursework at the school, students learn to address the spatial and programmatic needs of different building types integral to the hospitality industries, such as museums, restaurants, and public gathering spaces. Students work on numerous local historic building and landmark projects and study development models to foster sustainable communities that support tourism.

Previously, the school was housed solely in the historic Richardson Memorial Hall on Tulane’s uptown campus. Richardson Memorial Hall is currently undergoing a comprehensive renovation, and classes have been relocated to buildings on campus and in temporary pavilions on the Newcomb Quad, the capacity of which has not been enough for the exceptionally fast growth of the school. Recently the opportunity arose to sub-lease the NOCHI space from Tulane’s A.B. Freeman Business School, which started using the space in 2019, and Dean Alday seized the opportunity to expand into downtown.

“Our school is undergoing a massive transformation,” Alday said. “Not only is our school’s home undergoing an incredible renovation, we are also growing our programs and numbers of students and faculty. The additional space at NOCHI will help us train future professionals to transform the world through the practices of architecture, urbanism, and preservation.”

The NOCHI building was originally designed by Ron Filson, former School of Architecture dean, to be a new art studio. Later when NOCHI occupied the building, the well-regarded firm Eskew+Dumez+Ripple redesigned it as a mixed-use space for education.

The two floors of NOCHI that will house the Tulane School of Architecture graduate programs have four state-of-the-art classrooms — including two tiered classrooms and two flat classrooms — with a combined seating capacity of more than 200 students. It will perform as a co-working hub with breakout spaces, two conference rooms, 25 spaces for group work and offices, along with lounge and reception areas. The facility has Tulane ID-controlled entry and is accessible to faculty and students after hours and on weekends.

The School of Architecture also has access to rent several NOCHI-run spaces, including the Dining Lab, a 70-seat café and dining room; McIlhenny Hall, a large meeting space and banquet room; and the Founders’ Terrace and Tabasco Terrace, two landscaped open-air balconies for receptions and special events that offer views of downtown New Orleans.

https://architecture.tulane.edu/news/graduate-school-expands-downtown

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture Gulf Research Studio awarded National Academies grant

 

BY MATT ROBERTS
MROBERT1@TULANE.EDU

Professor Margarita Jover of the Tulane School of Architecture received a grant of over $250,000 from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program to pilot a new interdisciplinary design studio investigating challenges along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf Research Program is dedicated to enhancing three major topics: offshore energy safety, environmental protection, human health and community resilience. Created as part of the settlement over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the program advances science, engineering, and public health knowledge to reduce risks from offshore oil spills and enable the communities of the Gulf to better anticipate, mitigate, and recover from such events.

“While scientists are inscribed in a tradition of ‘expected futures’, our approach of ‘ design-research’ combined with ‘scenario planning’ allows students to focus on ‘desirable futures’ and ways to get there,” Professor Jover said. “We are excited about the opportunity to partner with the Gulf Research Program on this project.”

“While scientists are inscribed in a tradition of ‘expected futures’, our approach of ‘ design-research’ combined with ‘scenario planning’ allows students to focus on ‘desirable futures’… ”

-Margarita Jover, Tulane School of Architecture

The new studio program will investigate the past and present context of Gulf Coast energy transition and the social and environmental challenges in relation to the built environment, including their impact on surrounding communities. Students will first gather information from a variety of perspectives and formulate major research questions toward design interventions. Then, the cohort will test their design hypotheses, drawing upon various disciplines offered throughout Tulane.

Faculty from fields such as architecture, real estate, design, engineering, coastal studies, climate change, ecology, geography, sociology, and urban studies will participate in the project. The studio environment will provide readings, lecture classes, site visits, guest speakers, and community meetings which will enable students to understand principles of urban reform to achieve socioecological improvements. Faculty members sharing their expertise in the studio currently include Jesse Keenan in sustainable real estate, Josh Lewis in urban ecology, Richard Campanella in geography, Ehab Meselhe in engineering, Mead Allison in coastal geology, Alex Kolker in coastal geosciences, and former Tulane faculty in history Andy Horowitz, currently at University of Connecticut.

Community-engagement is central to the project. The Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design will serve as an off-campus space for public meetings, hosting forums to review project designs. Feedback will be integrated as part of the iterative design process, allowing stakeholders impacted by design decisions to actively participate.

Professor Jover will act as project director and is joined by Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Liz Camuti as lead studio instructor. Jover is an internationally acclaimed architect and urbanist whose practice is renowned for its new approach to the relation between cities and rivers, in which the natural dynamics of flooding become part of the public space. Her most recent book, Ecologies of Prosperity for the Living City, co-authored with Alexander Wall, showcases her brand of socioecological urbanism as a catalyst for social and environmental transformation.

Camuti, who previously worked as a landscape architect with SCAPE Landscape Architecture in New Orleans, brings experience in resilience planning and design for climate adaptation, particularly focused on Louisiana and other cities along the Gulf Coast. Her expertise is in visual storytelling, with a focus on communicating complex ecological, economic, and social systems to public audiences as part of an engaged design process. She also has experience leading interdisciplinary teams developing landscape strategies and innovative infrastructure for public projects at multiple scales.

The objective of design research is to find innovative solutions to complex contemporary problems. Faculty typically teach at least three years in the studio, which allows for deeper dives with more “generations” of students. Investigations, proposals, and community contributions all build upon each other iteratively, semester after semester. Students are expected to be creative, imaginative, and innovative, coming up with new solutions for “wicked problems.”

“We’re looking forward to seeing how the creativity of the next generation of the design community can help us see connections among people, the economic drivers of the Gulf, and the physical environments that support both the people and the economy,” said Lauren Alexander Augustine, executive director of the GRP. “We’re delighted to support Tulane and the other design studios across the region as they imagine and visualize integrated approaches that support a resilient and sustainable future.”

“We’re looking forward to seeing how the creativity of the next generation of the design community can help us … ”

-Lauren Alexander Augustine, NASEM Gulf Research Program

Studio participants will share their findings with the Gulf Research Program. The ultimate goal is to build a conceptual framework for future collaboration with partner schools running similar studios throughout the Gulf region.

“This research project with the Gulf Research Program expands the reach of Tulane School of Architecture further into all the fields of the built environment in order to deal effectively with climate change and the acute social and environmental crises facing our planet and our region,” Dean Iñaki Alday said. “And it places us in a leadership role for bringing together multiple disciplines and universities from across the Gulf Coast.”

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine provide independent, objective advice to inform policy with evidence, spark progress and innovation, and confront challenging issues for the benefit of society. Each year, thousands of the world’s leading experts participate in NAS projects and activities to examine and assemble evidence-based findings that address some of society’s toughest challenges.

https://architecture.tulane.edu/news/Gulf-Research-Studio-awarded-National-Academies-grant

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Tulane University

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Fallon Samuels Aidoo named to national historic preservation committee

 

Fallon Samuels Aidoo, PhD, Assistant Professor of Real Estate & Historic Preservation, has been selected to serve on the first-ever Expert Advisory Committee for the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP).

The new Expert Advisory Committee is comprised of 14 individuals, including leading researchers and legal experts from across the country, who meet monthly to provide the ACHP with academic and legal perspectives that will enhance the ACHP’s understanding of research impacting preservation, development of a historic preservation research agenda, and contribution to data-driven policy solutions.

Aidoo said she’s honored to have the opportunity to advise preservation practitioners and advocates that set a policy agenda for the entire federal government – not just the White House, Congress, and the cabinet level departments, but also federal councils and agencies (such as FEMA) responsible for U.S. cooperation with tribal nations and local governments.

“This is a unique opportunity to share knowledge of federal policy and program implementation I have developed through cooperative research endeavors with the City of New Orleans, as well as community engaged research on systemic and situational barriers to inclusion of coastal settlements in the National Register of Historic Places,” Aidoo said. “I look forward to working with fellow experts in the field to elevate historic and cultural preservation research amongst policy makers and program designers throughout the federal government.”

Based in Washington, D.C., the ACHP is a federal agency that carries out historic preservation case reviews, provides training in historic preservation law and policy, conducts outreach to the American public on the importance of historic sites and community preservation, and more.

ACHP Chair Sara C. Bronin provided a statement about the new Expert Advisory Committee.

“Each member of this group of dynamic and highly regarded academics and attorneys think about historic preservation in innovative and intersectional ways,” Bronin said. “I am extremely grateful they have lent their time, knowledge, and ambition to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and I look forward to collaborating with them to accelerate the federal government’s positive contributions to the field.”

The ACHP promotes the preservation, enhancement, and sustainable use of our nation’s diverse historic resources, and advises the President of the United States and the Congress on historic preservation policy. The ACHP is an independent federal agency comprised of 24 Presidentially appointed members from federal agencies, preservation organizations, Indian tribes, and expert private citizens.

https://architecture.tulane.edu/news/aidoo-achp-committee

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture releases The ReView with Actar Publishers

 

Tulane School of Architecture is proud to present ‘The ReView: How and what for,’ published by Actar, featuring the pedagogical project through the work of both students and faculty over the past few years.

The book is organized into two main blocks, “how” and “what for”. On the one hand, “how” exposes the core education with the initial sequence of courses and studios and their exceptional pedagogical methodologies. On the other hand, “what for” talks about the purpose of the Tulane School of Architecture’s academic work in addressing the social, economic, and environmental reality we face today.

The conceptual link that connects the “How?” and the “What for?” is the idea of innovation. In a time of global crisis, the revision of academic programs is crucial to educate new architects, designers, historic preservationists, and real estate professionals to address social and environmental challenges from an innovative perspective.

Faculty editor Andrea Bardón de Tena led the book’s curation and production with a team of student assistants: Gabe Darley, Chelsea Kilgore, and Giuliana Vaccarino.

The ReView is available for sale through all major book retailers, including Amazon, and on the Actar website, which includes a preview of the book.

The ReView is organized sequentially, from first year studios to research and thesis studios, along with digital media courses and special design-build programs, such as URBANbuild and the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design.

Research and professional work of faculty at Tulane School of Architecture is highlighted in The ReView. Dean Iñaki Alday provides the book’s introduction, while faculty Jesse M. Keenan, Edson Cabalfin, Scott Bernhard, and Kentaro Tsubaki contribute essays. The book also showcases images from across the school’s programs, lectures, events and Fabrication Labs.

Copies will also be available for sale at a book presentation and celebration event at 11:30am on Friday, April 21, outside the Tulane School of Architecture’s NQ1 Pavilion, on Tulane’s Uptown Campus in New Orleans, LA.

https://architecture.tulane.edu/news/the-reivew-book-published

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Toronto Metropolitan University

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MASTERING MASTERS

 

An introduction and information session to the Masters of Architecture Program, Graduate Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada, (formerly Ryerson) will be held in person and online on Tuesday, November 28th, at 6:00 PM ECT.

The two-year program emphasizes critical practice and engagement in contemporary discourse in seminars and design studios and concludes with a robust thesis based on design research.

Please follow the link for information on joining in person or the live stream. We look forward to meeting you!

https://www.torontomu.ca/architectural-science/architecture/admissions/

Architect Prof. Dr. Paul Floerke, Associate Chair of Graduate Studies, Department of Architectural Science TMU

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture Faculty, Wes Michaels and Liz Camuti, win separate awards for their professional landscape architecture work

 

The National Professional Awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) were announced earlier this month, recognizing the work of Tulane School of Architecture faculty members Wes Michaels and Liz Camuti in the Analysis and Planning Category.

Wes Michaels (through his practice Spackman Mossop Michaels) was honored with an award for its The New Orleans Reforestation Plan, while Liz Camuti (through SCAPE studio) garnered an award for The Chattahoochee RiverLands, a project in which Camuti served as a lead designer for over three years and as the Project Manager for the Trail Design Guidelines.

Click the hyperlinks above for each awarded project to learn more about them on the ASLA awards website.

https://architecture.tulane.edu/news/two-faculty-win-2023-ASLA-awards

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

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