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Tulane University

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National preservation leader joins Historic Preservation at TuSA

Story by Naomi King Englar

National preservation leader Mark Rabinowitz, FAIC, FAAR, FAPT, has been named Interim Director of Historic Preservation and Christovich Visiting Professor of Historic Preservation at TuSA.

Mark brings decades of experience in the field, particularly in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. He currently serves as President and Principal Conservator with EverGreene Architectural Arts.

“I am honored and excited to be joining the Tulane Historic Preservation Program and working with the students and faculty in New Orleans,” Mark says. “There is no better place to learn about the challenges of preserving the historic built environment. The value of that intimate connection with the past that Tulane offers is demonstrated in the quality of the graduates of the program.”

Mark has worked with the school since 2012 as an invited lecturer and an employer of Tulane graduates. Starting in August 2023, Historic Preservation students will receive excellent mentorship from Mark, who will also serve as a studio instructor and contribute his incredible hands-on experience in preservation.

Mark will work alongside notable preservationist and architect Jorge Rigau, FAIA, to establish new research fieldwork opportunities in Puerto Rico for all students in the program, starting in the fall 2023 semester and including travel in the spring.

“The students will enjoy a wonderful chance to study and learn in Puerto Rico with Jorge Rigau,” Mark says. “This is a rare opportunity to learn from a master about buildings dating from the Spanish Colonial period through the Modern era and their survival in the beautiful but difficult Caribbean environment.”

In addition to Mark’s instruction, Historic Preservation courses in fall 2023 will be led by a talented group of current and new faculty including Heather Veneziano (who will serve as Curriculum Coordinator), Fallon Aidoo, ZoAnn Campana, Allison Cruz, James Rolf, Sonny Shields, Cynthia Steward, and Brook Tesler.

Mark joins TuSA following the departure of former director Brent Fortenberry and former faculty Jane Ashburn.

A national search for a permanent director will begin this fall with selection as early as Spring 2024.

“We are excited for this new chapter in the Historic Preservation Program,” says Iñaki Alday, Dean and Richard Koch Chair in Architecture. “The entire academic, administrative, and teaching team at TuSA remains committed to providing our students with a world class, rigorous educational experience.”

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture welcomes nine permanent faculty

Story by Maggie White for TuSA

As the Tulane School of Architecture (TuSA) strives to remain at the forefront of architecture and built environment education, the school welcomes its largest-ever wave of faculty hires.

Touting nine permanent, full-time additions, this hiring effort brings diverse perspectives, innovative research areas, and exciting new voices to TuSA’s excellent roster of faculty. This is the first of two large pushes to expand the faculty at the School of Architecture, an effort that will continue during 2023-24 to recruit another cohort of a similar size.

Dean Iñaki Alday says of the impetus behind these large-scale hiring efforts, “Responding to the breath and the growth of the school, we are bringing in new faculty in real estate, landscape architecture, preservation, social innovation, and architecture. And, of course, new people equals new perspectives, new reach, and a richer learning environment.”

TuSA’s new faculty hires bring with them a range of research interests and practical experience:

Rebecca Choi, Assistant Professor of Architecture History, focuses on architecture’s relationship to race relations in America, paying particular attention to historic social movements’ effect on the field. “I don’t see teaching as a profession, but as a personal commitment,” says Choi. “As someone who will primarily be teaching architectural history, I know that my courses will challenge students to face the social components of their future work.”

Associate Professor of Architecture Adam Marcus‘s research centers on the intersection between architecture, computation, and fabrication. Marcus says of his teaching philosophy, “I try to cultivate a broad understanding of computational thinking and workflows that is less driven by a formal agenda and more focused on expanding architecture’s capacity to address challenges like environmental performance and material efficiency.”

Zaid Kashef Alghata focuses on the intersection of built and natural environments, exploring design as a driver of systemic reform. “While at Tulane, I aim to cultivate a more profound ecological consciousness within the architectural discourse,” states Kashef Alghata, who will start as Favrot Visiting Professor of Architecture. “I plan to reshape the political, economic, and cultural forces that underpin our built environment to design-oriented methodologies.”

Wes Michaels, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, brings a long teaching career and 25 years of experience as a leader in landscape architecture with Speckman Mossop Michaels to TuSA. Michaels’s work centers on building adaptive communities and the ways in which cultural understanding can shape design and planning decisions. Michaels says, “The Tulane School of Architecture is leading the way in finding synergies between disciplines. The questions we are asking require a 360-degree view of the issues, and Tulane has a culture of bringing people together.”

Versé Shom, Professor of Practice in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE), is a social innovation designer focusing on equality and inclusivity, community resilience, youth livelihood, and self-sustainable schools. “TuSA is very forward thinking and looking to be at the cutting edge of solving the most crucial problems through the built environment,” observes Shom. “This is evident in the way the school has grown in the last few years.”

Sonsoles Vela Navarro, whose career has included multidisciplinary practice and whose research and teaching largely concentrate on climate and sustainability, joins the tenure-track faculty as Assistant Professor of Architecture. “TuSA strongly commits to sustainability and developing socially conscious and environmentally just models to inhabit the planet,” says Navarro. “Their emphasis on fostering a culture of innovation aligns perfectly with my values and aspirations.”

Liz Camuti, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, practices and researches design for climate adaption, with an emphasis on reimagining highly engineered landscapes as sites of ecological cohabitation. “In the classroom, I aim to help students move away from solutionist thinking about design problems and toward consideration for new, potential relationships that might unfold over time. This teaching approach positions students as the agents of systemic change,” Camuti says.

Heather Veneziano, Professor of Practice in Historic Preservation, works largely in cultural heritage sites, with a particular emphasis on historic cemeteries. “Through exposure to tangible case-studies and research methodologies, I hope to distill the essence of what makes the field of historic preservation so rich and worthy of focus,” states Veneziano. “I also strive to learn along with my students, and from them.”

A career real estate developer, Will Bradshaw has been teaching in Tulane’s Real Estate Development program since 2008, now taking on an expanded role as a Professor of Practice, who is looking forward to leaning into the legacy of real estate development education at the school. “We are on the front lines of climate change, living in a city that is defined and threatened by water,” says Bradshaw.

As the faculty expands, the school remains committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in its hiring practices. Edson Cabalfin, Associate Professor, Director of SISE, and Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, emphasizes that EDI is top-of-mind as the school pursues faculty growth. “The goal is to increase the number of faculty from historically underrepresented groups–including race, sexuality, gender identity, socioeconomic status, nationality, educational / academic background, and research focus, among others” says Cabalfin. “Diversity can mean many different things.”

While TuSA leadership and the hiring committee believe that progress has been made in diversifying the faculty with the first wave of hires, the work must continue. “We’re explicit that this is part of our goal and it’s something we’re working hard on. We haven’t quite achieved all that we want to yet, but we will continue our efforts with this year’s upcoming faculty search,” says Cabalfin.

Dean Alday says further, “We’re very committed to this work because we need our faculty to represent different perspectives, different cultures, different educations, and different experiences. Diversity of thought is what brings excellence.”

Read more on the Tulane School of Architecture Website. 

Penn State

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Architecture lab’s computational textiles work featured in upcoming exhibition

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Work by Felecia Davis, associate professor of architecture in the Stuckeman School, and her team of Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB) researchers in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing at Penn State that explores Black culture, its relationship to technology and concepts of translation in architectural design will be featured in a new exhibition in downtown Montreal. Titled “Current Textile Design | Textile Design Now,” the exhibit opens Nov. 29 and runs through Feb. 11, 2024, at the Design Center of the University of Quebec at Montreal.

The research that will be on display is the result of the SOFTLAB team’s “Dreadlock Series” project, which focuses on locking or dreadlock hairstyles in Black culture. The process of braiding hair is translated into computer code that can be used to develop a material or fabric – textiles – that can create or enhance architectural spaces.

“SOFTLAB will show two architectural models from the Dreadlock Series where we look at the potentials of felted and interlocked fibers for use in building textile tension structures. These are called ‘Pop-Up Roses,’” said Davis.

Ian Danner, a SOFTLAB graduate student researcher from the College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts, created the models on a hand-knitting machine using the knitted wool isocord.

“These started out as flat textiles using what we call African fractals or a Fibonacci series to make the rose,” explained Davis. “I then suggested that these roses could be popped up to be used as tension structures or with a bio-based resin to make an architectural structure that can be shaped using gravity or tension.”

Hiranshi Patel, an architecture master’s student in the Stuckeman School and SOFTLAB researcher, helped develop the tensioning stands that can be used to apply different tensions to the models.

Aysan Jafarzadeh, a recent master of architecture graduate and a graduate researcher with SOFTLAB, provided graphic design and code development support for the work.

The SOFTLAB team’s Dreadlock Series work was also in an exhibition at the one-day Material Variance Symposium on Sept. 19 at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. The event featured material design researchers, building scientists and artists who discussed the variability of raw, earth- and fiber-based building materials and how their life cycle, supply chains, fabrication techniques and policies can be improved moving forward.

The Dreadlock Series project is supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the College of Arts and Architecture’s Research and Creative Activity Grant Program in Racial Justice, Anti-Discrimination and Democratic Practices, and the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing. The project was done in collaboration with Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, architect and associate professor at the University of Houston; William D. Williams, architect and the Smith Visiting Professor at Rice University School of Architecture; and Marcella del Signore, architect and associate professor and director of the Master of Science in Architecture, Urban and Regional Design program at the New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Design.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Seventh Year in a Row, SARA National Recognizes Student Excellence

 

Twenty-six students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Architecture have been honored with awards from the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), National Design Awards 2023 program. Of the thirteen student group submissions selected by the SARA jury for award, UNL received four of the honors. This is the seventh year UNL students have gained significant recognition by this national organization.

Project Descriptions:

Jampe Gergen, Luryn Hendrickson, Haley Herman and Caleb Mohnike earned an Honor Award for their project “ep(ICE)ntric.” This project originated from Brian Kelly’s fourth year collaborate studio. Located on the site of an abandoned Atlas-F missile silo built in the 1960s, this project called for the creation of a research facility for UNL’s Antarctic ice drilling team to build and test their equipment while also providing educational exhibition spaces for Cold War and Nebraska history displays.

Lubna Al Sebaie, I-Chen Chen, Landon Healy, Sean Kelly and Aly Timmerman from Darin Hanigan and Vanessa Schutte’s fourth year collaborate studio received an Honor Award for their project titled “Ponderosa Elementary School.” Ponderosa Elementary is a K-5 school that incorporates biophilic design principles, connecting students with nature and the outdoors while serving the community through integrated facilities and dynamic outdoor learning opportunities.

Another honor award was given to Al Mundhir Sultan Saif Al Mahruqi, Essa Alouisi, John Andersen, Jarod Bengtson, Payton Betzold, Ethan Boerner, Mason Burress, Brendan Colford, Thomas Gerdes, Audrey Huse, Dariya Krestovsky, Xander Parker, Natasha Pierce, Cameron Spengler, Eden Vanarsdall and Alyssa Villarreal for their design build project “Omaha Mobile Stage” created in Jeffrey L Day’s fourth year FACT collaborate studio. Omaha Mobile Stage is a creative placemaking project to design and make a portable stage to serve as a cultural and economic catalyst in public spaces and main streets throughout the Omaha metropolitan area.

Additionally, Audrey Huse and Kathleen O’Gara earned a Merit Award for their submission “The Sheldon ARC” which was design in Beau Johnson’s 411 integrate studio. The Sheldon ARC is an addition to the Sheldon Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln that strengthens the museum’s connection to both the university and the local community.

“The continuous recognition of our students’ work by SARA National over the past seven years is a testament to the exceptional work created by our students and the unwavering dedication of our faculty,” said Architecture Program Director David Karle. “It is truly gratifying to witness our students’ exceptional talents being celebrated on a national scale.”

Founded on November 9, 1956, by Wilfred J. Gregson, the Society of American Registered Architects celebrates design excellence in architecture and design through their annual National Design Awards program which attracts entries from across the country and around the world from individuals, firms and students of architecture and allied disciplines.

Penn State

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Work by Stuckeman professors featured in Carnegie Museum of Art exhibition

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A project created by two Stuckeman School architecture professors in the College of Arts and Architecture that exposes how coal mine fires affect the environment is featured in the “Unsettling Matter, Gaining Ground” exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Heinz Architectural Center in Pittsburgh through Jan. 7, 2024.

Pep Avilés, associate professor of architecture and the Stuckeman Career Development Professor in Design, and Laia Celma,  assistant teaching professor of architecture, created their piece titled “Dystopian Carousel” for the exhibition. The piece focuses on the continued emissions caused by mine fires and their devastating effects on the environment, communities and the economy.

Avilés and Celma’s work consists of a large piece of anthracite, which sits atop a turntable that completes one rotation per minute. Atop the piece of coal are a series of props that reflect the data (gas emissions, soil temperature, microbial life, etc.) and the landscapes that coal extraction has left behind. On the wall near the anthracite is a photograph of the coal in motion on the turntable as a mise en abyme, which is a formal technique in Western art of placing a small copy of an image inside a larger one.

“Collectively, the [props] perform as a dystopian carousel of the culture of extraction,” explained Avilés. “The photograph presents the same piece in motion, blurred against a stream of smoke that appears to the spectator as frozen.”

The piece is to represent the fact that emissions from mine fires even from long ago continue to impact the environment today and will continue to do so into the future.

“It doesn’t matter that we keep collecting more data about those past events, the emissions they caused are the only thing that remains constant,” said Avilés.

According to the exhibition website, the show brings together historical artworks from the Carnegie collection along with contemporary projects and new work to “tell the complex stories of how fossil fuel economies have been produced and upheld, whom they have excluded and left vulnerable, and how they have shaped and disrupted cities, communities and ecologies.”

The Carnegie Museum held a public program Oct. 5-6 where artists and guests from Carnegie Mellon University, Rice University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other organizations, such as the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, gave presentations on the topics featured in the exhibit with gallery walkthroughs, panel discussions, talks and a musical performance.

Avilés and Celma spoke with three other artists and researchers on a panel moderated by the exhibit’s co-organizers Ala Tannir and Theodossis Issaias.

“In all stages of the project, we wanted to make visible what is invisible,” Celma said. “There are things happening below ground in the mines that we translate as data so it’s visible above [the ground.]”

Avilés and Celma collaborated previously on works for the Oslo Architecture Triennale and the Rouse Gallery in the Stuckeman Family Building on the University Park campus.

University of Southern California

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USC Graduate Architecture Virtual Information Session

 

At the USC School of Architecture, we are committed to reimagining the built environment’s past, present, and future through impactful scholarly research that engages communities and fosters social impact. With a focus on leveraging emergent design technologies for sustainable and ecological construction practices, we aim to revolutionize the AEC industry while envisioning a more inclusive and resilient future for all.

Join us at our upcoming virtual information session at 5 pm on November 15th, 2023  to learn more about our programs and the exciting possibilities they offer.  

https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkd-qtpjIsGNHvJnD4BPpFV3Cdphcn3yWU

Explore our range of graduate and post-professional programs tailored to different educational backgrounds, including:

The USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles cultivates creative intelligence and champions spatial and environmental justice through innovative design practices that challenge traditional norms in the built environment. Our program focuses on providing a comprehensive understanding of contemporary architectural practices, tackling pressing issues such as the housing crisis, environmental challenges, spatial justice, and technological advancements. With a diverse faculty boasting extensive design expertise, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of design practice, research, and discourse. Get a glimpse inside the USC Graduate Architecture programs here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdnxUp7-C8

Immerse yourself in the dynamic and inspiring environment of Los Angeles, a global city that serves as a wellspring of inspiration, creativity, and opportunity for aspiring architects. With some of the most significant landmark architecture in the world, and over 1000 architecture firms, including industry giants such as Thom Mayne (Morphosis), Frank Gehry (Gehry & Partners), Mark Lee (JohnstonMarkLee), and Mark Rios (RIOS) – all esteemed alumni of our program – Los Angeles is a thriving urban laboratory for students to explore and understand the complexities of the contemporary built environment.

Our faculty, recognized as global design leaders, have collectively designed and built over 3,500 innovative projects worldwide, garnering over 900 design honors at various levels. Through visionary and speculative design ideas disseminated across 2100 exhibitions and lectures at premier academic and cultural institutions globally, we are actively shaping the future of architecture and design. Check out our faculty highlight reel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shNCMKPbHEg

For an inside look at our vibrant community and the exceptional work of our students and faculty, follow our USC Grad Architecture Instagram account: 

https://www.instagram.com/uscgradarchitecture/

Penn State

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Stuckeman School’s fall lecture series concludes with architect and educator

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State will host J. Meejin Yoon, co-founder of Höweler + Yoon Architecture and the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning, at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 25 as the final guest this semester in the school’s 2023-24 Lecture + Exhibit Series. Co-hosted by the Department of Architecture, the lecture will be held in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space and via Zoom.

In her lecture, titled “What’s the Matter,” Yoon will present works using the phrase “What’s the Matter?” as a framework to locate contemporary architecture and design in a broader cultural context. She will focus on research, environment and institutions, delving into what matters, and discussing how architects and creative practitioners can understand, enable and create.

“The term “matter” references not physical substance but rather the essence of something — specifically, the essence of the problems facing us today,” Yoon said. “Put another way: what are our values, beliefs and aspirations? As architects, artists and designers, how do we materialize what we value? Or, how does what we build convey our values? And, how do we build what matters?”

In practice, Yoon investigates intersections between architecture, technology and public space  with Höweler + Yoon. The firm has earned numerous awards, including the Best of Design Award in the Architect’s Newspaper, the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture’s Design Excellence Award, and Architect Magazine’s Progressive Architecture Award, among other honors.

Catholic University of America

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Architecture as Freedom: An Exhibition on BRAC Regional Offices in Bangladesh

 

We are very pleased to announce the exhibition, Architecture as Freedom, featuring the design of five out of eight regional offices across rural Bangladesh constructed for BRAC, the world’s largest non-governmental organization. These projects are architectural prototypes that narrate how the language of architecture can symbolize the agency of poor communities and their pursuit of social justice. Curated by professor and architect Adnan Zillur Morshed, the exhibition will be inaugurated on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, and will run through December 20, 2023. It will take place at the District Architecture Center, located at 421 7th Street NW, Washington D.C. The venue is easily accessible by the DC Metro, either through the Red Line (Gallery-Place/Chinatown stop) or the Yellow and Green Lines (Archives-Navy Memorial stop).

Architecture as Freedom will feature exhibits that showcase our design process, the social and environmental conditions that influenced it, and the outcome, all framed through the broader context of BRAC’s development initiatives. Built with locally sourced bricks, local construction techniques, and local labor, the new BRAC office buildings are a humble architectural effort to respond to the changing nature of rural Bangladesh and treat the non-governmental organization’s beneficiaries with the human dignity they deserve.

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