Page 142 – Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

New Jersey Institute of Technology

NJIT Associate Professor Georgeen Theodore and her partners were the winners of this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. Theodore is a co-founder and principal of the New York City-based Interboro Partners. Interboro won the 2011 competition with its proposal Holding Pattern, a project for MoMA PS1′s courtyard that opened to the public in June, 2011.

The Young Architects Program asks architects to create a temporary environment for the 6,000 people who attend the museum’s summer concert series every weekend from June through August. To create Holding Pattern, Interboro asked MoMA PS1′s neighbors the following question: Is there something you need that we could design, use in the courtyard during the summer, and then donate to you when Holding Pattern is deinstalled in the fall? Interboro talked to taxi management companies, libraries, high schools, senior and daycare centers, community gardens, a post office, and dozens of other Long Island City–based institutions, trying to make matches between things the neighborhood needed and things MoMA PS1′s courtyard needed. The result is an eclectic collection of objects—including mirrors, ping-pong tables, a lifeguard chair, a rock-climbing wall, and eighty-four trees—that the architects might not have thought to include in its design but that enhanced the experience of the courtyard and strengthened connections between MoMA PS1 and its surroundings. In the fall of 2011, a total of seventy-nine objects and eighty-four trees were donated to more than fifty organizations in Long Island City and beyond. Many NJIT College of Architecture and Design students and recent graduates from the B.Arch, M.Arch and MIP programs were members of the competition, design and installation teams, and made a significant contribution to the project.

Matt Gosser, adjunct faculty member at the College of Architecture and Design, has curated a retrospective of the works of Claire Wagner Kosterlitz, a Bauhaus artist who emigrated to the United States, at the Jewish Museum of New Jersey in Newark. Gosser, who is active in the Newark art scene, also serves as curator of the CoAD Gallery in Weston Hall.

Assistant Professor Matt Burgermaster has won the 2011-2012 ACSA Faculty Design Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) for his project “Ice Cycle House”. This small prototype home located in Buffalo, New York, demonstrates an alternative approach to conventional sustainable design and construction practices with a unique combination of high and low tech strategies that integrate digital fabrication, prefabricated components, and low-cost materials. The award will be presented at the 100^th ACSA Annual Meeting, which will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on March 1-4, 2012.

Ball State University

Associate Professor George Elvin gave plenary speeches at Buildgreen Argentina in Buenos Aires and Arc-LA: The Forum for Latin America’s Leading Architects in San Jose, Costa Rica. Elvin’s article, “Principles of Integrated Practice in Architecture,” was published in the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research.

Associate Professor Pam Harwood’s tot spot, an interactive play space, has just opened at the Muncie Children’s’ Museum, a two year student design build project.

Professor Edward W. Wolner has published Henry Ives Cobb’s Chicago: Architecture, Institutions, and the Making of a Modern Metropolis (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

The second edition of The Green Studio Handbook (by Alison Kwok and Walter Grondzik) has been recently published by Architectural Press (now an imprint of Taylor and Francis). The first edition has been translated and published in both traditional and simplified Chinese.

Professor Joe Bilello will serve as Director of Ball State’s Australia Centre in Lennox Head, New South Wales during the spring term.

Graduate students Michela Cupello and Wes Stabbs won the USGBC Multifamily Midrise Design Competition sponsored by AUTODESK. Professor Robert Koester served as their critic/advisor as they developmed their entry.

University of California, Berkeley

March 17, 2014/in School News West Region /by Matrix Admin

Dana Buntrock has been promoted to Full Professor.

Professor Rene Davids has been selected for a Fulbright Specialist Grant in Urban Planning as a guest of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Chile. He will be spending 6 weeks in his native Chile giving lectures and organizing seminars around the country in the late Fall. During the summer Davids was invited to chair a panel and give a conference paper entitled “Designing for a Global Context: The Impact of New Technologies in Architectural Education” at the 3rd annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies held in Barcelona, Spain; he discussed in part his experiences in conducting architectural studios abroad.

Professor Harrison Fraker is the Ax:son Johnson Visiting Professor for Lund University Master’s Program in Sustainable Urban Design (SUDes). His duties include lecturing, conducting workshops, participating in conferences, advising thesis students and the development of a case study research agenda on best practices of sustainable urban design from around the globe. Fraker is concurrently a faculty leader in an interdisciplinary team of UC Berkeley faculty and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories staff working in collaboration with Tianjin University faculty on the development of a new “green,” zero-carbon campus for Tianjin University. Finally, Fraker reports that he is an advisor to India’s TATA Management on how to make Jamshedpur’s urban services more sustainable, preparing a detailed report on thirteen strategies to achieve zero-carbon operations and services.

In June, Professor Margaret Crawford gave a paper, “The Paradoxes of Public Space,” at symposium “Thinking Architecture, Technology, Culture: A Conversation” at the Bavarian-American Academy in Munich, Germany. Crawford also contributed a catalog essay on the entries to the Chengdu Biennale, held in Chengdu China from late September to late October. Crawford also published an essay, “Temporary Urbanisms,” to the catalog accompanying the “Reclaim Market Street” exhibition at SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. The exhibition, which opened in early September, will run through January of 2012. Finally, Crawford was also a juror for the new “Pro Bono” category of the SF AIA Honor awards.

Recent work by Professor Richard Fernau’s firm Fernau & Hartman and Associate Professor Mark Anderson’s partnership, Anderson Anderson Architecture is featured in the book, Nature Framed: At Home in the Landscape published by Monacelli Press. (For more on the book, go here: http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20110819/qa-framing-nature)

Assistant Professor Ronald Rael has renewed his research partnership, managed through UC Berkeley’s Industry Alliances Office, with the IT group Luxology. The partnership allows Rael and his students to test Luxulogy’s 3D modeling tool, called “modo.”

Professor Mary Comerio was invited to speak at the Yale School of Architecture symposium, “Catastrophe and Consequence: the Campaign for Safe Buildings” in November.

Associate Professor Lisa Iwamoto’s partnership, IwamotoScott, was included in an exhibition “Architecture of Consequence: San Francisco” held from late August through the end of October, at the Center for Architecture + Design Gallery and sponsored by AIA San Francisco.

Associate Professor Raveevarn Choksombatchai participated in a panel on architectural education, organized by swissnex San Francisco and AIA San Francisco. Choksombatchai discussed a workshop she led at Thammasat University in Bangkok.

Professor Galen Cranz was keynote speaker on “The chair Conundrum and the Challenge of Sitting” at the Australian National Feldenkrais Conference in Brisbane, Australia in August. She also lectured in Sydney at the architecture firm BVN and in Melbourne at the Alexander Centre.

Professor Susan Ubbelohde was a panel member on “The Edge of Design” at the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit, in Kansas City in September.

“FRAMES FOR LIVING: The Life and Work of William Wilson Wurster” is the inaugural exhibit for the new Wurster Hall Gallery. The exhibition includes images by nationally recognized artists never before seen and others from the College’s Environmental Design Archives and coincides with publication of a book by the same name, authored by Caitlin Lempres Bostrom (M. Arch ‘90) and Professor Emeritus Richard C. Peters, FAIA. The exhibit and the book illustrate the impact of Wurster’s work on the practice of architecture today, and document how his designs and educational philosophy continue to inspire architects and those who occupy his buildings. The show will run through November 15 of this year.

Drexel University

March 17, 2014/in School News Awards, Northeast Region /by Matrix Admin

After 37 years on the Drexel faculty and 25 years of leadership Paul M. Hirshorn, AIA has retired at the end of the academic year 2010-2011. Hirshorn was Head of the Department of Architecture from 1986 to 2007, Head of the Department of Architecture + Interiors from 2007 to 2010 and served as Architecture Program Director this past year. Under his leadership the Arfaa Lecture Series was established, the Architecture Program’s off-campus studies programs were launched and the unique 2+4 architecture degree program was created. Paul Hirshorn has worked tirelessly for the Department, the Program and for Drexel University and we would like to thank and acknowledge him for his many contributions.

Assistant Professor Dr. Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis, AIA has assumed the position of Program Director for Architecture in July 2011. Dr. Altenmüller-Lewis had served as Associate Director of the Architecture Program since she began teaching at Drexel in September 2008. This past spring Professor Altenmüller-Lewis won the prestigious Allen Rothwarf Award for Teaching Excellence, Drexel’ University’s highest teaching award.

Erik Sundquist has joined the Department of Architecture + Interiors as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Architecture Program. Prior to his appointment at Drexel University, Sundquist taught at the College of Architecture and the Arts at Florida International University in Miami Florida. As a practicing architectural designer he has collaborated with architects, artists, industrial designers and interior designers on high profile projects that span four continents. Eric Sundquist received his BA in Psychology and Economics from The University of Massachusetts, a MA in Political Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook and his MArch from Florida International University. In his teaching and research, he has explored the role of sustainability in professional practice and effects of digital based design on traditional notions of building tectonics and scale.

Nicole Koltick has been promoted to Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture + Interiors. She coordinates the technology course work and digital initiatives in the Interiors Design undergraduate and Interior Architecture and Design graduate programs. Nicole Koltick received an M. Arch. from UCLA and a BFA, in Art with University Honors, from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a principal of the trans-dicsiplinary design firm lutz/koltick. Koltick’s current research interests include future speculation, robotics, computation, artificial intelligence and interactive environments. She is interested in exploring the boundaries between technology, science, the “natural,” the built environment and its inhabitants. Nicole Koltick works with complex and fantastical narratives as well as multi-agent systems and advanced computational strategies to envision new landscapes, environments and territories for inhabitation.

Call for Presentations: ACSA/AIA Housing Research Lecture Series

March 17, 2014/in ACSA News /by Matrix Admin

The AIA Housing Knowledge Community (AIA Housing) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) are collaborating to increase public and professional awareness of environmental, community and technical research for housing. The ACSA/AIA Housing Research Webinar Series will provide free online continuing education for faculty, students, architects, architectural interns and others that will support evidence-based practice in housing and community development. Proposals are being accepted through April 20 for the first series of three webinars that will be offered in fall of 2012.

Proposals are sought for presentations that address primary-source, experimental, applied, or translational research. Examples of areas of interest include but are not limited to healthy homes, sustainable construction, international practice, and community engagement.

The one-AIA-learning-unit webinars will be offered online through the GoToMeeting platform, with slides presented on screen and audio over the telephone. Each moderated presentation will feature one or two speakers for approximately 35 minutes, followed by a live question-and-answer period. Webinars typically attract 150-250 participants. The webinar will also be available on the AIA’s YouTube channel. No compensation, other than free learning units, is offered to presenters.

Proposals will be peer-reviewed using the following criteria:

• Quality of the research
• Applicability to practice or policy
• Previous experience of presenters
• Quality of graphic images
• Content addresses health, safety and/ or welfare in architecture

Submit the following information in PDF format:

• Name and contact information for presenters – indicate prime contact
• Biosketch or resume for presenters (1 page maximum)
• Learning Objectives – 4
• Summary – 150 words max
• Sample powerpoint– 10 slides max

Up to 9 proposals will be selected for development.

Selected presenters will also be required to submit the following:

• Photograph of speakers
• Powerpoint Presentation
• AIA waiver

Up to 6 proposals will be selected for development as a 2012 or 2013 presentation.

Schedule

March 8 Release RFP
April 20 Phase 1 Applications Due
May 21 Finalists Announced
July 1 Presentations Due
August 1 Speakers Announced
September 10 Practice Presentation 1
September 24 Presentation 1
October 15 Practice Presentation 2
October 29 Presentation 2
November 5 Practice Presentation 3
November 26 Presentation 3

Contact: Submit proposals and questions to Michael Monti, ACSA executive director, mmonti@acsa-arch.org, 202.785.2324 x 7.

Rhode Island School of Design

March 17, 2014/in School News Northeast Region /by Matrix Admin

Architectural Design, a spring core studio in the RISD Architecture curriculum, recently completed a sustainable community garden for neighborhood residents, the Chinese Christian Church and Heritage Park YMCA in Pawtucket, RI. The project was featured on May 18 in The Pawtucket Times. More information about the garden can be found at (http://www.risd.edu/About/News/Community_Garden_Blossoms.aspx).

Jonathan Knowles has been appointed to Associate Professor at the RISD Architecture Department.

Fulbright Grants were awarded to Athanasiou Geolas (BArch 11), who will be doing research in Greece and to Reed Duecy-Gibbs (MArch 11), who will be in Turkey to conduct his research.

University of Minnesota

March 17, 2014/in School News West Central Region /by Matrix Admin

Renee Cheng, Professor and Department Head: Renee Cheng will be one of the featured speakers for the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) national conference on Lean Construction in San Antonio Texas. Speakers are industry leaders in integrated project delivery and lean principles.

Marc Swackhamer, Associate Professor: Professor Swackhamer’s practice, HouMinn, collaborated over the summer with the architects VJAA and artist Diane Willow to submit a “Request for Qualifications” to redesign the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza on the University of Minnesota campus. Their team was shortlisted and submitted a scheme for the competition on September 1. An exhibition of all four short-listed teams’ entries will be on display at the Weisman Art Museum’s grand re-opening on October 2, 2011. Teams will present their work to a jury on October 26, when a winner will be decided. Professor Swackhamer also co-authored an essay with his HouMinn partner, Blair Satterfield titled “Built to Change: A Case for Disintegration and Obsolescence.” This essay appears in the newly published book “Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production,” edited by Gail Peter Borden and Michael Meredith. Finally, Professor Swackhamer was appointed to a two-year term as Director of Design for the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota.

Lance LaVine, Professor: Lance LaVine received an International Travel Grant from the University of Minnesota for the work on his upcoming book that will compare 25 influential architectural texts with the design ethics manifested in 25 significant modern buildings. The texts inlcude LeCorbusier’s seminal work “Towards a New Architecture” and others written after that period. The buildings include LeCorbusier’s important buildings such as Villa Savoye and iconic buildings designed by others after that time.

Robert Mack, Adjunct Professor: AIA Minnesota has recognized the firm MacDonald and Mack Architects, Ltd. with its 2011 Firm Award. Given biennially, this prestigious award is presented to firms that have contributed to the advancement of the profession in the areas of technology, service and design. MacDonald & Mack Architects has been described as “The gold standard for preservation architecture.” Stuart MacDonald and Bob Mack, Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture began their practice 35 years ago with unbridled energy, enthusiasm, and deep respect for treasured landmark structures.

Adam Marcus, Cass Gilbert Design Fellow: Adam Marcus has been appointed the Cass Gilbert Design Fellow for the 2011-2012 academic year. Adam comes to Minneapolis from New York City, where he practiced with Marble Fairbanks since 2005 and taught at the Department of Architecture at Barnard and Columbia Colleges. At UMN he is teaching undergraduate and graduate design studios, and he is organizing a symposium to be held in the spring semester that will focus on the role of digital technologies in design education.

Catholic University of America

March 17, 2014/in School News Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

The School of Architecture and Planning is pleased to announce that the first annual Urban Practice Distinguished Critic will be Tim McDonald of the Philadelphia-based Onion Flats. The intention of the Distinguished Critic program is to engage exemplary urban practitioners who can bring their perspective, methods and work to the students both informally and formally. The Urban Practice concentration, one of four concentrations in the Master of Architecture program, focuses on architecture that weaves the small and large scales with historical, cultural, social and conceptual contexts. For more information, please see our website: http://urbanpracticeatcuarch.wordpress.com/

Professor Terrance R. Williams, FAIA, and Associate Professor Adnan Morshed, PhD, will be at the Urban Affairs Association conference in San Francisco next April to present their paper, “Mid-Sized Cities: A New American Urban Frontier?” The paper focuses on the decades of urban depopulation—especially in mid-sized cities–and the vast surplus of under-utilized infrastructure that literally offers a subsidy to the re-densification our urban communities of all sizes.

Associate Professor Adnan Morshed, PhD, published his book “Oculus: A Decade of Insights into Bangladeshi Affairs.” The book was presented at the Hay Festival 2012, Bangla Academy last November 15th, and at the Baatighar Press Club, Chittagong last December 29^th. Dr. Morshed was also an invited panelist at the University of Texas Austin’s Harry Ransom Center last November during the Tenth Biennial Fleur Cowles Flair Symposium “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America”. In addition, Dr, Morshed will be speaking at the School of Architecture, the University of Utah, as part of the Spring Lecture Series in March 2013.

Associate Professor Eric J. Jenkins, AIA, published his book “Drawn to Design: Analyzing Architecture through Freehand Drawing” (Birkhäuser, 2012). Beginning with the underlying concepts of freehand sketching, the book’s main component is a series of “design acts” that a student might perform in design and analysis. The book contains over 400 drawings exploring the role and the methods of freehand analytical sketching in architectural education. Jenkins has also been appointed to the Board of Directors of the District of Columbia Chapter of the AIA. In this position he will work to develop links between academia and practice as well as work on initiatives such as mentoring and A.R.E. preparation and completion.

Assistant Professor Carlos Reimers, PhD, will be presenting a paper at the Cultures of the Suburbs Symposium to be held at Hofstra University, NY this year on June. The paper is entitled “Informal Suburbia” and it addresses research into the growth of extralegal settlements on the outskirts of cities throughout the United States, and the environmental and political forces that fuel this growth.

During the Summer 2012, four architecture students at CUA, Peter Miles, Joey Barrick, Nina Tatic, and Filipe Pereira, worked under the direction of Associate Professor Miriam Gusevich to create a design proposal for development of the McMillan Reservoir site. This proposal, which was created in response to a plan created by Envision McMillan Partners, was presented at a July HPRB hearing. The project, which has also been presented to various community groups and other interested parties, has received very positive press from The National Trust for Historic Preservation and other groups.

Architecture Schools in Hard Times

March 17, 2014/in ACSA News Board of Directors /by Matrix Admin

By Judith Kinnard, President

A recent study connecting unemployment and earnings to college majors, titled Hard Times, is clearly a source of concern for architectural educators and the profession, because it marks architecture as having the highest levels of unemployment of all majors in the report: 14% for bachelor’s graduates ages 22 to 26. The study, published by Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce and picked up in regional and national media, drew from 2009 and 2010 U.S. Census data to connect respondents’ undergraduate major with employment status and earnings.

The ongoing recession in the construction industry has had a disproportionate effect on recent architecture graduates and emerging professionals, as firms have chosen to hold on to existing staff and limit hiring. Yet a broader perspective on the historic cycles of the construction industry reveals that the long-term prospects for design professionals are very strong. As the U.S. economy recovers, pent up demand will create the need for design leadership in the construction of new buildings for our civic and cultural institutions, for commerce, and for homes. Existing buildings will be adapted to serve new functions and to meet current environmental standards. We know that our public spaces and infrastructure, in large cities and small towns, need renovation and modernization. Global demand for innovative design remains strong. Graduates of our architecture programs have the technical knowledge, the digital skills, and the talent that firms in architecture and affiliated professions need as they ramp up to respond to new opportunities and demand.

This study captured an unusual and difficult moment for the construction industry and the architecture profession. It puts numbers to levels of unemployment that are stark, but perhaps not surprising: 13.9% among those age 22 to 26 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture (which may or may not include an accredited professional degree); 9.2% among those age 30 to 54. Among architecture undergraduates who also have a graduate degree, the unemployment level is 7.7%, the report said.

Although we cannot ignore the serious issue that this study reveals, we must take a broader view. Given the challenges that many of our cities and regions face, we must encourage students to engage architecture and the related design disciples. Yet we must also do more to assist our students in making the transition into their careers in architecture for both the first year after graduation and the decades after. Career and student services are central to architecture schools’ missions, and I will task the board to find more ways to use our existing programs to highlight best practices.

Preparing students for careers should rise naturally from each school’s curriculum, as well. As we begin to review and revise accreditation standards in 2012 and 2013, we should be asking serious questions about how individual schools can best respond to this reality. For some schools this might mean reaffirming the importance of critical thinking and communication skills and strengthening connections to the liberal arts. For others this may mean a renewed focus on technical subjects and building science. My hope is that all schools will reaffirm their commitment to the central role that design plays in our discipline. New accreditation conditions will need to accommodate and indeed promote this diversity of approaches to prepare students for the challenging conditions they will face as they begin their careers.

In closing, I want to report that at ACSA’s recent Administrators Conference in Los Angeles, we asked participants to share whether their recent graduates are finding jobs. On the whole the responses did not reflect the same tone as the Hard Times report. Does your school see the same rate of unemployment among your graduates? Please comment.

NAED Receives Start-Up Funding, Seeks Executive Director

March 17, 2014/in /by Matrix Admin

The National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) announced this week that it has received funding from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, to open its first permanent office and launch start-up operations in 2013. The NAED_s agreement with the County, through its Economic Development Authority (EDA), is part of a multi-organization partnership to develop a world-class facility for research, product design and manufacturing, policy development, and related educational activities in Spotsylvania. With this agreement, the Academy has also opened a search for a permanent executive director to lead the organization. Visit naedonline.org for more information.

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