An Austin Manifesto for Architecture Education

by Fritz Steiner, University of Texas at Austin

During the 2012 ACSA Administrators Conference, panelists were asked to imagine the future of practice, addressing the changing profiles of architecture clients, firms, and students, and the intersections between research, practice, and place. Below are the top issues that emerged from these conversations. 


Aesthetics and Performance. Evidence-based design, digital technology, and ecological/energy/social concerns are evolving a new design-based aesthetic.


Reflective Practice. The art of design is advanced through reflective practice which needs to be valued within the academy.


Collaboration. Architecture is enhanced through working with both near disciplines, including landscape architecture, engineering, planning, and interior, graphic, industrial, urban, and digital design as well as others like biology, sociology, the health sciences, and law.


Travel. Architecture education is expanded through travel that exposes students to different places and cultures (but we should be aware of the ecological footprint of such travel).


Pedagogy and Place. Buildings are constructed on specific sites; architecture education is enriched through place-based knowledge.


Research. Whereas the architecture discipline is augmented by sciences and the humanities, at its core, architecture is an art, which requires various forms of practice.


Compelling Work. We need to be inspiration to inform our teaching and scholarship.


Diversity. Diversity is good in all its forms: race, ethnicity, and gender, as well as the geographical and institutional variety of architecture schools. The healthiest ecosystems are the most diverse.


Complexity. The built environment is a complex biophysical and sociocultural system which demands understanding to construct wholes from parts.


Communication. The sharing of best practices for teaching, scholarship, and administration will strengthen architecture schools.

Florida International University

Professors Marilys Nepomechie, Marta Canaves, Gray Read, Nick Gelpi and Thomas Spiegelhalter gave the following peer-reviewed research project presentations at the 2013 ACSA Regional Conference: Subtropical Cities 2013 – Design Interventions for Changing Climates at Florida Atlantic University, Fort Lauderdale

1. ‘The Unflat Pavilion: Responsive Materialism + Adaptive Fabrication’ and ‘Compelling Evidence of Premeditation – Mocking The Museum’ by Nick Gelpi
2. ‘Mitigate, Adapt, Sustain: Emerging Workflows and Design Protocols for Carbon Neutral Subtropical H2 Cities’ by Thomas Spiegelhalter
3. ‘Miami 2100: Envisioning our Second Century’, by Marta Canaves and Marilys R. Nepomechie
4. ‘Birds of Lincoln Road’, by Gray Read

The conference was co-chaired by Anthony Abbate, Florida Atlantic University and Rosemary Kennedy, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

The Department of Architecture at Florida International University announces that Professor John Stuart has been promoted as the founding Associate Dean of Cultural and Community Engagement | Executive Director for the College of Architecture + the Arts’ Miami Beach Urban Studios (MBUS). With a primary focus of cultivating engaged scholarship, creative activities, and service learning partnerships within the College, with other University units, and with community partners, John will oversee the daily operations of MBUS. John has recently served as Chair of the Department of Architecture and Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Provost.  His research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Graham Foundation for Advanced Research in the Fine Arts, Van Alen Institute, and the National Science Foundation.  As a practicing architect, researcher, and educator, he sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education and will co-chair the 102nd annual conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture on Miami Beach in 2014. 

Associate Professor Jason Chandler was elected Department Chair by the faculty, and assumes his new role after serving as Associate Chair for the past two years. Jason’s research has been supported by grants and fellowships from The National Institute for Architectural Education, The International Hurricane Center, The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, The United States Department of Education and The Metropolitan Center at FIU. He also served as the architecture faculty advisor for FIU’s award-wining 2005 Solar Decathlon Home. Jason is a licensed architect in the State of Florida. In addition to his extensive portfolio of built work, he has earned recognition in several international design competitions. He received Second Prize in the 81st Paris Prize Architectural Design Competition, Honorable Mention in the 2001 the Scattered Housing Competition, First Prize in the 2004 Miami Beach Design Life Competition and Honorable Mention in the 2008 Miami Waterworks competition. His entry for the 2005 Parachute Pavilion Competition has won both Miami and Florida A.I.A. awards. 

Associate Professor Camilo Rosales was awarded the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) Grant by the U.S. Department of State. Rosales, along with a team of researchers that he led, received a total award amount of $791, 531. Through this grant, Rosales and his team will work to create programs that support energy reduction with three Latin American Universities and the three cities of Valdivia (Chile), Goiania (Brazil), and Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago). 

David Rifkind was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. His house, co-designed with Holly Zickler, was published in the September-October issue of Residential Architect.

University of Houston

Nahid Haimonty  of the Gerald D. Hines college of Architecture was one of six students shortlisted for the UN Initiated WAN-Better Cities Better Lives competition which was presented at World Architecture Day 2012 in London. Students from all over the world submitted projects and only six were shortlisted:

The submissions were judged by WAN’s Editor in Chief Michael Hammond, WAN’s Business Information Manager Caroline Stephens and CEO of World Cities Network Brian Kilkelly.

Assistant Professor Wendy Fok was Nahid’s instructor/thesis advisor.

 

Southern Illinois University

Chad Schwartz, AIA is a new Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, having spent the last eight years practicing architecture in the Phoenix area and teaching in the Design School at Arizona State University.  He is licensed as a registered architect in both Arizona and Illinois and holds an NCARB certificate.  Professor Schwartz has taught design studio at multiple levels as well as professional practice and building construction and has co-taught courses in architectural history and structures.  His professional work includes single-family and multi-family housing, education facilities, libraries and other community projects, juvenile justice facilities, commercial and retail work, and Native American projects.  Professor Schwartz’s research interests include the integration of typical and a-typical building materials and full-scale design work in the studio environment, the ability of the detail to take the role of the generator of architectural design, the effects of materiality and detail on our perception of space, and the evolution of building construction courses in the teaching of architecture.  Above all, his primary belief in practicing architecture is that the architect should design for the place and those who will occupy that place.

City College of New York

Joe Tanney of Resolution: 4 Architecture returns as Distinguished Visiting Professor. His firm had two projects, the Union Square Duplex and the Warren Street Townhouse featured on the 2012 City Modern Home Tour, co-hosted by Dwell and New York magazines. RES4’s Connecticut Pool House project recently won an AIA Connecticut 2012 Merit Design Award.

 
Distinguished Visiting Professor John Hong
is founding principal with Jinhee Park of the firm SsD, known for the Big Dig House in Boston and many other innovative projects. The firm received a 2012 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York.

A house designed in Amagansett, New York, by Assistant Professor Nandini Bagchee and partner Tim Furzer was recently completed and featured on the cover of the New York Times Style Magazine (May 4, 2012). She participated in a panel discussion of the urban design research project “Streetscape Territories” at the Flanders House in New York City.

A study by Professor Hillary Brown, FAIA, “Integrated Critical Infrastructure for Leogane, Haiti,” developed with students in the Sustainability Program, is being utilized by the Haitian Energy Ministry as a template for energizing rural “eco-districts.” It is a backbone of Haiti’s energy master plan under development by the Global Energy Model Institute, an organization Brown co-founded.

ACSA Distinguished Professor Lance Jay Brown co-edited the timely book Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space (New Village Press) in which he authored the chapter “Public Space Then and in the Future.” He also authored the concluding chapter “Occupy the Edge, Harvest the City” in the publication The Harlem Edge: Cultivating Connections, documenting the recent ENYA-sponsored competition. Brown recently lectured or moderated panels at the AIA’s Center for Architecture and the Central Park Armory, and presented an illustrated “PlaNYC Report Card” at the “Transformações urbanas e patrimônio cultural” symposium in Rio de Janeiro.

Adjunct Professor Alberto Foyo conducted a design-build workshop in the Amazon basin as part of his ongoing initiative in collaboration with the indigenous Munduruku tribe. Foyo showcased the built intervention, an agroforestry compound, in the lecture “Mobility+ Culture” presented at Columbia University’s Studio-X Rio, an event coordinated with the Rio+20 sustainability conference in Brazil.

American City Interrupted: What Spontaneous Interventions Can Teach Us About Taking the City Back,” a feature article by Professor Toni Griffin, Director of the J. Max Bond Center, was published in the August 2012 issue of Architect magazine. She delivered the lecture “Legacy Cities + Innovative Landscapes” at the 2012 ASLA Annual Conference.

Adjunct Lecturer Daniel Hauben and his frieze paintings commissioned for Bronx Community College were featured in the New York Times article “Battled and Beautiful: His Bronx.” The paintings—one of the largest public art commissions the Bronx has seen since the late 1930s—feature classic Bronx vistas and neighborhood street scenes.

Associate Professor Denise Hoffman Brandt participated in the Civic Action Charrette by Urban Omnibus, a project of the Architectural League of New York. Hoffman Brandt presented “City Sink” and participated in a panel discussion at the “Urban Planet: Emerging Ecologies” symposium at the Cooper Union. She also presented the MLA Program’s contribution to Slum Lab: Last Round Ecology, the publication jointly produced by the CCNY Landscape Architecture Program and ETH Zurich’s Urban Design Program, at the 2012 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture conference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.

The new office headquarters of OriginalMedia, designed by Berman Horn Studio, the firm of Assistant Professor Brad Horn, was published in Interior Design magazine (Sept 2012).

Assistant Professor Fran Leadon is writing the book Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles (W. W. Norton & Company). Leadon’s book traces New York City’s most complex street through time and space, from its beginning in 1625 as a line sighted through a Dutch surveyor’s transit to its position, by 1899, as Manhattan’s main street.

Adjunct Professor Irma Ostroff exhibited “Location Series,” a show of recent paintings, at the offices of RKT&B in Chelsea.

Associate Professor Catherine Seavitt Nordenson’s article “Feral Bestiary” is in (Non-) Essential Knowledge for (New) Architecture, Volume 15 of 30/60/90. She was an invited speaker at the conference “DredgeFest NYC” at Columbia University’s GSAPP.

Distinguished Professor Michael Sorkin has been awarded the New York State AIA Educator Award. His lectures this fall include the University of Rotterdam, MIT, Fordham, the CUNY Graduate Center, Columbia, and Washington University. Articles have recently appeared in Landscape Architecture, Lotus, AD and Architecture and the books While We Were Sleeping and Beyond Zuccotti Park. Sorkin is serving on the jury for the Veronica Rudge Green prize in Urban Design, given by Harvard University. The Sorkin Studio recently completed a study of the Zeytinburnu neighborhood in Istanbul and is working on an office building in Xi’an, China and a housing development in An Kang, China. The Institute for Urban Design, of which Sorkin is President and numerous SSA faculty are Fellows, was the sponsor of the U.S. Pavilion at this year’s Venice Archtitecture Biennale. The show, Spontaneous Interventions, was given one of four jury awards, the first time an American Pavilion has won such a prize.

Work by Associate Professor Elisabetta Terragni was included in the “Inhabiting the City” exhibition at the Green Social Festival in Bologna and the Albanian Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. The permanent architecture collection of the MAXXI Museum in Rome now includes a model by Terragni. Her report on first Young Architects Program (YAP) installation at MAXXI, designed by Urban Movement Studio, was published on the Arbitare website.

Adjunct Associate Professor Albert Vecerka recently photographed a new sculpture by Dee Briggs at the Warhol Museum (Briggs is a City College graduate who then went to Yale School of Architecture and now makes sculpture in Pittsburgh). Vecerka’s photos are in an exhibit of Esto photographers’ work at the Boston Society of Architects.

Associate Professor June Williamson co-authored a chapter in Independent for Life: Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging America (U of Texas Press). She appeared in the PBS documentary “Designing Healthy Communities,” hosted by Dr. Richard Jackson, and was awarded first place in the AuthentiCITY 2012 urban design competition for a scheme to retrofit a strip mall and surrounds in West Palm Beach, Florida. She delivered public lectures at Catholic University and the Phoenix Urban Research Lab of Arizona State University.

I-Beam Design, the firm of Adjunct Associate Professor Suzan Wines, welcomed over 600 visitors to a project on the Lower East Side featured in openhousenewyork. I-Beam Design’s work was recently featured in Bydleni iDNES, a popular Czech newspaper and Design Like You Give A Damn (2) the latest compendium on humanitarian design by Architecture for Humanity.

 

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Nationally and internationally known architects, designers, historians and theorists will present their work this semester at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as part of the Robert B. Church III Memorial Lecture Series.

The lecture series is free and open to the public. It is composed of exhibitions, presentations and films.

The semester lineup includes lectures by:

  • Jan. 30: Max Underwood, professor of architecture from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, will speak on Charles and Ray Eames. An additional lunch talk will be available to interested parties earlier in the day at 12 p.m. in 103A, Art and Architecture Building.
  • Feb. 13: “Digital Materiality in Architecture” by Fabio Gramazio, architect and digital fabricator of Gramazio & Kohler in Zurich, Switzerland.
  • March 12: Karl-Heinz Schmitz, professor of architecture at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. Schmitz is an expert in the design and theory of building types, and will present on architecture and urbanism.
  • March 26: Massimo Carmassi will be the General Shale Lecturer, the keynote speaker of the spring series. Carmassi is a specialist in restoration and preservation in architecture and urban design. He will visit the university from Florence, Italy.
  • April 2: Fran Silvestre of Fran Silvestre Navarro Arquitectos in Valencia, Spain, will present on topics in contemporary architecture.
  • April 9: Vinayak Bharne, director of design at Moule & Polyzoides Architects & Urbanists in Pasadena, California, and lecturer of architecture at the University of Southern California, will speak on issues in architecture and theory.

More details available at: http://www.arch.utk.edu/lecture_series/current_church.shtml 

The College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, announces its first CoAD Career Day. The event is scheduled for Friday, February 24, 2012.

More details about this event is at http://www.arch.utk.edu/Special_Programs/careerday.shtml.  


University of Southern California


M. Brian Tichenor AIA has just completed the restoration of a four-acre Thomas Church garden in Pebble Beach, and is in the final stages of planning for the first large residence built to Passivhaus standards in Monterey County.

Adjunct Associate Professor, Gerdo Aquino, is President of SWA, and Principal at the Los Angeles studio.   He recently co-authored a book, published by Birkhauser/Actar, entitled Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA.   For the fall/winter of 2011 he lectured at GSD Harvard, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the University of Virginia on “Transportational Futures” and Landscape Infrastructure.  He has recently been awarded the 2011 Westside Prize Merit Award, Open Space Category for Milton Street Park, Marina Del Rey, CA.  He is currently working on the recently awarded Shanghai Disney Project (Residential, Dining and Entertainment Area), a pedestrian streetscape in El Paso, Texas, and a linear urban park along Ballona Creek in Marina Del Rey.  Gerdo will be speaking on a panel on October 28th at the ULI Conference entitled: From Eye Sore to “A Must See:” Creating Urban Parks from Thin Air and Adding Real Estate Value.

Visiting Assistant Professor Ying-Yu Hung is Managing Principal of SWA Los Angeles, and co-founder of the Infrastructure Research Initiative (I.R.I.S.), recently co-authoring the book “Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA”, published by Birkhauser/Actar.  She was a finalist for the 2011 ULI Awards for Excellence: Asia Pacific Competition for Gubei Pedestrian Promenade in Shanghai, China.  Hung is an active lecturer and recently presented a panel on the topic of landscape infrastructure at this year’s National American Planning Association conference held in Boston and CELA in Los Angeles.  In the fall/winter of 2011 she lectured at GSD Harvard, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the University of Virginia on “Transportational Futures” and Landscape Infrastructure.   In August, SWA Los Angeles won 2nd Place in the 2016 Rio Olympic Competition in Rio de Janerio, Brazil.  Her current projects include the Fuyang Riverfront Concept Master Plan in China.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Eric Haas, AIA received a Preservation Design Award from the California Preservation Foundation for the restoration of R.M. Schindler’s Bubeshko Apartments. He also presented the project on the panel “Renovating an Icon” at Dwell on Design 2011 in Los Angeles.

Professor Marc Schiler tested and evaluated the reflective and specular implications of using a foamed aluminum material on the exterior of the LUMA Foundation in Arles, France, designed by Frank Gehry.  Gehry continues to push the envelope in using new materials.  Professor Schiler also documented the interesting instances of solar convergence over the span of a day at the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas, designed by Rafael Vinoly.  Preliminary results were presented at the Facades Tectonics conference at USC.  

Visiting Assistant Professor Kristine Mun has been invited to participate in the LA Downtown Artwalk event from October 13-18, 2011. She will be showcasing her Studio402 projects, entitled “Architecture and the Logic Machine: Behavior and Material Application”

Assistant Professor Karen M. Kensek is organizing the sixth annual BIM conference to be held in Los Angeles on July 13, 2012.

Faculty members Doris Sung and Rob Ley were awarded the 2011 AIA National Upjohn Grant to support ongoing research that their respective design offices have engaged dealing with responsive materials within architecture.  Both Rob and Doris have separately received support from previous Upjohn Grants, this year’s award marks the first time that they will be working together on a new project.

Lecturer Carlo Aiello co-edited the new book ‘Evolo Skyscrapers’ which is an investigation on the future of vertical density. The publication was presented last September at the 2011 Interior Design Show West (IDSWest) in Vancouver. It received instant praise by the public and critics.

Assistant Professor Ken Breisch has been asked to join the “Los Angeles Architecture, 1940-1990″ Exhibition Advisory Committee for the Getty Research Institute, as well as the Los Angeles Arboretum Preservation Advisory Group, and the Survey LA Review Committee.

Adjunct Professor Veronica G. Galen, Assoc. AIA, IES, LEED AP BD+C, designed the lighing for the Silver Award winning Dream Home 2011 Custom Contemporary Home of the Year and Best Whole House Remodel for residential projects with Kollin Altomare Architects, and was part of the team awarded an Illuminating Engineering Society of North America Award of Merit for the lighting design of Chase Bank Colorado Boulevard.

Adjunct Professor Regula Campbell AIA authored a presentation in June at the International Federation of Landscape Architecture World Congress: “Scales of Nature”, Zurich, Switzerland on the topic:  Biodiversity in the City: Enrichment for Urban Life and Work – “Making It Personal, Making It Real”.

Adjunct Professor Doug Campbell ASLA will be recognized by the Government of Hangzhou, China this October for his contribution to the region’s “Quality of Life” through his design of  a recently completed sustainable new town re-visioning a former  industrial site in the City’s northern district.

An exhibition featuring design work addressing the proposed USC/Hybrid High Charter School by School of Architecture Associate Professor Chuck Lagreco’s 2011 spring topic studio students will be on display at a reception in the new Rossier School of Education Computing Center – part of a continuing collaboration on educational facilities by the two schools focusing on the neighborhoods around the campus.

Studio work on the Owens Lake dust mitigation project influenced the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to hire three local landscape architecture firms to be part of the current phase of design and construction for over 2.7 square miles of the lake. He has also joined the team in an advanced research capacity.

Architecture Lecturer, Christine Lampert’s firm,  Lampert Dias Architects, Inc.  has just finished the construction administration phase for the 8000 square foot San Clemente Senior’s Community Center that they designed in downtown San Clemente. The Center officially opened on Monday October 3, 2011.

Cory Ticktin, A.I.A. who is a Design Principal with AECOM in Los Angeles currently oversees the Studio’s International work in Asia. Mr. Ticktin is currently working on a number of projects in Asia including a 130,000 M² Mixed-Use commercial development in Bangkok, Thailand currently under construction, a 45,000 M² Corporate Headquarters for Unilever also in Bangkok, an 80 meter tall office tower in Bangalore, India, two 130 meter tall residential towers also in Bangalore and a 100 meter tall residential tower in Pune, India.

Associate Professor Trudi Sandmeier is the new Director of USC Graduate Historic Preservation Programs. She recently curated an L.A. Food Noir film event at the historic Orpheum Theatre and will be both a panelist and moderator for the upcoming Historic Preservation Symposium at Cornell University.

Ed Woll reports that construction is substantially complete for Young Burlington Apartments (affordable supportive housing for young people) in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood and 60% complete for Jovenes Houses (transitional housing for disadvantaged youth) in East Los  Angeles.  Projects on the boards include developments in Eagle Rock and in Pomona providing affordable supportive housing for families, seniors and homeless veterans.  The projects in Eagle Rock and Pomona will have substantial urban-farming components.

Victor Regnier FAIA, Vice Dean + Professor of Architecture will present the keynote address for the 14th Annual Sarnat Symposium on Geriatric Care in Los Angeles, CA.  In November, he will keynote the Caser Foundation International Conference on Architectural Design and Long Term Care in Madrid, Spain.

Gary Paige’s architecture project, “Type Variant Houses” and artwork, “Ruled Surfaces” is the subject of an exhibition entitled “Other Works” at the School of Architecture at UC Berkeley, along with architects Wes Jones and IDEA Office partners Eric Kahn and Russell Thomsen.

Michael Hricak, FAIA, Adjunct Associate Professor, served as a panelist and presented a talk on urban design and public health to a gathering of elected leaders, city managers and agency officials and staff from 88 municipalities and at the Los Angeles 2011 BIKE SUMMIT, sponsored by LA County Department of Public Health, and hosted by the City of Long Beach.

Professor James Steele is organizing a Symposium called the “Critics Forum” about the History of USC School of Architecture, which will also appear as a book in a years time, and he is eagerly anticipating the publication of a monograph on Sidney Eisenshtat that he edited for the USC School of Architecture Guild Press, in May.

Vinayak Bharne has been named a contributing editor of Kyoto Journal in Japan. He will serve as the south Asian commentator providing perspectives on architecture, urbanism & cultural anthropology. He is also contributing a chapter in the forthcoming book “Planning Los Angeles” (APA Planners Press 2012).

Lecturer Mina Chow, AIA, NCARB, dZI Media, Inc. have completed their “rough cut” for a new web series on innovative architecture.  The series was created with the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s office with Prof. Jim Steele and Getty Research Institute Wim de Witt as humanities advisors.  You may view the “rough cut” at: http://vimeo.com/29752344

Assistant Professor Victor Jones and the Watts House Project were awarded a 2011 Graham Grant to complete work for the Watts House Project’s Platform fence, pocket park, and façade improvement. He will be a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome in December to pursue research on the Italian Structural Engineer, Sergio Musmeci. He delivered a project presentation “Cultivating Cultures” at the 2011 ACSA Fall Conference / Houston entitled “Local Identities Global Challenges”

Douglas Noble, FAIA, Ph.D., is organizing the 8th FACADE TECTONICS conference, to be held in Los Angeles June 28-July 1, 2012.  The Call for papers is at:  http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~dnoble/facadetectonics8.htm

Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Hricak, FAIA, and his Venice based design firm recently received city approval for an innovative hotel and conference center to be built in Redondo Beach, California which promises to set new standards for design and sustainability in this beachside community. 

Prof Graeme M. Morland recently delivered lecture demonstration entitled, “SKETCHING WITHOUT FEAR” on the occasion of USC’s “GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY with the ARTS” annual event. For many people, picking up a pencil to sketch what they see is intimidating and disappointing as the resultant image bears little resemblance to the subject before them.  Invariably, this moment of frustration is translated as failure and they are persuaded that they cannot draw. This “crash course” was designed to alay these fears by demonstration and guidance, walking novice students through the process of constructing a drawing, establishing “datums”, understanding the rudiments of perspective, the limits of “vision”, graphic heirarchy, and the basics of skiagraphy.

The work of lecturer Rebecca Lowry will be on display at Los Angeles Gallery g825, opening October 15, and at Cain Schulte Gallery in San Francisco, opening November 3. The LA show will present a new body of work, focussing on representations of music, while the SF show will present a broad sampling of work from the last three years. 

Visiting Professor Jennifer Siegal was awarded a Visions and Voices grant to produce the symposium Motopia: A New Age for Modular Construction to be held at USC on November, 2, 2011. Find out more at  http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/113/event/893725

University of Arizona

Beth Weinstein has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure, and is spending her sabbatical fall semester between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia and Paris, France.

While in Melbourne, she was a guest of the dance company BalletLab, and a contributor to their current performance project, TOMORROW. (http://www.balletlab.com/works/upcoming/double-bill-and-all-things-return-to-nature-/-tomorrow/phils-5)

Weinstein recently published “Performance Space: Distributed v. Consolidated” as a chapter within The Disappearing Stage: Reflections on the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. The book reflects on the recent 12th edition of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, and also includes chapters from an international list of theorists and artists: Marvin Carlson (USA), Christopher Baugh (UK), Thea Brejzek (DE), Guy Gutman (IL), Barbora P_íhodová (CZ), and Arnold Aronson (USA). The book’s essays look at various aspects of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, and serve as a starting point for a deeper theoretical evaluation of contemporary theatre and scenography.”

Weinstein lectured in the Spannweiten (span widths) series at the Technische Universität Dresden on May 30th in conjunction with the TU Dresden Department of Architecture installation of the Collaborative Legacy of Merce Cunningham exhibition, curated and designed by Weinstein.

In June, Professor Weinstein participated in a curated panel at the Performance Studies International Conference  #18 in Leeds, entitled “Beyond Training: Event Experience in Education” with Dr. Rodrigo Tisi (Dean of Art, Architecture & Design: UNIACC Santiago, Chile) and Dr. Dorita Hannah (Wellington, NZ). In this context she presented University of Arizona students’ built designs for performance environments and interventions in public space.

Architectural historian Associate Professor Lisa Schrenk has joined the faculty of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. In May she traveled with Norwich University architecture student Katherine Anderson to Cuba while advising Anderson on her summer research fellowship, which explored pre- and post-revolutionary-era architecture in Havana and Puerto Rico. Prior to moving to Tucson, Professor Schrenk received a 2012 Excellence in Research award and was named as a Charles A. Dana I Award recipient for excellence in teaching, research, and service at Norwich.

Visiting Professor Brian Delford Andrews recently published a pamphlet entitled “Militaristic Detritus”, which documents his tenure as the 55th Hyde Chair of Excellence at the University of Nebraska, School of Architecture.  The booklet documents his work on the award winning project, “The House of War”, as well as detailing the student’s work on four various projects that dealt with the concept of Militaristic Detritus.

Adjunct Lecturers Luis Ibarra and Teresa Rosano, AIA LEED AP, of Ibarra Rosano Design Architects, have won their 8th AIA Southern Arizona Home of the Year Award for their latest project. The Levin Residence will air on HGTV’s Extreme Homes in the fall of 2012, and is featured on the cover of Tucson Lifestyle Magazine and in the fall issue of LUXE magazine.

 

Auburn University

Students in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) took first place in this year’s student design competition. Held in conjunction with NOMA’s annual conference in Atlanta, GA, October 20-22, 2011, the student design competition challenged teams to balance the historic character of Atlanta’s Washington Park/Vine City communities while developing a new MARTA Transit Village that preserved and enhanced the existing corridor. Competing against 15 teams from across the country, the Auburn team’s design of The Vine City Village won the first place prize of $1,500.  Auburn University’s student team was Damian Bolden, Phillip Ewing, Sarahgrace Godwin, Kyle Johnson, Weng Lon Lao, Tanner Backman, Jordan Cox, Andrew Dolder, Yesufu O’ladipo, and  Laura Taylor.