Page 146 – Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

Architecture Schools Face Budget & Enrollment Changes

Architecture programs budgets grew overall this year, but at many schools enrollments and applications are down.

At the 2013 ACSA Annual Business Meeting, President Donna Robertson presented some preliminary results from the latest annual budget survey and analysis of multi-year data gathered by the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

Architecture program enrollment has dropped over the past five years. (Figures 1 and 2)

(FIG 1)

(FIG 2)

For 2012-13, enrollments and applications are down compared to the previous year at some schools, according to a September 2012 survey of ACSA member schools. (Figure 3)

(FIG 3)

Results show an even mix of growth and reduction in program enrollments across all programs. About 1/3 of schools overall had lower enrollment. Undergraduate programs had the highest percentage of programs with decreases over the previous year, while postprofessional degree programs had the highest percentage of schools seeing enrollment growth.

The story was similar for applications from last year this to this year. (Figure 4)

(FIG 4)

Results show that more programs were seeing lower enrollments than last year, particularly at the undergraduate level. However, postprofessional degree programs saw greater increases. Nearly 2/3 of these programs reported an increase in applications, while 40% reported an increase in enrollment.

Full results from the budget survey will be published in coming weeks and posted on the ACSA website. Visit our Documents page to find past budget survey data.

University of Miami School of Architecture Dean Takes Key Role In the Rebuilding of Haitian Cathedral

UM School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, will serve as the lead juror of a six-juror panel of a competition to choose the winner of a design to rebuild the Notre Dame de l’Assomption Cathedral in Port Au Prince. The cathedral was destroyed during Haiti’s devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake.

The competition that has drawn 134 submissions was organized by the Archdiocese of Port Au Prince, with the support of UM’s School of Architecture and Faith and Form Magazine. Over 250 architects from throughout the world answered the invitation launched by the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Mgr Guire Poulard to help build a new Cathedral for the nation’s capital.

The jurors will meet at UM’s School of Architecture during Monday, December 17 and Tuesday, December 18 to review the work of the finalists. The winner will be announced on December 20. The first place winner will receive $12,000, the second place will receive $8,000 and the third place will receive $5,000.

“While each juror will bring a unique perspective to the review of the entries, we will all be looking at the quality of the design and we will take into consideration liturgical goals as well as cultural appropriate,” said Plater-Zyberk.

In the rebuilding of the Roman Catholic cathedral, the goal is to build a structure that can again be a beacon of hope to an entire nation and can serve as a fitting memorial to thousands who perished in the earthquake, according to Yves Savain, consultant to the Archdiocese of Port Au Prince and coordinator of the design competition.

“We feel that the competition will draw a great deal of interest internationally,” said Savain. “The Cathedral is not only a religious symbol but it is a national monument. It has a place in history and in culture and its reconstruction can serve as a catalyst for the rebuilding of downtown Port Au Prince which was also destroyed during the earthquake.”

According to the website on the Cathedral’s rebuilding, www.ndapap.org, it is hoped that the building will be a technologically advanced structure that takes tradition into account. This vital structure will put into application national and international building codes to ensure a safe center of worship.

A new structure on the same site will have to meet the most rigorous anti-seismic and anti-cyclonic norms. It should also be a “green building” and achieve the highest standards possible of positive environmental performance. The new cathedral will represent the long held religious faith of the country.

“It must honor the memory of the thousands who perished in Haiti on that tragic day of destruction,” said Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Mgr.Poulard.

Plater-Zyberk has experience with Haitian rebuilding efforts. In March, 2010 the UM School of Architecture hosted a meeting of Haitian architects, planners and government officials who worked with UM faculty and students, and volunteers from throughout the U.S., on blueprints for the reconstruction of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. During the charette, design teams generated ideas that included the rebuilding of churches, medical clinics, community resource centers and housing.

In the competition to rebuild the Cathedral, other jurors include Patrick Delatour, architect and former Minister of Tourism for Haiti, Michael Crosbie, architect and editor in chief of Faith and Form, Kia Miyamoto, structural engineer with Miyamoto International, Father Richard Vosko, a liturgical consultant and designer from Clifton Park, N.Y. and Edwidge Danticat, the Miami-based award winning Haitian American writer.

Editor’s note: Members of the media wishing to speak to the jurors can do so on Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 1 p.m. at the School of Architecture. Please contact Barbara Gutierrez at 305-284-5500 or at bgutierrez@miami.edu if you wish to cover the story.

Woodbury University

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

Woodbury University will be hosting the Drylands Design Conference, Burbank, CA, March 22-24, 2012. Organized by Arid Lands Institute in collaboration with the AIA/California Council, the California Architectural Foundation, and US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, the conference will showcase design and policy innovations that address water, energy, and the future of the western American city.

Adjunct Faculty Deborah Richmond participated in a group exhibition entitled Flagstop Alternative Art Event in August in Southern California. Photographs of shipping containers and loading docks at the Ikea warehouse in Tejon Ranch, originally shot during research for the book Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles, were included. The event was based on an open call format for both curators and artists. http://www.flagstopart.com/

Annie Chu, Associate Professor in Interior Architecture, is serving as a juror for the 2012 AIA Institute Honor Awards in Architecture and the 2012 Twenty-Five Year Award.

Adjunct Faculty, Christoph Korner and his office GRAFT were announced winner of the European Prize for Architecture by The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. http://www.europeanarch.eu/eur_arch_prize/index.html

Hadley + Peter Arnold, co-director’s of the Arid Lands Institute (ALI), delivered the keynote to a symposium held at the Land Heritage Institute in San Antonio, TX on September 3rd. The symposium brought artists, architects, preservationists, archeologists, activists, and planners to explore the theme “Land as Lab.” In addition, ALI”s GIS work in New Mexico’s Lower Embudo Valley was recently showcased in ‘The Edge,’ online magazine of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research. “Gravity-Fed City,” a chapter documenting ALI’s work on rethinking western US infrastructures in the case-study city of Burbank, CA, will be included in Last Call at the Oasis (Public Affairs, 2012), companion volume to the forthcoming Participant Media film of the same name.

Adjunct Faculty Clark Stevens

and his company are featured in James Russell’s new book The Agile City: Building Well-Being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change, published by Island Press. In his call for a “New Land Ethos”, Russell praises Clark and his office, New West Land Company, for “being among the new breed of environmentalists, planners, developers and investors who cross the divide between traditional environmentalism and on-size-fits-all development to create profit-making projects that conserve and restore damaged landscapes”.

Jennifer Bonner, Professor of Practice, installed a solo exhibition titled WATERMARKS at the Woodbury University’s Hollywood Gallery in September. The installation simulated Venice’s Acqua Alta, documented resiliency across the American landscape, and suggested agency in water fluctuation. Three watershed geographies were examined, thirty-six flooded towns watermarked, and 2,000 gallons of water filled the gallery space. In addition, Jennifer and Adjunct Faculty David Freeland were selected as the “Top Ten to Watch by Ten Architects” in California Home and Design Magazine (September/October 2011 Issue).

Woodbury University Graduate Chair Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter is working with Doris Sung (Assistant Professor at USC) and Matthew Melnyk on an installation at the M&A exhibition space in Silver Lake, California. The project, ‘Bloom’, a 20′ high prickly hour-glass-like installation explores the possibilities of a thermally responsive metal surface which reacts to both the change in temperature and direct solar radiation. When the temperature of the metal is cool, the surface will appear as a solid object, once the afternoon heat penetrates the metal, the panels of custom woven bimetal will adjust and fan out to allow air flow and increase shade potential. The thermo-bimetal alloys used in the project expand the notion of surface and structure in architecture. The project is scheduled to open in October.

Julius Shulman distinguished Professor of Practice Barbara Bestor and her office have been featured as an “Emerging Talent” in the August release of Martha Stewart magazine for the Nicks Residence in Santa Barbara.

Dr. Anthony Fontenot, Associate Professor, is co-curating the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea and has an exhibition opening, “Disappearing Landscapes: The American Delta in Distress“, at San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery.

Assistant Professor Maxi Spina’s housing Building in Argentina Jujuy Redux (co-designed with P-a-t-t-e-r-n-s) appeared in September in “Breaking Borders: New Latin American Architecture”, an exhibition organized by Latin Pratt and aimed to encourage awareness of the unique problems and solutions of a developing continent, like that of Latin America.

ACSA Seeks Nominations for ACSA Representative on NAAB Board of Directors

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

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
ACSA Representative on NAAB Board of Directors
Deadline: February 8, 2012

(originally posted on Jan. 4, 2012, reposted on Feb. 6, 2012)
The 2012-2013 National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) will comprise thirteen members: three representing ACSA, three representing AIA, three representing NCARB, two representing AIAS, and two public members. Currently Keelan Kaiser of Judson University; Theodore Landsmark of Boston Architectural College; and Nathaniel Belcher of Pennsylvania State University, represent ACSA on the NAAB Board. With the expiration of Keelan Kaiser’s term in October 2012, the ACSA Board of Directors is considering candidates for his successor at its meeting this March in Boston, MA.

The appointment is for a three-year term (Oct. 2012 – Oct. 2015) and calls for a person willing and able to make a commitment to NAAB. While previous experience as an ACSA board member or administrator is helpful, it is not essential for nomination. Some experience on NAAB visiting teams should be considered necessary; otherwise the nominee might be unfamiliar with the highly complex series of deliberations involved with this position. Faculty and administrators are asked to nominate faculty from an ACSA member school with any or all the following qualifications:

Tenured faculty status at an ACSA full member school;
Significant experience with and knowledge of the accreditation process;
Significant acquaintance with and knowledge of ACSA, its history, policy programs, and administrative structure;
Personal acquaintance with the range of school and program types across North America.
Willingness to represent the constituency of ACSA on accreditation related issues.
Ability to work with the NAAB board and ACSA representatives to build consensus on accreditation related issues.

For consideration, please submit a concise letter of nomination along with a CV indicating experience under the above headings, and a letter indicating willingness to serve from the nominee, by February 8, 2012.

Nominations should be sent to:
Email (preferred): Eric Ellis, ACSA Director of Operations and Programs at eellis@acsa-arch.org
ACSA, Board Nominations
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006

Southern California Institute of Architecture

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

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) today announced it has acquired its campus located in the Arts District on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles. The sale agreement finalized on Thursday, April 21 between SCI-Arc and property seller Legendary Investors Group includes the approximately 90,000-sq. ft. original Santa Fe Freight Depot building, located on a 4.5-acre lot stretching along Santa Fe Avenue from 3^rd to 4^th Street—where the school is presently located.

At 1,250 feet (381 m) in length, the unique freight depot building is so long, that if it were upended, it would be as tall as the Empire State Building.

“SCI-Arc has been a vagabond school for almost forty years,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. “We kept the game moving… SCI-Arc’s light. SCI-Arc’s quick. SCI-Arc’s dexterous. We are, and building or not, we’ll remain so. That’s how we’ll survive,” added Moss in a school-wide announcement.

The campus purchase is a significant goal realized for SCI-Arc, as the depot will be the school’s first permanent home in a 39-year history. For downtown Los Angeles, the sale of the land and the Santa Fe Freight Depot building to SCI-Arc is a key moment in the economic stability of an underdeveloped area of the city—the eastern edge of downtown. By owning its campus, SCI-Arc becomes a permanent player with a significant stake and role in the long-term revitalization of the area—the third major redevelopment zone in downtown Los Angeles along with LA Live and Grand Avenue.

“The Trustees together with the leadership have worked hard to achieve this important milestone for the school,” said SCI-Arc Board of Trustees Chairman Jerry Neuman. “This acquisition guarantees the stability of SCI-Arc without compromising its forward-thinking nature.”

SCI-Arc’s commitment to putting permanent roots and expanding in the emergent Cleantech Corridor will be a key driver in the renewal of the Eastside of Downtown. The scale of the property, and the purpose of the school, offer an advantage for rethinking a city for the 21^st century, using the best and brightest minds to reinvent economically sound and culturally relevant urban solutions.

Founded in 1972 by a group of seven faculty members and approximately 40 students who left Cal Poly Pomona to create a “college without walls,” SCI-Arc has been a nomad school for almost 40 years, with previous locations in Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey. Since SCI-Arc started renting the Santa Fe freight depot in 2001—transforming its concrete shell into a school—its students, faculty and staff have helped define and give shape to the local community, and encouraged others to activate and locate to this area on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles. During the past 10 years, SCI-Arc has taken root in the neighborhood, bringing hundreds of young people into the once-abandoned area. Today, with the campus purchase, the school becomes a permanent part of the educational and cultural evolution of LA’s Arts District.

Designed by architect Harrison Albright, the depot was originally built in 1907 as two parallel 1,250-foot long twin structures stretching along Santa Fe Avenue. Albright used reinforced concrete for its turn-of-the-century design of the depot—its second use in Los Angeles. In the early 1990s, the western depot was demolished, leaving only one of the pair standing. The renovation of the remaining structure took about 9 months to complete between fall 2000 and summer 2001, and was designed by SCI-Arc alumnus and then faculty member Gary Paige of GPS Studio, in collaboration with SCI-Arc faculty, alumni and students. The first classes were held in the depot in September 2001.

University of New Mexico

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

Stephen Mora, Lecturer, with students, is recognized in suckerPUNCH with the installation project, “Intervention”. This installation sits at the belly of the George Pearl Hall, designed by AIA Gold Medalist, Antoine Predock. The plaza level of Pearl Hall provides an open canvas for a spatial intervention of this scale, one that explores the manifestation of complex geometry through the techniques of CNC fabrication, tectonics, details and joinery.
http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/2012/09/12/intervention/

Roger Schluntz, FAIA and Professor, has been appointed as the Region III Representative of the Union Internationale des Architectes(International Union of Architects, or UIA ) to its Scientific Committee; charged with the program development for the next UIA World Congress of Architects. The 2014 Congress will be held in Durban, South Africa, where the committee members also conducted their initial meeting in late June. The UIA represents some 1,300,000 architects in more than 100 countries. The UIA was founded in 1948 to unite the architects of all countries in a federation of their national organizations, which includes the AIA of the United States.

University of Houston

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

The Architecture Center Houston (ArCH) Foundation awarded $45,000 in grants to five Houston architecture related projects during its Spring 2011 grant cycle. ArCH Foundation grants are awarded twice each year.

2 grants awarded in this cycle went to the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture:

· $7,500 to the University of Houston Summer Discovery Program, a six week program that educates high school students about architecture.

· $2,500 to the University of Houston Materials Research Collaborative at the Gerald Hines School of Architecture, a resource for material discovery and research for students and the architecture community.

The Architecture Center Houston Foundation is a non-profit education organization designated by the IRS as a 501 (c)3 corporation that promotes awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the ways in which architecture and urban design influence the built environment and enhance the quality of life in the community.

Susan Rogers and Rafael Longoria have received a $25,000 NEA grant for their Collaborative Community Design Initiative 2.

Patrick Peters and Cheryl Beckett (Graphic Communications Department) have received a Merit Award from the Society of Graphic Designers for their collaborative project: Dis(solve): The Japhet Creek Project. The student team is: Arantza Alvarado, Ramon Arciniega, Joanna Bonner, Lindsey Bowsher, Danny Carter, Hei Man, Alison Cheuk, Megan Conkin, Jose Alfredo Dehuma, Hai Phi Dinh , Miguel Farias Nunez, Amy Heidbreder, Marcia Hoang, Aike Jamaluddin, Zach Kimmel, Kyra Lancon, Jennie Macedo, Leah Macey, Jenny Ng, Jane Nghiem, Diana Ngo, ViVi Vu Nguyen, Rachel Outlaw, Ada Pedraza, Christopher Steven Pine, Anna Reyes, Jessica Rios, Josh Robbins, Haley Ross, R-Jay Ruiz, Hector Solis, Brad Sypniewski, Tam Truong, Erin Woltz.

Associate Professor Michelangelo Sabatino was named as a Fellow in Residency at The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, established in 1908, and providing crucial time and space to artists such as Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Thornton Wilder, and Alice Walker. Michelangelo plans to begin his residency in December, 2011.

Illinois Institute of Technology

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

Associate Professor John Ronan’s firm, John Ronan Architects, received the 2012 AIA Institute Honor award for the Poetry Foundation. The Chicago home of Poetry Magazine and Poetry Foundation administration, the building features public performance space, a gallery, and library. The building is sheathed in perforated oxidized zinc, with layers of glass and wood. AIA likened the building’s subtle, unfolding design to a poem being “revealed line by line.”
http://www.aia.org/practicing/awards/2012/architecture/PoetryFoundation/index.htm

Assistant Professor Sean Keller has received a grant from the Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. The Warhol Foundation program supports contemporary art writing that engages a broader audience and whose rigor strengthens critical art writing as a discipline. Sean Keller, along with co-author Christine Mehring, will use the funding for their forthcoming book, Munich ’72: Olympian Art and Architecture (Chicago), which examines the significance of the 1972 Munich Olympics on German postwar identity, international artistic exchanges, and computational methods of architectural design.

http://bit.ly/ygKZx6
http://artswriters.org/home.html

Change

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

by Judith Kinnard, FAIA
2010-11 ACSA President

Over the last year I have had the opportunity to participate in a number of critical conversations around the theme of change in the profession and in architectural education. At our meetings and in discussions with our collateral organizations, we have explored the dynamic conditions that will inevitably impact our pedagogy, our practices, our organizations and perhaps most significantly in our universities. Our school leaders gathered in Los Angeles last November to engage in debate regarding pedagogical futures. At the ACSA Annual Meeting in Boston we heard papers on cutting edge digital explorations in research and teaching. In Barcelona last week we broadened these discussions to include the voices of our colleagues from over 20 countries in 6 continents.

There are paradoxes as we look ahead. Although we cannot ignore the impacts of digital methods on teaching, learning and research, our schools have largely affirmed the relevance of the design studio as a physical environment where ideas are exchanged and artifacts are crafted. While there are advances in teaching and research methods based on partnerships outside of our schools, with industry, the professions, and community groups, we need to be careful to maintain disciplinary focus and curricular clarity. I believe that the schools and the faculty need to be more open to evolving and responsive curricula, degree programs and research centers, while expanding our commitment to career mentorship and lifelong learning.

The recent study by Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce identified the high unemployment rate for architecture majors. The widespread publication of articles relating to this report together with an increased public focus on student debt may have a continuing impact on our schools. Though the number of applicants to architecture schools appears to have shown only a modest decline, we are all aware of the significant reduction in applications professional degree programs in law and business. What does this mean for our schools and for our curricula? I have been struck by the conflicting imperatives that we face to become more fully grounded in the notion of architect as generalist and at the same time more specialized in our teaching. In my view the early years of undergraduate curricula need to recognize and facilitate the multiple career paths that our students will pursue, while the final years of our graduate programs need to involve intense and rigorous explorations of the integrated issues of building design and research.

I think we can all acknowledge that most schools provide minimal support for students as they make the transition to first jobs and eventual careers. For the many students who will not find jobs in architecture or chose to pursue other paths schools offer little guidance or mentorship. The thresholds between education, practice, and career need to be fully designed and supported. Some schools have done significant work in this regard and have used their continued relationship to alumni to provide connections, enhance development efforts and to provide important data regarding the outcome of an education in architecture. Connie Caldwell’s work at Syracuse University is the most impressive in this regard (http://soa.syr.edu/index.php?id=22).

The profession and the schools clearly need to work in collaboration to meet the challenges for today’s recent graduates and emerging professionals. In 1996, Ernest Boyer and Lee Mitgang wrote in Building Community:

The worlds of practice and education depend on each other for their purpose and vitality…. In the end, the academy and the profession also share an obligation to serve the needs of communities, the built environment and society as a whole.”

I would argue that in today’s economy this dual obligation extends to the future of the profession. Recent changes to the Internship Development Program have embraced the concept of school-based programs that can be pursued both for academic credit and IDP hours. This may well reinvent curricula at schools that choose to develop programs that move their graduates closer to the “licensure on graduation” model that has been the norm in international architectural education and in other professions in the US and Canada. We should be appreciative of the NCARB leadership for supporting these initial steps.

As we head into discussions with our collateral organizations relating to the next Accreditation Review Conference (ARC), ACSA has been forceful in our position that expanding the mandates of the accreditation conditions is not the way to allow schools to leverage their individual missions and settings. The academy and profession have experienced major challenges since the last Accreditation Review Conference (ARC) held in July 2008. University endowments have eroded and state support for higher education has been drastically cut. The 2013 ARC must acknowledge the dynamic and constrained environments that both practice and education are facing. Increasingly, schools will need the freedom and flexibility to negotiate the opportunities and challenges associated with these conditions within their specific institutional setting and professional affiliations.

It has been an honor to serve as President of ACSA in this Centennial year. I have benefited enormously from the support of our patient and thoughtful executive director, Michael Monti PhD. I am grateful to the board for their service and support and to the prior leadership of our organization, particularly Daniel Friedman whom I had the opportunity to work with in the year leading up to this one. Donna Robertson’s unique combination of leadership skills and nuanced understanding of the issues facing our member schools will serve us very well in the year to come.

2013 ARC: Evolution or Revolution?

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

As we prepare for the 2013 NAAB Accreditation Review Conference, the ACSA Board of Directors would like to hear your thoughts on some of the most pressing issues regarding conditions and procedures. Every week leading up to the Administrators Conference in Austin, we will ask one question for your feedback. Please share these with your colleagues and keep the conversation going. Please comment below.

Question: How much should we change the Conditions?

Other ACSA Websites