Page 149 – Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

Woodbury University

The Center for Community Research and Design’s “Rethinking Accessibility,” supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, is part of a national exhibition at the Community Design Collaborative in Philadelphia called “Leverage”; the exhibition showcases community engagement practices around the United States. The CCRD’s Darfur school project is curently in the planning stages, with student Art Nesterenko’s project chosen by the Darfur Rehabilitation Project. Plans are underway to raise funds for the project to be built in Chad, Africa.

BArch. Chair Jeanine Centuori’s work with partner UrbanRock Design (Russell Rock, collaboration) “Conditional Reflections” has been featured in “Modern in Denver Magazine.” It is an integrated public art project with architects Semple Brown in Denver. The project transforms three glass facades of the public pool structure into meditations on the three states of water. They are accompanied by a courtyard design. Also, Jeanine’s practice recently completed a Public Art Master Plan for the city of Tucson that articulates a vision for a five-mile stretch of Grant Road. The plan has been adopted by the city.

Visiting Assistant Professor, Chandler Ahrens, has projects published in the recently released book Performalism, Form and Performance in Digital Architecture edited by Eran Neuman and Yasha Grobman. Eran Neuman is a partner of Chandler’s in the practice, Open Source Architecture, along with Aaron Sprecher. Open Source Architecture co-designed the exhibition Performalism, Form and Performance in Digital Architecture at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2008 with Yasha Grobman.

Jose Parral, Assistant Professor and Rene Peralta, Director of the Master’s in Landscape + Urbanism will be lecturing on Octobre 31st, as part of the Education Sessions in the 2011 American Landscape Architecture Annual Meeting to be held in San Diego, CA. The title of the session is: The San Diego-Tijuana Border: A Cause and Effect Relationship.

Assistant Professor Maxi Spina’s housing Building in Argentina Jujuy Redux (co-designed with P-a-t-t-e-r-n-s) appeared in the Book “Pulsation in Architecture”, by Eric Goldemberg, as well as in the symposium and book launch held at Columbia University. The book highlights the role of digital design as catalyst for a new spatial sensibility related to rhythmic perception while it proposes a novel critical reception of computational architecture based on the ability of digital design to move beyond mere instrumentality, engaging with core aspects of the discipline.

Professor Paulette Singley and Assistant Professor Linda Taalman join a stellar speaker line-up for the MAK Center Fall Fundraiser 2011 on October 16 at the Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach.

Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne singled out Julius Shulman distinguished Professor in Practice Barbara Bestor’s design for Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake as one of the best commercial and retail interiors in Los Angeles.

WATERMARKS: Acqua Alta, Resiliency, and Precise Meanders Exhibition by Professor of Practice Jennifer Bonner was featured by the LA Weekly and ArchDaily. LA Weekly writer Tibby Rothman called the installation at the WUHO gallery “an ephemeral meditation on life in the time of global warming.”

University of Texas at Austin

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

Dr. Steven Moore‘s recent interdisciplinary book, Pragmatic Sustainability: Theoretical and Practical Tools, has been reviewed in the Journal of Planning Education and Research (31:3). The review concludes by saying, “Moore’s useful and timely volume is a welcome contrast to the doom-and-gloom scenarios of environmental damages painted by many environmental writers. Readers are strongly encouraged to carefully read and revisit Moore’s excellent introduction after completing the core chapters of the book. The effort will surely be rewarded with fresh insights and connections on the scientific, technical, and most importantly, the social significance of sustainability as part of an overall ‘discourse through which we might imagine more hopeful futures.'”

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Professor of Architecture, presented a lecture at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm on the “Future of Slussen,” analyzing international trends in urban renewal and evaluating two proposals for the new bridge and public square between the old city, Gamla Stan, and the southern island, Södermalm, by Foster/Berg and Mats Edblom, et al. Wang was quoted in the national newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet.

Dean Fritz Steiner is included in the author lineup for the 16th Texas Book Festival, which will take place in the Texas State Capitol and in downtown Austin the weekend of October 22-23. Steiner’s featured book, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, was published in April 2011 by University of Texas Press. The Texas Book Festival was established in 1995 by First Lady Laura Bush, a former librarian and an ardent advocate of literacy.

Alterstudio Architects, LLP’s Bouldin House is featured in the October 2011 issue of Dwell magazine in an article titled “This Is It. “Austin Home magazine’s fall 2011 “Design” issue features the firm’s Scout Island House, which will also be on the AIA Austin Homes Tour on October 1 and 2, 2011. Alterstudio includes Associate Dean Kevin Alter, Ernesto Cragnolino [B.Arch. & B.Arch.Eng. ’97], Russell Krepart [M.Arch. ’02], Tim Whitehill [B.Arch. ’02], and Matt Slusarek [M.Arch. ’05].

Associate Professor Carl Matthews and Caroline Hill, an assistant professor of interior design at Texas State University, have published an article, titled “Gay Until Proven Straight: Exploring Perceptions of Male Interior Designers from Male Practitioner and Student Perspectives,” in the May 2011 edition of the Journal of Interior Design.

Assistant Professor Igor Siddiqui‘s work was included in the exhibit, “MATTER,” at the Bakery Design Collective in San Diego, California. The exhibit explores material processes in the work of a group of innovative contemporary artists and architects, including FreelandBuck, Studiomake, and Oyler Wu Collaborative.

Siddiqui’s essay, “Tessellated Floorscape: interior acts of production, siting and participation,” will appear in the upcoming issueIDEA Journal, themed “Interior Ecologies: Exposing the Evolutionary Interior.” The essay describes Siddiqui’s ongoing project, “Tessellated Floorscape,” in relation to the varied contexts within which it has been produced, exhibited, and experienced by the public. The IDEA Journal is one of only two international refereed journals dedicated to the publication of interior design/interior architecture research.

Tulane University

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

Assistant Professor Marcella del Signore has completed two projects for the Urban Prototyping Festival in San Francisco . The projects are developed in collaboration with Mona El Khafif, Cesar Lopez, Anesta Iwan, Jessica Wolkoff, Jacob Alexandere ( California College of the Arts ) and Geatano De Francesco. Both projects focus on building community through civic engagement and participation, reimagining modes of production of public space. 10 Mile Garden is a is a catalyst project in which fire hydrant sites of the neighborhood are activated on a temporary basis. In order to support community participation, the TMG pilot project creates a framework for bottom-up programming: a series of injected programs, open community programs, and sponsored gardens. INSTANT [ play]GROUND is a portable game to activate forgotten sites. By subverting pre-established urban functions, the users /players open up to new scenarios where the normative use of public space is transformed in a (play)scape in flux.

E books- Thoughts and Trends

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar, column editor

Will the e-book soon replace the print book in the arts? It is safe to say that more such content is becoming available every day and that many people often choose the Kindle or iPad over print for reading novels on their daily commute. New interfaces allow for seamless searching, zooming and even multimedia features. But while the trend toward e-content continues, publishing in the arts remains somewhat different. Incompatible formats are one factor. Large- format, heavily illustrated books do not easily lend themselves to electronic devices. It takes longer to read text on a screen than on a page and there is a fatigue factor. The market, too, is different. Museum bookstores serve as opportunities for art lovers to find current and past exhibition catalogs or locate unusual items. The art book is often an artifact, given as a gift. Editions can be limited and include special content. The publisher Phaidon has gone so far as to commission limited edition vases to be sold along with a book about the work of the product designer, Hella Jongeius.

So when is the e-book going to take off in the arts? Factors include the focus of large scale digitization projects like Google Books and the Digital Public Library of America. Self-publication could also increase. But e-textbooks are a likely future market. Barnes and Noble is one of a number of distributors looking to increase business in this area through partnerships.

There is no question about how the e-book can help developing nations to expand access to information. Yet, not every country has embraced the e-book. While e-books account for about twenty percent of the current U.S. publishing market, in Germany that figure is surprisingly but one percent. The physical book is near and dear to the lives of Germans and they take pride in producing quality work. As such, publishers, who in that country, set market price still favor the printed book. Even the German tax system plays a factor. Printed books are currently exempt from Germany’s nineteen percent value added tax.

Time will tell if e-book growth in the arts takes off suddenly or if visual materials lack behind what is otherwise a growing trend- in the U.S. anyway.

University of Puerto Rico

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

Professor Edgardo Arroyo‘s Second Year Studio participated with a group proposal for 2012 Park(ing)Day.

Professor Andrea Bauzá was part of a design collective that earned an Honorable Mention representing the US at the Venice Biennale

Dean Francisco Javier Rodríguez was a moderator at AULA’s symposium in Albuquerque, New Mexico (UNM).

Contemporary Architecture in Puerto Rico 1993-2010, a book designed and edited by Dean Francisco Javier Rodríguez and Professor Darwin Marrero-Carrero was selected for the Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño (BID12) in Madrid, Spain

The UPR hosted the premiere of “Unfinished Spaces”, a Sundance documentary about the Arts Schools in Havana, Cuba

Associate Dean Mayra Jiménez represented the UPR in Cádiz, where our journal (in)forma 6 was selected for the Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura.

Professor Manuel Bermúdez graduate city studio will travel to Panamá, where they will research Old Panama City as part of a 3-year effort to document colonial cities in the Caribbean that includes Cartagena, Havana, New Orleans, Santo Domingo and Old San Juan

ACSA Distinguished Professor Enrique Vivoni, PhD curated an exhibit showcasing the six summer studios he led in Corsica documenting over 100 houses, churches and tombs.

The UPR School of Architecture is engaging municipal authorities to explore collaborative studios on the city. Following the successful studios dedicated to Fajardo, the graduate studio led by Professors Thomas Marvel and Cristina Cardalda will continue to work with the Municipality of Bayamón.

Professors Jorge Lizardi-Pollock, PhD, Manuel Bermúdez and Dean Francisco Javier Rodríguez presented the book Ambivalent Spaces: Memory and Oblivion in Modern Social Architecture, at the Colegio de Arquitectos (CAAPPR).

Natalia Rey (MArch 12) won the Best Urban Design Thesis Award from the Colegio de Arquitectos (CAAPPR) and the Jaime Cobas Thesis Award.

The work of Professor Andrés Mignucci was highlighted on ENTORNO Magazine. He is currently working on a book documenting the PR Supreme Court Building.

2013 ARC: Project Based Learning?

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.

What if SPC’s were shown only in projects (no notebooks)?

University of Houston

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

Opportunities in architecture often stem from a myriad of sources: from sciences, to technological advances, to natural disasters, to global warming, and the list goes on. Such opportunities result in new potentials for the practice of architecture and layer it with further depth and breadth. One such potential is the advances made in the area of fabrication. Meet Wendy Fok, atelier//studio WF, and their interest in research-based design projects, which are interwoven with the principals of mathematical processing, material studies, fabrication, and arts.

When asked what gets her creative juices flowing she replied: “Travel, while I’m sitting on the plane, when I have no internet connection and forced to be isolated for long periods of time.”

Atelier//studio WF is part of the WE-DESIGNS.ORG, LLC creative group, and is dedicated to her design-research work. In addition to her practice, Wendy is Assistant Professor / Lead, Digital Media & Design Program at Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture in Houston, Texas. Wendy goes by the official title of designer / spatial installation artist. She considers architects as innovators and true to an (x)architect’s nature she sees a vast array of practices and theses that can, and often do, rise from a professional degree in architecture. I have found Wendy to be a designer / artist who has developed her own unique understanding of mutually approximating seemingly dissimilar practices, such as mathematics and arts.

Her answer to the question of “How malleable or rigid do you consider architecture to be?” offers a glimpse into her design thinking:

“Architecture is a vast profession; it really depends on what type of designer you are. One could go into the field looking for the technical spectrum, yet, still be able to explore the artistic nuances.”

Boston Architectural College

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

The Boston Architectural College announces the appointment of three new department Heads:

Maria Bellalta has been named Head of the BAC’s Landscape Architecture program. Her professional credentials include practice with Sasaki Associates, Copley Wolff Design, and Martha Swartz Partners. She has worked on planning and landscape projects throughout the United States and Western Europe, with an emphasis on urban sustainability. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and from the Landscape Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has taught at Harvard, at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile, and at the Boston Architectural College. “Understanding the principles of urban ecology and landscape design is essential for designing and maintaining sustainable communities,” she has said. “I am very excited about joining forward-thinking design peers in enabling future designers to address the issues of building environmentally sustainable cities.”

Crandon Gustafson has been named Head of the BAC’s Interior Design program. He previously headed the Interior Design program at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, where he initiated their masters program. Trained as an architect at the University of Colorado, he worked for a number of years at the Chicago offices of Gensler, and Perkins + Will, and was managing architect for Chicago Public Schools. He is an ASID member, and was elected President of the Illinois chapter of the International Interior Design Association. He holds NCIDQ certification, and is LEED accredited. “Interior Designers have special expertise in space planning, lighting, ergonomics, health and wellness planning, addressing issues of aging, and evidence-based design. These skills contribute to our understanding of sustainability, and to the human factors engineering that is increasingly shaping our design decisions. It will be very stimulating to bring these specific perspectives to the education of architects and Landscape Architecture professionals, as well as to our emerging professional interior designers.”

Karen Nelson has been named Acting Head of the BAC’s Architecture program. Educated at M.I.T. and Columbia, she has taught at RISD and at the BAC for over a decade where she has directed advanced studio education. A much revered teacher and mentor, she oversaw the College’s Solar Decathlon studios, is managing the BAC’s spring 2012 architecture re-accreditation process, and continues to recruit and manage adjunct architecture faculty. She has brought to the BAC many noted outside speakers including Snohetta, Steven Benisch, Hollwich Kushner, and Howeler Yoon to assist students in understanding the work of the most innovative designers working today. “We have enjoyed working across our disciplines in the past,” she reports, “and the need for interdisciplinary research and practice is greater than ever before. Our graduates will create career paths unthought-of just a few years ago. As educators we will need to be increasingly creative in preparing students to enter fields that require open-mindedness and professional agility.”

“These accomplished educators bring a wealth of experience to the BAC’s programs of practice-based design education,” according to President Ted Landsmark. “As we diversify our programs to better anticipate the requirements of professional design practice, the need has grown for program leaders who collaborate across the disciplines of architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture. Integrated design practice, virtual modeling of work over great distances, increased management expectations, and new career opportunities are transforming the design professions toward greater collaboration among clearly defined bodies of knowledge. These new program Heads have demonstrated leadership in their respective fields, and have shown the ability to grow student expertise through multidisciplinary work. They bring professional skills and foresight to the BAC and to the design professions globally.”

BAC Provost Julia Halevy adds, “We’re thrilled to have assembled this group of thoughtful and collaborative designers. We are developing a new Foundation curriculum with their input, and we anticipate that our graduates will not only understand their responsibilities within the traditional design disciplines, but will also be highly innovative in shaping design practices into the future.”

For further information contact Janet Oberto, Director of External and Government Relations, at 617-585-0266, or Janet.oberto@the-bac.edu.

Clemson University

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

Professor David Allison, FAIA, ACHA was awarded the 2011-12 Robert Mills Endowed Professorship. He is also the Director of the Architecture + Health Program in the School of Architecture at Clemson.

Washington University in St. Louis

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

Professor Eric Mumford gave a lecture on November 9, 2012, on “Urbanism of the Midwest” for the “Urbanisms” conference at Washington University in St Louis, and a lecture on November 14, 2012 on “CIAM e América Latina/CIAM and Latin America” at the Program of Research and Graduate Studies in Architecture, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Cast Thicket, a proposal developed by Assistant Professor Christine Yogiaman and Visiting Assistant Professor Kenneth Tracy, was the winner of 2012 TEX-FAB APPLIED: Research Through Fabrication Competition. Yogiaman and Tracy will complete their sculptural, concrete proposal in collaboration with TEX-FAB for installation at the group’s Spring 2013 conference in Dallas.

Assistant Professor Patty Heyda‘s article and project “The City as Diagram as Agency” has been published in Urban Infill 5/ Diagrammatically (Kent State University Cleveland Urban design Collaborative, 2012). In November, Heyda presented some of this work in “Social Cities: Invisible Cities,” in the Sam Fox School’s Urban Design Program’s 50th anniversary conference, Urbanism[s] Sustainable Cities for One Planet, where she also moderated the “Ecological Cities” panel. Heyda presented “Re-conceptualizing Urban Remediation” at the Washington University Office of Sustainability conference, Sustainable Cities. In September, Heyda’s project “Floodplan” (with Jen lee Michalyszyn, Assistant Professor, Wentworth University) was the recipient of the Third Place prize in the Nashville Civic Design Center Designing Action International Competition to design a downtown industrial floodplain site in Nashville.

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