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E books- Thoughts and Trends

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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. 

Washington University in St. Louis

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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.

University of Texas at Austin

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Hal Box [B.Arch. ’50], former dean of the School of Architecture and professor emeritus, received dual honors from The University of Texas at Austin on April 8.

While attending a reception in the newly named “Eden & Hal Box Courtyard” at Goldsmith Hall, the influential scholar was informed he had been named dean emeritus, a title held by only a handful of individuals at the university.

Dean Fritz Steiner’s latest book, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, was released this month by University of Texas Press.

On April 1, 2011, Dr. Nancy Kwallek, director of the UTSOA Interior Design Program and the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Interior Design, was honored by her alma mater, Kent State University, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her career of interior design teaching, research, and service. The event took place at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative during a Senior Interior Design Exhibition and Awards Ceremony under the auspices of Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Assistant Professor in Architecture Michael Leighton Beaman and former materials lab curator Zaneta Hong’s non-profit design firm <http://gacollaborative.org/>General Architecture Collaborative (GAC) is sponsoring and curating Art = Relief, an exhibit and benefit for Japanese relief efforts. The exhibit is being held at Columbia University’s Studio X in New York. Over thirty acclaimed and emerging artists and designers have generously donated their work to contribute to the relief effort in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the country on March 11, 2011.

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture, presented a lecture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, on April 17, 2011, on the subject of “Judging Architecture.”

Larry Speck, W. L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor in Architecture, is featured on the university’s KNOW website as part of the series of features about the humanities written by professors from across campus. <http://www.utexas.edu/know/2011/04/11/humanities_speck/>Speck writes on “Confessions of a Biography Junkie.”

University of Louisiana - Lafayette

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Associate Professor Michael A. McClure, FAAR was named the 2011 University of Louisiana at Lafayette Distinguished Professor.


Associate Professor W. Geoff Gjertson, AIA, Co-Director of the Building Institute, has spent the last two years with his graduate students translating the research and successes of the 2009 Solar Decathlon Home, the BeauSoleil Home, into additional housing prototypes. This summer the Building Institute, along with Habitat for Humanity volunteers, broke ground on a house for Ms. Louida Fuselier, whose home burned down in 2008. Additionally, a second team of students with the Building Institute began the Event House, a market-rate home on an infill lot in an at-risk neighborhood, that will be sold to fund future Building Institute homes. Both homes will be completed in November, 2011. The Habitat House will cost $85,000($78/sf)and the Event House is expected to sell for $153,000 ($88/sf.) Finally, the BeauSoleil Home will be featured in two upcoming books: Design Like You Give a Damn (2) and The Accessible Home by Taunton Press.


Director Robert Mckinney was relected to Executive Officer of the University of Louisiana Lafayette Faculty Senate, also elected 2012 Chair of the Louisiana State Board of Architectural Examiners, elected Secretary of the Southern Conference of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, and Chair of the 2012 Educator Practioner Conference for Southern Conference of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards to take place February 2012 in Atlanta.


Professor George Loli has retired ofter 37 years of teaching at UL Lafayette.


Associate Professor Corey Saft was elected ACSA Southwest Regional Director for a 3 year term and a recently completed project, the Le Bois House, was named one of USAToday‘s Top Green Homes of 2010.

Philadelphia University

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We are pleased to welcome Professor James Doerfler as the new Director of the Architecture Program.  James comes to us from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where he was serving as Interim Head of the Architecture Department.  James will oversee the Bachelor of Architecture and the four-year Architectural Studies programs as well as supervising the development of new graduate programs.

Assistant Professor Daniel Chung recently received a $25,000 National Center for Preservation Technology and Training grant to research methods to improve simulation and verification techniques in energy modeling of historic buildings. This research investigates improving energy simulation methods of existing buildings to help model building material assemblies and improve accuracy in energy modeling of historic buildings.

Led by Associate professors David Kratzer (architecture) and Frank Baseman (graphic design), with exhibition advising by Assistant Professor Donald Dunham, architecture and graphic design students collaborated to create an exhibit celebrating the life of Arlen Specter entitled “Single Bullet: Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission Investigation of the JFK Assassination.” that places visitors “in the place of” Specter and JFK during the assassination and the subsequent Warren Commission to understand the nature and gravity of the events.

Associate Professors Carol Hermann, along with Director of Construction Management Greg Lucado and Asst. Professor of Interior Design Jake Tucci, were awarded a University Nexus Learning Grant to work on “A Common Core Experience to Promote Understanding of the Relationships between Professions.” 

Associate Professor Craig Griffen was awarded a University Online Nexus Learning Grant to research best practices for online studio delivery procedures.

Edgar Stach, Professor of architecture, and Assistant Professors of architecture Kihong Ku and Daniel Chung were awarded a university Innovations in Research Grant to conduct new research to support the Philadelphia University MAG Composites Institute. The professors will explore Digitally-driven Fiber Composites for Complex Buildings.

During the Summer of 2013, Assistant Professor Chris Harnish and 7 architecture students traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, to research the urban conditions in Alexandra Township. The students led community design workshops, conducted interviews of stakeholders, and researched site conditions in a historic youth precinct.

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