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Penn State

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Penn State adaptive screen system for buildings featured in Lisbon Triennale

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State-designed window screen system that automatically changes its shape based on indoor and outdoor environmental conditions is part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal through Dec. 5. The responsive building façade system features screens made of smart and bistable materials that are located inside a building’s windows that open and close based on the weather conditions and lighting outside, as well as the indoor lighting and climate requirements.

Faculty and student researchers from the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC) in the College of Arts and Architecture, the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Systems (LiMC2) in the College of Engineering and the Materials Research Institute (MRI) collaborated to design the adaptive architecture project, which lets in or blocks sunlight to regulate the internal building temperature while consuming less energy.

The kinetic materials used by the team in the screens have not yet been used in building shading design.

Titled “Kinetic snapping skins: Envisioning climate-adaptive environments,” the project also uses artificial intelligence to predict environmental conditions and determine the best configuration of the façade for each time and day of the year.

Since buildings in the United States account for around 40 percent of total energy consumption, adaptive buildings can better satisfy the needs of those who use the buildings while also consuming less energy and material resources.

“This means that these buildings have a lower ecological footprint and can mitigate the effects of climate change,” said José Pinto Duarte, Stuckeman Chair in Design Innovation in the Stuckeman School and director of the SCDC.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), an architecture, urban planning and engineering firm based in New York, also collaborated on the project, which evolved from research that was initiated in the SCDC on smart buildings and cities.

“There’s a great consciousness among engineers of all different types about the energy costs regarding buildings,” said Clive Randall, director of the MRI and professor of materials science and engineering. “There will be ways in which we will be making bricks differently, where we will be making the overall structure of buildings differently, and also the lighting and transience of thermal properties will all be very different in the future to really bring down that net cost of energy.”

Elena Vasquez, a lead researcher in the SCDC on the project who graduated with her doctorate in architecture in August 2022, said the goal was to develop a kinetic bistable screen that can help regulate daylight in buildings.

“Adaptive architecture in general and this adaptive screen project in particular are great demonstrators of living materials, which respond to external stimuli like sunlight or electricity to tilt, move and bend in order to protect the inside of the building from the outside,” said Zoubeida Ounaies, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the LiMC2.

According to Duarte, systems like the one the Penn State team designed can be incorporated in future buildings.

“This is just the beginning. Developments in sensing technology and the capacity of the system to learn will improve a building’s ability to collect data and find optimized integrations on many different levels,” he said.

Vasquez said the next step of the project would be “to find a way to fully automate the system and to find ways to make the materials even smarter, or we use solar energy to power the system.”

“These are all the ideas that we have for the future direction of the project,” she said.

The theme for the 2022 Lisbon Triennale is Terra (Earth) and consists of four exhibitions, four books, three awards, three days of conference proceedings and a selection of independent projects. The Penn State project was selected to be a part of the online publication for the Universities Award, which compiles research projects that an international jury determined reflect the theme of Terra.

In addition to its selection to the Lisbon Triennale, the “Kinetic snapping skins” project was awarded the American Institute of Architects (AIA) UpJohn grant and the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) Award.

Penn State

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Architectural scientist to remotely visit Stuckeman School

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Architectural scientist, designer and educator Mae-ling Lokko will discuss her work as the founder of Willow Technologies, Ltd. in Accra, Ghana, which upcycles agricultural waste into affordable bio-based building materials and for water quality treatment applications, at 6 p.m. on Nov. 9 as part of the Stuckeman School’s Lecture & Exhibit Series. Co-sponsored by the Department of Architecture, the talk will be live-streamed by WPSU.

The Stuckeman School is the largest academic unit in the College of Arts and Architecture.

In “Grounds for Return,” Lokko will explore themes of “generative justice” through the development of new models of distributed production and collaboration. Her research focuses on ecological design, integrated material life cycle design and the broad development and evaluation of renewable biobased materials. Her work was nominated for the Visible Award 2019 and Royal Academy Dorfman Award 2020, and she was a finalist for the Hublot Design Prize 2019.

Her projects have been exhibited globally at the Somerset House, London as part of the Sonsbeek Biennial (2020); Serpentine Gallery, London (2019); Radialsystem, Berlin (2019); Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2019); Luma Foundation, Arles (2019); Istanbul Design Biennial (2018); Rhode Island School of Design (2018); Royal Institute of British Architects-North as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2018; and at the Mmofra Foundation, Accra (2017).

Lokko has taught at The Cooper Union and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where she served as the director of the Building Sciences program as well as assistant professor in the School of Architecture and Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE).

Lokko holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in architectural science from RPI and a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Van Den Wymelenberg selected to lead College of Architecture

 

Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg has been named the new dean of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s College of Architecture.

Van Den Wymelenberg will officially assume the position Jan. 5, pending approval by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Katherine Ankerson, executive vice chancellor, made the announcement on Oct. 24.

“I am excited to welcome Kevin to Nebraska,” Ankerson said. “He brings the experience and expertise to lead the college into the future while building on its rich culture and traditions. His entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to innovation, diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and interdisciplinary scholarship will complement and amplify the exceptional work of the college’s faculty, staff, and students.

“Not only is Kevin an accomplished educator and leader, he brings an understanding of how the hands-on learning that happens in the studio can inform relevant research that in turn further informs transformative teaching within the classroom.”

Van Den Wymelenberg comes to Nebraska from the University of Oregon, where he is Julie Neupert Stott Chair in Design, associate dean for research at the College of Design, director for the School of Architecture and Environment and professor of architecture.

During the past 20 years, Van Den Wymelenberg has developed diverse and progressive administrative and management responsibilities including 18 years running research labs, centers and institutes including a large team of tenure- and non-tenure related faculty, officers of administration, postdocs and students from multiple academic departments.

He served as interim department head for the Department of Architecture and Interior Architecture during the reorganization of the College of Design and School of Architecture and Environment, of which he is currently director.

He founded and directs the Institute for Health in the Built Environment, directs the Biology and the Built Environment Center and directs the Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory in the cities of Portland and Eugene. Prior to Oregon, he was a professor at University of Idaho in Boise where he founded the Integrated Design Lab.

Van Den Wymelenberg’s research and creative practice seeks to facilitate integration among a broad network of researchers and practitioners on issues concerning health, comfort, and sustainability in the human ecosystem to support human, community and planetary health. Since 2004, he has secured more than $40 million in research funding related to indoor environmental quality from organizations such as the United States Economic Development Administration, National Science Foundation, United States Environmental Protection Agency, United States Department of Energy, United States Department of Agriculture, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Business Oregon, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Nike, Microsoft, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific and several other private companies. He has published three books and over 100 peer-reviewed articles and he has made nearly 300 invited lectures.

“I am honored to lead the College of Architecture at Nebraska,” Van Den Wymelenberg said. “I am incredibly impressed with the culture and community of this diverse and talented group of scholars, thinkers, planners, and makers. I am excited to work closely as a team in service to the college’s mission of ‘creating a resilient, healthy and beautiful world, within a diverse and inclusive culture of rigorous inquiry and innovation, united by the transformative power of planning and design.’”

Guided by the university’s N2025 strategic plan, and with sharp focus on innovation and impact, Van Den Wymelenberg will work with the executive vice chancellor in collaboration to support the mission and vision of College of Architecture’s architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and community and regional planning programs.

Van Den Wymelenberg holds a Bachelor of Science in architectural studies with a minor in art history and a certificate in urban planning from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his Master of Architecture and doctorate in built environments from the University of Washington.

Penn State

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Penn State to host symposium on effects of embodied carbon on the environment

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State will host a virtual international research symposium focused on embodied carbon, which is the term for the greenhouse gas emissions that arise from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance and disposal of building materials, and its effect on the global environment on Nov. 28-29.

Co-organized by Rahman Azari, associate professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, the 2022 Embodied Carbon Symposium is intended to bring together scholars from around the world who are passionate about reducing the carbon emissions of built environments.

“Embodied carbon makes up a significant percentage of emissions worldwide so there is an urgency in determining how to measure and mitigate its effects on the environment,” said Azari, who is also the director of the Resource and Energy Efficiency (RE2) Lab in the Hamer Center for Community Design.

Along with Azari, the co-chairs for the event are Alice Moncaster, senior lecturer in general engineering at The Open University in the United Kingtom, and Feja Nygaard Rasmussen, a post-doctoral researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark.

The two-day symposium will feature presentations, panel discussions featuring dozens of international scholars on the topic of embodied carbon research and virtual networking sessions. Keynote speakers for the event are Luke Leung, director of the Sustainability Engineering Studio at Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Stephen Richardson, director of the World Green Building Council’s European Regional Network.

“This symposium brings together 26 speakers representing 19 international universities and institutions from 11 countries around the world and creates a platform for the exchange of ideas and research on embodied carbon,” said Azari. “Embodied carbon is gaining significance in the design of carbon-neutral buildings as it is estimated to account for almost half of the emissions of new construction until 2050.”

Azari said participants will hear about embodied carbon research at three scales of materials, buildings and the urban setting, as well as the policies that are implemented in various countries around the world to mitigate these emissions.

The Embodied Carbon Symposium was made possible through support from the Department of Architecture, the RE2 Lab and the Hamer Center for Community Design. To learn more or register for the event, visit the Embodied Carbon Symposium website.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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UNL Professor Given IDSA Young Educator Award

 

It is with much pride and admiration, that we celebrate and applaud the excellence of Assistant Professor Aziza Cyamani who was recently awarded the 2022 IDSA Young Educator Award by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

Cyamani was nominated by her peers for her demonstrated passion for student learning and notable command of design education as she champions a product design minor that provides students an opportunity to customize and expand their potential as designers.

“Aziza cares deeply about empowering students and about the issues of diversity and inclusion that concern us,” one of her nominators wrote. “She was essentially the foundation to my education as an industrial designer.”

In the short time since Cyamani has been employed with the College of Architecture, she has initiated a strategic process identifying core learning outcomes and knowledge domains for the product design minor program while addressing critical and relevant topics such as sustainability, human factors, access and design equity. These efforts have resulted in new courses and a minor re-development proposal that will soon be reviewed at the college level. The re-development situates students to learn about an allied design discipline in a multi-disciplinary context that overlaps and influences people’s daily lives; develops new skills in rapid visualization, fabrication and critical thinking; and ultimately engages in the process of creating marketable, manufacturable and meaningful product design solutions.

“Having Aziza honored with the 2022 IDSA Young Educator Award by the Industrial Designers Society of America is a great benefit to our program and students,” said Interior Design Director Lindsey Bahe. “Our faculty knew that we were extremely fortunate to welcome Aziza to our program this past year as she has an impressive academic and professional resume that positions her to be a role model to our students looking to enhance their academic plan with a product design minor. Her interdisciplinary training is a distinct advantage in Aziza’s ability to thoughtfully teach product design knowledge to students with various educational backgrounds. Aziza’s expertise in rapid visualization, fabrication, sustainability and design for the “greater good” are all topics students are passionate about – and her enthusiasm further brings awareness and more opportunities to impact student engagement with design education from a new point of view.”

In addition to her recent curricular endeavors, Cyamani teaches DSGN 110-Design Thinking, IDES 201-Introduction to Product & Industrial Design, IDES 417-Product Design and a professional elective IDES 491-Contemporary Issues in Product Design.

All candidates who qualify for annual IDSA awards are rigorously evaluated by IDSA’s awards committee and subsequently approved by IDSA’s Board of Directors before being presented with the recognition they have earned.

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