Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Newton partners with Industry to Find Innovative Building Solutions
Collaborating with industry to research and create solutions for climate change, one architecture faculty member is exploring robotic masonry systems as a more effective and precise method to meet the demands of a hot, crowded and resource scarce future.
Assistant Professor David Newton was awarded the inaugural Nebraska Masonry Alliance Design Research and Fabrication Grant for his proposal “Sustainability in Robotic Masonry Construction.”
With this grant, Newton aims to explore masonry systems and how they can advance sustainable building solutions. Starting in the 2023 spring semester, students taking Newton’s Arch 492/592/892 Computational Design Processes seminar will acquire hands-on experience researching the robotic processes and how best they can be leveraged to design more sustainable solutions.
“The project will allow students to gain experience and knowledge working with robotic fabrication and file-to-fabrication workflows involving generative design, performance analysis and design optimization,” said Newton. “Students will also examine and develop robotic fabrication procedures and masonry details that allow for swift “low-power” assembly and, crucially, the efficient disassembly of these systems in order to address the issue of recyclability.”
“Newton brings his research into the classroom to facilitate students learning a new skillset related to masonry construction that could significantly guide the trajectory of the professions and help designers explore more sustainable solutions for the built environment,” said Architecture Program Director David Karle. “This grant is another example of our longstanding partnership with Nebraska Masonry Alliance and the many ways our faculty are collaborating with industry.”
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Professor Appointed to National Architectural Accrediting Board
The University of Nebraska’s College of Architecture is pleased to announce Professor Jeffrey L Day, FAIA, NCARB has been appointed as a director for the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).
Nominated by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Day joins four other new directors who will be starting their term October 29, 2022. The NAAB board has 13 voting members. The ACSA, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) each nominate three directors; the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) nominates two; and there are two public directors. The NAAB Board meets at least three times a year to consider official business including accreditation decisions.
NAAB accredits professional degrees in architecture offered by institutions accredited by a U.S. regional accrediting agency. All 55 U.S. registration boards accept the NAAB-accredited degree for registration; 38 of those boards require it. This honor builds upon Day’s long record of engagement with professional organizations including his national election as an at-large board member of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) in 2019; and his recent induction to the 2021 NCARB Scholars in Professional Practice Program.
Day has also garnered numerous awards including the Architectural League of New York’s 2016 Emerging Voices; a 2019 Progressive Architecture Award; Architectural Record’s 2009 Design Vanguard; the 2007 AIA California Council’s Emerging Talent award; New Practices San Francisco 2009; Residential Architect’s 2010 Rising Star; over 60 national, regional and state AIA design awards; nine ACSA design awards and more. Day’s work is published in a wide range of journals, design magazines and books.
In 2019, Day was elevated to Fellowship in the American Institute of Architects, the highest membership honor in the AIA bestowed on only 3 percent of member architects. “Our faculty members are extremely devoted to guiding the future direction of the professions not only by educating emerging professionals but also by being intrinsically engaged in the direction of the allied professions ensuring a continued positive trajectory,” said Interim Dean Sharon Kuska.
Penn State
Architecture professor honored with Cooper Hewitt National Design Award
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Felecia Davis, associate professor of architecture in College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State, has been named the winner of the 2022 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award in the Digital Design category for her work that explores the use of computational textiles.
Established in 2000, the National Design Awards recognize those leaders in nine design categories – Design Visionary, Climate Action, Emerging Designer, Architecture/Interior Design, Communication Design, Digital Design, Fashion Design, Landscape Architecture and Product Design – as determined by a multidisciplinary jury of practitioners, educators and leaders from a wide range of design fields.
A lead researcher in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing and director of the Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB), Davis’s research reimagines how people might use textiles in their daily lives and in architecture through computational textiles, which respond to the environment via programming, embedded sensors and electronics, as well as use the natural transformable properties of textiles.
Davis was recognized by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for her “innovative design of digital products, environments, systems, experiences and services.”
“This award was a great surprise, and I am honored to be among such respected colleagues in the 2022 National Design Award cohort,” said Davis. “Receiving this award is especially encouraging in that it recognizes a body of work that has been happening over a number of years.”
Davis said she feels like feels like it has taken a while to get her works off the ground because most everything she does is prototyped with real materials. In addition, coming from architecture, that has also meant prototyping at scale.
“The award is also important to me in that it recognizes digital work that is about human interaction with textile material that has been fabricated with digital tools, embedded with digital sensors or uses the natural properties of the material to communicate some information to people about themselves or their environment,” she said.
Davis was recently named a winner of the Architecture League of New York’s Emerging Voices 2022 competition and she was awarded a Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) Foundation Research Prize as the principal investigator for “MycoKnit,” an interdisciplinary, collaborative project that explores mycelium-based and knitted textiles to form a sustainable building material.
She has been featured in the PBS “Women in Science Profiles” series and work was part of the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) “Reconstructions: Blackness and Architecture in America” exhibition in 2021. That experience led to Davis cofounding the Black Reconstruction Collective, a nonprofit organization of Black architects, scholars and artists that supports and funds design work about the Black diaspora.
The principal of Felecia Davis Studio, Davis is currently penning book that examines the role of computational materials in our lives titled “Softbuilt: Networked Architectural Textiles.”
Learn more about this year’s class of National Design Award winners on the Cooper Hewitt website.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
DLR Group and College Dedicate Newly Remodeled Studio at Ribbon Cutting
DLR Group and the College of Architecture celebrated the opening of the newly remodeled Architecture Hall studios during a ribbon cutting ceremony held this past weekend.
DLR Group, a locally based global, integrated design firm, is sponsoring the second floor studios in Architecture Hall East, which were part of a remodel project that spanned three floors, formerly the old college library.
“For more than five decades, graduates of the University of Nebraska College of Architecture have fueled the growth of DLR Group in Nebraska and around the globe,” said Griff Davenport, managing principal and CEO at DLR Group. “The construction of the DLR Group Studio has created a space to support learning and design thinking for future generations of professionals who will also be charged with ‘Elevating the Human Experience through Design.’”
“With record enrollment pushing capacity beyond its limits, these new studios couldn’t come at a better time,” said College of Architecture Interim Dean Sharon Kuska.
These studios are part of phase one in a two phased remodel and expansion project. Phase one involved the addition of 11 new design studios, a wellness room, spray booth and work areas, critique spaces and new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant restrooms in the Architecture Hall East building and a new 2,490 sq. ft. library with student common and collaboration areas in the Architecture Hall West building.
Phase two, which begins this fall, involves an expansion project that adds 14 new studios and a renovation of eight studios in the Architecture Hall West building among other changes.
“DLR Group has been a long-time supporter of the college,” said Kuska. “This is just one of the countless ways DLR Group has supported our students and the trajectory of the professions. Managing Principal Griff Davenport has served many years on our Professional Advisory Council providing his industry prospective. In addition, numerous collaborate studios over the years have been co-taught by DLR Group instructors, while still other DLR professionals have given back to the college by participating in critiques sharing with our students invaluable professional insight, connections and real-world experiences.”
Anyone interested in sponsoring one of these newly remodeled studios or other opportunities to support the college should contact Cameron Andreesen, College of Architecture director of development with the University of Nebraska Foundation at 402-458-119 or cameron.andreesen@nufoundation.org.
For more details, please visit: https://architecture.unl.edu/news/dlr-group-and-college-dedicate-newly-remodeled-studio-ribbon-cutting
Morgan State University
Epidemic Urbanism Panel: Health & Equity in Global Architectural Practice – Saturday, November 12, 2022, 12-1:30pm ET
This Epidemic Urbanism panel will center on urgent questions for global architectural practice provoked by the simultaneous epidemics of COVID-19, inequity, and climate change, with a particular focus on implications for health equity. This panel will be chaired by David Gloster and will feature the following panelists: Sahar Attia, Egypt; Cristiana Caira, White Arkitekter, Sweden; Henry Chao, Chao Architect, USA; Femke Feenstra, GAF, The Netherlands; Robin Guenther, Perkins and Will, USA; Khondaker Hasibul Kabir, Bangladesh; Rubén Octavio Sepúlveda Chapa, Dear Architects, Mexico; and Timothy Seyi Odeyale, Nigeria. Registration is free!
Register here.
* The Epidemic Urbanism Initiative, founded by Dr. Mohammad Gharipour and Dr. Caitlin DeClercq in March 2020, is a global educational hub dedicated to promoting conversations and interventions at the intersection of architecture, infectious disease, and health equity. The EUI consists of 1900+ members from more than 90 countries. As part of this initiative, the founders have organized seven international conferences, an international design competition, and workshops for early career academics and professionals. The founders have also recruited liaisons from 76 countries and published an edited volume, Epidemic Urbanism: Contagious Diseases in Global Cities (Intellect, 2021). Recordings of the EUI events and interviews are available on the EUI YouTube channel.
Morgan State University
EUI Panel: Organizing Change Toward Health Equity – Friday, October 7, 2022, 12-1:30pm ET
This Epidemic Urbanism panel will center on critical dialogues about the roles that organizations can play in educating the public on the role of the built environment on public health, with a particular focus on implications for global health and health equity. The panel will be chaired by Thomas Fisher and will feature the following panelists: Giselle Sebag, International Society for Urban Health; Sharmin Kader, Environmental Design Research Association; Sharon Roerty, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Alan Logan, Nova Institute for Health. Registration is free for all attendees.
Register here.
* The Epidemic Urbanism Initiative, founded by Dr. Mohammad Gharipour and Dr. Caitlin DeClercq in March 2020, is a global educational hub dedicated to promoting conversations and interventions at the intersection of architecture, infectious disease, and health equity. The EUI consists of 1900+ members from more than 90 countries. As part of this initiative, the founders have organized seven international conferences, an international design competition, and workshops for early career academics and professionals. The founders have also recruited liaisons from 76 countries and published an edited volume, Epidemic Urbanism: Contagious Diseases in Global Cities (Intellect, 2021). Recordings of the EUI events and interviews are available on the EUI YouTube channel.
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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