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Pennsylvania State University
Stuckeman School lab showcases work at Biomaterial Building Exposition
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The work of Penn State architecture researchers using mycelium, which comes from the root of fungi, to advance the study of biodegradable building composites is featured in the Biomaterial Building Exposition on the University of Virginia (UVA) campus through April 30.
Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, leads the team of researchers from the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC) Form and Matter (ForMat) Lab that has been exploring how to cultivate mycelium-based composites, which require less energy to make than conventional building materials, for structural use. As a result, the lab developed the “MycoCreate 2.0” project, which has been awarded funding from the American Institute of Architects.
Penn State is one of five universities that was invited to install full-scale installations on the UVA campus in Charlottesville, Virginia that were developed at the architect-scholars’ home institutions.
“The ultimate goal of this research is to lower the growing carbon footprint of the building industry, which currently contributes greatly to global carbon emissions and landfill waste around the world,” said Gürsoy.
The ForMat Lab in the SCDC focuses on computational making and material computation, exploring how material manipulation in design — whether carried out by hand or by digital tools — can become an integral part of the computational design process.
Gürsoy and ForMat Lab researchers Ali Ghazvinian, an architecture doctoral candidate, and Alale Mohseni, an architecture master’s degree student, traveled to Charlottesville on March 11 to start the two-day installation of compression-based structure, which measures approximately 10 feet long, 8 feed wide and 6 feet high. Fabrication of the 64 unique load-bearing mycelium-based components of the project, however, started in the fall 2021 semester with a design research studio instructed by Gürsoy and Ghazvinian.
Arman Khalilbeigi Khameneh and Esmaeil Mottaghi, cofounders of Paragen Creative Studio, assisted the ForMat Lab team with structural form-finding of the project.
According to Gürsoy, MycoCreate 2.0 structure is crucial to Ghazvinian’s doctoral research, and he had “an instrumental role in its conceptualization and realization.”
Ghazvinian is working on enhancing the mechanical properties of mycelium-based composites by investigating the factors that affect their nature and growth. Crucial to his research has been the ForMat Lab team’s collaboration with the Mushroom Research Center at Penn State.
“Based on the constraints and affordances of the cultivated mycelium-based composites, and the outcomes of mechanical tests, we are developing compression-based structural systems using computational form-finding techniques, generative design and optimization methods,” said Ghazvinian.
Gürsoy also presented her lab’s research at the accompanying Biomaterial Building Symposium, which was held on March 14 in conjunction with the exhibition opening.
“It was great to showcase our research efforts at ForMat Lab on mycelium-based biofabrication and connect with other researchers and designers working with biomaterials,” said Gürsoy.
The Biomaterial Building Exposition seeks to establish a multi-institutional scholarly discourse and raise the public visibility of novel approaches to biomaterial construction. Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann curated the exhibition, which is hosted by the UVA School of Architecture and funded by The Jefferson Trust and the Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation.The event has garnered quite a bit of media attention this spring with stories appearing via Archinect, UVA Today and Inform Magazine.
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
University of Tennessee School of Architecture Names Lostritto as Director
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Architecture and Design is pleased to announce the appointment of Carl Lostritto as director of the School of Architecture. Lostritto will assume the position on July 1, 2022.
“Carl Lostritto is an accomplished leader, effective teacher, talented maker and insightful researcher,” said Jason Young, dean of the college. “He leads with empathy, accessibility and collaboration and has significant administrative experience where leadership and sound management have prevailed. Carl’s creative work is timely in a maturing field of computational design work and cultivates important reflection on the interplay of digital technologies and more traditional architectural methods. I am confident his energy and vision will help the School of Architecture continue to make an impact in our state, the region and the world.”
Currently, Lostritto is an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Additionally, he has served as RISD’s graduate program director since 2017. Prior to joining RISD in 2012, Lostritto taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston Architectural College, Catholic University of America and University of Maryland.
A scholar and author, Lostritto has published the book, Computational Drawing: From Foundational Exercises to Theories of Representation, a second book coming in 2023, Impossible and Hyper-Real Elements of Architecture, as well as multiple book chapters and journal essays that feature his design research, teaching and creative work. Additionally, he has exhibited in major U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston, and lectured extensively nationally and internationally.
“I’m ecstatic about joining the UT School of Architecture. The creative culture reflects collective commitments to experimental making and challenging ideas,” said Lostritto. “I know the school is committed to the impact that both the discipline and profession of architecture can have on the world, and I look forward to doing the work of advancing and critiquing the important contributions. This is hard, necessary work that involves what we do best: drawing, modeling, writing, fabricating, building, diagramming, theorizing, speculating, analyzing and projecting. It’s an exciting moment to be teaching and studying architecture.”
To the role of director, Lostritto brings specialties in pedagogy, computation and digital technology, as well as a strong belief in collaboration to connect art and graphics with architecture. As director, he will lead faculty, staff and students while addressing the complexities of the discipline, the profession and a diverse society and will provide organizational and strategic leadership in the school’s renowned pursuits of teaching, research, engagement and practice.
Lostritto earned a Master of Science in Architectural Studies, Design & Computation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Architecture from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, summa cum laude, from University of Maryland.
Lostritto will succeed Scott Wall, professor of Architecture, who has served as interim director of the School of Architecture since July 1, 2021, when the former director, Jason Young, was named dean of the college. Wall (’83 B.Arch) has taught in the college for 19 years and previously served as director of the school from 2009-2014. He will return to teaching in fall 2022.
“The students, faculty and staff in the School of Architecture and across the college are indebted to Scott Wall for his leadership during this transitional year and beyond,” said Young. “His service over the past year, as the world reemerged from the difficulties of the pandemic, was especially critical. He has led with patience, flexibility and compassion to ensure our students and faculty became reengaged in the exceptional education we offer, and for that, I express my and the college’s collective appreciation.”
Founded in 1965, the College of Architecture and Design enriches quality of life in the region and world through transformational design education, a design/build program, key partnerships and award-winning facilities including the state-of-the-art Fab Lab. The college is comprised of more than 725 undergraduate and graduate students in architecture, graphic design, interior architecture and landscape architecture. Visit archdesign.utk.edu to learn more.
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Contact: Amanda Johnson, amandajohnson@utk.edu
Pennsylvania State University
Interdisciplinary Penn State team awarded SOM Foundation Research Prize
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – An interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers was awarded $40,000 as a recipient of the Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) Foundation 2021 Research Prize for a project that explores mycelium-based and knitted textiles to form a sustainable building material.
Mycelium is part of the fungi kingdom and is the network of threads, called hyphae, from which mushrooms grow.
The title of the team’s winning proposal is titled “MycoKnit: Cultivating Mycelium-Based Composites on Knitted Textiles for Large-Scale Biodegradable Architectural Structures.”
The research is led by co-principal investigators Felecia Davis, associate professor of architecture and director of the Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB) within the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC), and Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture and director of the Form and Matter (ForMat) Lab in the SCDC.
Farzaneh Oghazian and Ali Ghazvinian, architecture doctoral candidates in design computing within the Stuckeman School; John Pecchia, associate research professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology and director of the Mushroom Research Center; and Andre West, associate professor and director of the Zeis Knitting Lab in the Wilson College of Textiles at North Carolina State University, complete the research team.
According to Davis, the funds from the SOM award will be used to offer research stipends for the summer. The grant will also provide tools for mycelium cultivation and knit manufacturing time for a new directed research studio called “MycoKnit,” which will be available to Penn State students in fall 2022.
The creation of “MycoKnit” as a concept began through a collaboration between Davis’s SOFTLAB and Gürsoy’s ForMat Lab.
Davis, and Oghazian, a researcher in the SOFTLAB, had been researching knitted patterns and materials for knitted tension structures. Oghazian has been developing digital algorithms and machine-learning tools to simulate the shape and behaviors of knitted tension structures. West has been working with Davis and Oghazian to produce industrially manufactured knitted samples to test scaling up the work for large-scale tension structures.
Penn State students Ian Danner, an arts education graduate student, and Sophia Craparo, a materials science undergraduate, are assisting with the creation of hand-machined, knitted prototypes and structures for the knitted-base fabric of the MycoKnit.
Ghazvinian, a researcher in the ForMat Lab, has been working with Gürsoy on mycelium-based composites and how they can be used in building structures. Pecchia has been working alongside ForMat lab researchers to cultivate the mycelium-based composites.
“This collaboration will enable us to develop design and fabrication workflows for ‘MycoKnit,’ which are lightweight and biodegradable composite structures,” explained Davis. “The two materials – knit fabric and mycelium – work together to form a tightly meshed composite that has tension from the knitted base and compression from the dried mycelium fungus. The combination can make a strong and lightweight building material.”
Both materials, which were created individually by SOFTLAB and ForMat Lab, respectively, work together to create a lightweight material for biodegradable architectural structures.
“In this research, we will be experimenting growing mycelium-based composites on textiles knitted with organic yarns,” said Gürsoy. “Mycelium will decompose and bind these yarns as it grows, creating a composite system that benefits from both the compressive strength of mycelium and tensile strength of the textiles.”
According to Gürsoy, Mycoknit offers great environmental benefits compared to conventional materials such as concrete and steel, which account for more than 20% of global carbon emissions. She went on to explain that 40% of consumer waste comes from construction and demolition.
“Therefore, there is a need to find sustainable alternatives for building materials that have low-embodied energy and thus a reduced carbon footprint; that are biodegradable and produce no or less construction waste that goes to landfills; and that are renewable, so that they don’t rely on limited resources,” said Gursoy. “Although the use of mycelium-based composites in construction is still in its infancy and is experimental, these materials offer great environmental benefits.”
The collaboration between the experimental materials from both labs will benefit both teams’ research. According to Gürsoy, there is a growing interest in the architectural community with sustainable and biodegradable materials, especially mycelium, and this new research will be of great interest to the communities.
“In recent years, designers and scholars started thinking outside the box to find better options and minimize waste,” explained Ghazvinian. “People have begun using waste-based construction materials like cardboard, reclaimed materials like skis, and other bio-based materials like algae- and coral-based materials.”
“Utilizing something hybrid with knits and mycelium, which is both waste- and bio-based, helps this area to continue growing,” he concluded.
Founded in 1979, the SOM Foundation strives to advance the design profession’s ability to address some of the key topics in society by bringing together and supporting groups and individuals. Its Research Prize is awarded annually to two faculty-led interdisciplinary teams within the United States for original research that contributes a topic outlined by the SOM Foundation. The topic for the 2021 SOM Foundation Research Award was “Envisioning Responsible Relationships with Materiality.”
Learn more via the SOM Foundation website.
University of Arizona
Ryan Smith Named Director of School of Architecture at the University of Arizona
Ryan Smith, a 2002 University of Arizona Bachelor of Architecture alumnus who has served as professor and director of the School of Design and Construction at Washington State University since 2018, has been named the director of the School of Architecture in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. Smith will join the school on July 1, 2022.
“We couldn’t be more pleased that Ryan Smith is returning home to CAPLA,” says Dean Nancy Pollock-Ellwand. “In his 20 years as a built environment teacher, researcher, administrator and leader, Ryan has demonstrated a passion for building a changing world, as well as a sustained excellence in bringing that passion to students, colleagues and the broader community.”
“Ryan is clearly a knowledgeable, empathetic and forward-looking administrator,” says Laura Hollengreen, CAPLA associate dean for academic affairs and chair of the School of Architecture director search committee. “The breadth of his research and teaching experience as a faculty member as well as his substantial administrative experience make Ryan well-suited for this important leadership position.”
“Arizona is home—it is where I learned to design and research, build and make and lovingly seek creative and evidence-based solutions to the built environment,” says Smith. “The Sonoran Desert is a fragile and complex landscape, economy and society, unique in Arizona and in the world. I’m excited about returning to work with the CAPLA community—students, faculty, staff, the profession and many others—as we address the rapidly changing world together.”
Before joining Washington State University, Smith served from 2004 to 2018 as assistant and then associate professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Utah, where he was founder and director of the Integrated Technology in Architecture Center (2009-2015), as well as associate dean for research and community engagement in the College of Architecture and Planning (2015-2018). Smith was an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Oregon from 2003 to 2004.
Smith’s research focuses on building technology, prefabrication and housing affordability. He has experience in practice and consulting, including MOD X, a research and consulting firm he founded in 2019. He has also served in leadership positions in several educational and professional organizations, including West Region director and board member of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and founding chair of the National Institute of Building Sciences, Offsite Construction Council in Washington, D.C.
The author or co-author of six books, Smith will receive a PhD in Engineering and the Built Environment from Edinburgh Napier University soon. He also holds an M Arch from University of California, Berkeley.
Smith replaces Robert Miller, who is retiring from the University of Arizona in December 2022.
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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