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University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Architecture students help Lincoln museum explore expansion options-  Tractors. Most Midwesterners have memories associated with them whether it be their first childhood toy; a hot, humid summer of baling hay or a way of life. Over 3,000 guests from as close as next door to as far as India visit University of Nebraska’s Lester F. Larsen Tractor Test and Power Museum every year because of their interest and nostalgia for these mammoth machines. Museum Manager of Exhibits Lance Todd and museum stakeholders would love to see those numbers increase and have partnered with UNL’s College of Architecture to explore expansion options for the museum. The design project was originally planned as a way to kick off the museum’s 100th anniversary scheduled for this summer, however with the COVID pandemic, the celebration has been moved to 2021 but the design process forged ahead with the help of UNL architecture students.

“We have over 30 tractors in our collection, the oldest being a 1910 Minneapolis Ford tractor,” said Todd. “Adding to that collection with additional rare pieces is one of our goals. Additional exhibit and storage space would allow us to have more tractors and more memorabilia than what are actually on display now. It would give us the freedom to rotate things in and out and curate the collection we want. I would love for us to be known for how unique and rare our collection is. We don’t want to be just a collection of antique tractors similar to what you might find at a county fair. We want to be a museum where you’ll find models and unique pieces you won’t find anywhere else.”

Located on UNL’s East Campus, the current museum began as a tractor testing laboratory built to satisfy a 1919 Nebraska law mandating that every model sold in Nebraska must pass specified power and performance standards. It was the first tractor testing facility in the world and became recognized as a museum by the UNL’s Board of Regents in 1998 with a new testing facility located adjacent to the original building.

With over 100 years in operation and not having a major renovation in years, the Architecture Program’s Fabrication And Construction Team (FACT) design/build studio, led by Professor Jeffrey L. Day, FAIA was a welcome strategic partner. Working remotely, the studio spent an intense eight weeks researching, designing and reimagining what the next chapter for this facility would look like.

FACT usually takes on projects that engage creative, non-profit clients and communities in collaborations that span design and construction and have a meaningful impact for all parties involved. “The museum collaboration was a perfect fit for the FACT studio. The project offered our students a unique challenge to design concepts that would not only engage visitors with the past but also the future of agricultural technology. It’s very rewarding for our students to take on projects that don’t have predetermined solutions. Such projects lend to the creative process and stretches the designers’ skills.”

The students were asked to address certain museum criteria and goals. Ideally, this new development would expand the exhibit space by two to three times its current size, transform the aesthetics and accessibility of the facility into a first-class museum with an inviting reception area and office space, develop ways to engage the campus and the public with innovative programming and create additional classroom and learning areas for students and clubs.

The remote studio was split into four design teams, each coming up with creative solutions for the museum to consider. The first team proposed merging new construction with repurposed service buildings for a museum complex; another suggested extending the exhibition beyond the future building and distributing tractors throughout East Campus using a grid of display frames, the third team explored a new building site on East Campus with greater public access and visibility; and the last with a thematic agricultural nod to the museum’s past proposed a complex of buildings with a “living street” for increased community engagement.

“For the short amount of time they were given, I was very impressed with the ideas the students came up with,” Todd said. “It definitely gave us a lot of options to look at moving forward. What we generally do with projects like this is pull from ideas presented by each group and then add it to some of our own ideas, and usually what we come up with is a really unique plan.”

Professor Day said the student concepts were presented to UNL’s Executive Campus Planning Committee and the Aesthetic Review Committee for feedback. “The committee responses were very helpful for the students’ project development,” said Day. “They offered input regarding the pluses and minus of each proposal and suggestions for how each team could advance their designs.” The next phase for the museum project is fundraising and concept refinement.

“FACT would like to assist the museum by developing the student ideas further,” said Day. “We could also look at building some aspect of the student designs such as the display frame exhibits to create visibility for the museum which would do a lot to propel community awareness for the project and fundraising efforts.”

Day explains the students can continue to work on this project as a UCARE assignment, independent study or possible future studio.

“I was really happy with the work the students did for this eight-week remote studio,” Day said. “Ideally, I prefer in-person studio instruction. I think there’s something to be said about making physical things, whether it’s building mock ups in the shop, or models or something like that. However the students made some solid digital designs and concepts for further development that I’m pretty proud of.” Working remotely due to the COVID pandemic presented students some skill strengthening opportunities in adaptability.

“This is my first, fully-remote studio,” said architecture student Sunkist Judson. “Since we didn’t have access to go visit the Larsen Museum and Splinter Labs in person, I feel like we did not get the opportunity to fully experience the space. Looking at images provided by Lance Todd and using Google Earth is one thing, but being there at the site in person is a little different. Personally, I feel more connected when I visit a site.”

However, even with the drawbacks of working remotely, Judson said he wouldn’t want to change his experience. Judson said he really liked working with a real client.

“This is a unique experience for me, and I look forward to see how the next group will take these ideas and elevate them to the next level,” said Judson. “I love we are looking into a project where it might become part of a reality someday, even though it is just the beginning. I love that I get to be a part of this design where we are working for the community and the university.”

Pennsylvania State University

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Özgüç Çapunaman, a doctoral candidate in the Stuckeman School’s Department of Architecture, has been recognized for his research by the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) as the recipient of the Young CAADRIA Award. His research centers on interactive digital fabrication, programmable composites, computational making and architectural tool development.

Prior to attending Penn State, Çapunaman earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial design with high honors from Istanbul Bilgi University and a master’s degree in computation design from Carnegie Mellon University. His master’s thesis was titled “CAM as a Tool for Creative Expression: Informing Digital Fabrication through Human Interaction” explores human agency in digital design-fabrication workflows.”

Selection of the Young CAADRIA Award recipient is based on the merit of a full research paper, research contribution and relevance to CAADRIA with demonstrated depth of research interest by a committee consisting of people from CAADRIA, the Paper Selection Committee and the conference host. According to Çapunaman, many important individuals in the field of computational design have been given the award in the past years, which made it a desirable goal for him to reach.

“Interactive digital fabrication within the design computing field is an up-and-coming area of interest for researchers,” he said. “Being awarded the Young CAADRIA Award hopefully means more attention can be brought towards this subject. Personally, being recognized in this way is very encouraging as I begin my Ph.D. efforts here at Penn State.”

Çapunaman’s paper submission focuses on interactive digital fabrication workflow. His research, which he began to establish during his time at Carnegie Mellon University, aims to question the human relationship with digital fabrication tools that are used in the field, such as CAM and CAD.

“The paper presents an interactive and adaptive design-fabrication workflow where the user can actively take turns in the fabrication process,” Çapunaman wrote in his abstract. “The proposed experimental setup utilizes paste extrusion additive manufacturing in tandem with real-time control of an industrial robotic arm. By incorporating a computer-vision based feedback loop, it captures momentary changes in the fabricated artifact introduced by the users to inform the digital representation.”

According to Çapunaman, the tools that designers may currently use are important in pinpointing the design space they navigate. He believes that these tools are not being questioned enough and that digital practitioners should be paying more attention to the means of expression with which they work.

Benay Gürsoy Toykoç, assistant professor of architecture at Penn State who is also a previous Young CAADRIA Award recipient herself, encouraged Çapunaman to apply for the honor. Gürsoy Toykoç was one of Çapunaman’s instructors during his undergraduate studies at Istanbul Bilgi University and she currently leads the Form and Matter — or ForMat — Lab  in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing where the graduate student is a researcher. According to her, the paper Çapunaman submitted presented an original challenging approach to robotic fabrication in design fields.

“Without any hesitation, I can say Özgüç was one of the best undergraduate students I’ve ever had the chance to work with; he’s always pushed the boundaries,” she said. “As a Ph.D. student, he is again very ambitious, self-sufficient and eager to learn and explore. He likes challenges and does not feel comfortable in his comfort zone.”

Gürsoy Toykoç explained that from the very first class she taught with Çapunaman as a student, she could tell that he would be particularly successful. She always enjoyed their intellectual conversations, which she felt always kept her perspective on things fresh.

“What makes Özgüç stand out [as a student and researcher] is his directness, openness and critical approach to solving problems. He thinks outside the box,” she said. “He communicates himself very well in both written and spoken conversation and I think one of the reasons he was given this award is his ability to clearly communicate complex ideas.”

Pennsylvania State University

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Stuckeman School architecture alumna Stella Murray was recently named a recipient of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship which supports architecture students who wish to enter the architectural lighting design profession.

A Schreyer Honors College scholar with interdisciplinary honors in architecture and architectural engineering, Murray graduated with her research-based master’s degree in architecture in May while simultaneously earning undergraduate degrees in architecture (B.Arch.) and Italian.

According to John Roake, chairman of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund (JSSF) Board of Trustees, “Both [recipients] made outstanding submissions which concisely and clearly expressed their phenomenal passion and drive to use light as a major part of their ongoing studies, as well as their intended future careers.”

“It is difficult to fully express in words my gratitude for having been selected as a recipient of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund,” said Murray. “The scholarship grants me a host of opportunities; however, it is the acknowledgement of my potential as a lighting designer that means the most to me.”

The Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund is a UK-registered charity that has been set up at the behest of the late Jonathan Speirs to allow “a student of architecture to investigate the study of architectural lighting design.”

Speirs was recognized as one of the world’s leading architectural lighting designers up until his death in 2012 at age 54 due to cancer.

Murray was one of two recipients of the 2019-20 Speirs scholarship.

In addition to the Speirs award, Murray earned a 2020 Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award from Penn State for her thesis titled “Bringing to Light the Qur’an: The Theophany of Allah By Means of Lighting Design in the Süleymaniye Mosque.”

She was also recently named the recipient of the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) King Student Medal for Excellence in Architectural and Environmental Design Research. The award acknowledges students for their innovation, integrity and scholarship in architectural and/or environmental design research.

Murray has been working virtually as an intern with Horton Lees Brogden (HLB) Lighting Design this summer. HLB leadership has been so impressed with her work and passion that she was offered a full-time position at the firm as a design assistant. She will transition into her new role at HLB in October.

Murray is also currently studying for the WELL Accredited Professional (AP) exam, which she plans to take in September. Being a WELL AP “denotes expertise in the WELL Building Standard and a commitment to advancing human health and wellness in buildings and communities around the world.”

Pennsylvania State University

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), which was founded by Penn State Stuckeman School faculty members DK Osseo-Asare and Yasmine Abbas, has been awarded the Smart Cities Urban Innovation Award for Citizen Engagement in the Le Monde 2020 Global Urban Innovation Challenge.

The annual Le Monde competition promotes the best urban transformation projects worldwide and awards those that: stand out for their originality, efficiency and impact; address the area’s major challenges, such as global warming, social and gender inequalities, democratic governance, etc.; contribute to improving city services and quality of life; and draw upon citizen involvement. The 2020 competition drew 61 entries representing five continents — down from the average of 200, which can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Entrants are vying for the overall Grand Prix (Grand Prize) and the top prize in each of five categories: mobility, energy, habitat, urban planning and civic engagement.

An international selection committee comprised of experts in urban change submitted its top choices to the jury, comprised of journalists from Le Monde, who named the awardees.

The civic engagement award, in particular, celebrates “a democratic, horizontal process, whereby citizens play a role in developing and managing physical and virtual urban spaces and services.”

Launched in 2012 by Osseo-Asare, assistant professor of architecture and engineering design who also leads the Humanitarian Materials Lab at Penn State, and Abbas, assistant teaching professor of architecture, the AMP is a transnational project that helps bolster maker ecosystems in Africa by teaching students and young professionals how to reuse recycled materials.

The project, which is in Ghana, has received numerous accolades, winning the Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Innovation Challenge and Design Corps’ 2017 SEED Award for Public Interest Design. The AMP was also exhibited at the 2017 Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism.

Osseo-Asare is a cofounding principal of Low Design Office (LOWDO), an architecture and integrative design studio based in Austin, Texas and Tema, Ghana that explores the links between sustainability, technology and geopolitics. LOWDO was a finalist for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2019 and was named to Domus magazine’s 50 Best Architecture Firms in 2020 list.

Le Monde is a French daily newspaper with a circulation exceeding 323,039 copies per issue in 2009. It is considered one of France’s three newspapers of record.

City College of New York

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Established shortly after the killing of George Floyd in June 2020 and against the backdrop of global anti-racism protests, the Spitzer School of Architecture’s Floyd’s List is both a resource list and a weekly forum. It is an attempt to create spaces where we are able to communicate freely and openly; to share perspectives and experiences; to experiment boldly and bravely; to explore ideas and understand where they come from. We ask participants to be prepared to have assumptions challenged and tested and to respect the discussion house rules which precede all events. All Floyd’s List events are free open to the public.

This week’s Floyd’s List event, “Spirit in the Dark” will take the form of two short video performances by UK-based architects/artists Rosa-Johan Uddoh and Dr Thandi Loewenson, followed by a discussion. Their talk will focus on the twin roles of the imagination and creative practice as tools to navigate complex and challenging questions of race, identity, narrative and community-based practice.

Rosa-Johan Uddoh is an interdisciplinary artist working towards radical self-love, inspired by black feminist practice and writing. Through performance, installation and ceramics, she explores an infatuation with places, objects or celebrities in British popular culture, and the effects of these on self-formation. Rosa is currently the Stuart Hall Library Resident for 2020 and is also a lecturer in Performance at Central Saint Martins, London.

Thandi Loewenson is an architectural designer/researcher who operates through design, fiction and performance to interrogate our perceived and lived realms and to speculate on the possible worlds in our midst. Mobilising the ‘weird’ and the ‘tender’, she engages in projects which provoke questioning of the status-quo, whilst working with communities, policy makers, artists and architects towards acting on those provocations. Thandi is a tutor at the Royal College of Art, London, and a Visiting Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture.

The event and discussion will be hosted by Dean Lokko.

When: Wednesday July 1st @ 5pm.

Link in bio https://ccny.zoom.us/j/96097850241

Marywood University

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Press Release

For Immediate Release

June 10, 2020

Contact: Chelsea Gauthier, Associate Director

Chelsea@centerforthelivingcity.org

Center Selects New Executive Director

 A Marywood University Professor, Maria MacDonald, has been named executive director of the national nonprofit, Center for the Living City, founded 15 years ago by friends of urban writer and activist Jane Jacobs.

Jane Butzner Jacobs grew up in Scranton before her career as an author and activist in New York City and Toronto. MacDonald, who lives on the same block where Jacobs grew up, will be only the second director for the organization. She replaces the center’s founding executive director, Stephen Goldsmith, who is stepping aside to focus his time advancing the center’s global Observation & Action Network. Goldsmith will remain on the center’s board of directors.

MacDonald is director of the Interior Architecture program at Marywood University’s School of Architecture in Scranton. She is a founding faculty member of the School of Architecture, where she will continue to work, and a practicing interior architect.  She specializes in adaptive reuse, preservation, and restoration projects.

The Center for the Living City is a U.S.-based nonprofit launched in 2005 by a group of activists, practitioners, and teachers. It holds the distinction of being the only urbanist organization founded in collaboration with Jane Jacobs, whose criticism of urban planning, especially urban renewal, led to revolutionary changes in how urban planning is taught and practiced.

The center’s governing board selected MacDonald from more than 70 applicants. “From a strong field of applicants, Maria impressed all of us with her passion for Jane Jacobs’ ideals of community and neighborhood engagement plus the power of observation. We were also impressed with her work building a school of architecture at Marywood, and that she’s helping a new generation of designers think holistically about cities,” said the center’s board chair, Mary Newsom, a Charlotte, N.C., journalist. “She makes me excited about visiting Scranton.”

In addition, Newsom said, “We’re intrigued with Maria’s insights into the importance of Jane Jacobs’ thinking for Scranton and the whole Lackawanna Valley area, as well as mid-sized cities across the nation. And with her understanding of the city as a complex ecology, she’ll be a dynamic force in moving the center into our next chapter.”

MacDonald, who grew up in Dunmore, is a graduate in both Architecture and Interior Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design, where she received the Excellence in Design award for her work on the “Reclamation of Forgotten Spaces.”

With more than 25 years’ experience, she has partnered her professional practice with her teaching, using an integrative, holistic design approach that aims to strengthen the relationships between the allied design disciplines and people and the environments in which they live.

“I am thrilled to have been selected to work with the center’s board and staff to advance their mission,” MacDonald said.   “This is an exciting time for Dunmore and Scranton and all of the universities and nonprofits working tirelessly. Through Jane’s work we will celebrate her legacy and shine a light on her hometown, which she loved so deeply.”

Stephen Goldsmith, a co-founder of the center who has been its only executive director, noted, “To have seen how our work found its way into the classrooms at Marywood University in Scranton was especially meaningful. The center was founded with the support and encouragement of Jane Jacobs, and to have our new director possess all the skills, knowledge, values and passion we were seeking, AND live in Jane’s backyard makes this all the more meaningful.”

Jane Jacobs, who is widely considered the foremost urbanist of all time, wrote:

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”  [From The Death and Life of Great American Cities]

The Center for the Living City works to inspire civic engagement and leadership, invite creative urban solutions, and expand understanding of the ecology of cities. Among its projects have been a nationwide lecture series on the 100th anniversary in 2016 of Jane Jacobs’ birth, encouraging and supporting Jane Jacobs Walks in numerous cities, and expanding its Observe program for neighborhood residents and leaders around the globe. Earlier this year the center launched the Observation and Action Network, a collaboration among the center, the Urban Design Collective, and the National Association of Students of Architecture in  India. The network aims to encourage like-minded young leaders around the world to imagine and implement a better future for the places they care about.

Support for the center’s programs has been provided by the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Furthermore, and many individual donors.

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