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Tulane University

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Title: Cameron Ringness (M.arch ’12) Designs New Statue of Liberty Museum

May 17, 2019

Tulane School of Architecture alumna Cameron Ringness (M.Arch ’12), of New York City-based FXCollaborative, was Project Designer for the new Statue of Liberty Museum, which officially opened on May 16, 2019.

The entire structure is meant to connect to Lady Liberty, using the same granite that’s part of the statue pedestal and including copper as a nod to the material the statue is made of, said Cameron Ringness, the project designer at FXCollaborative, which created the museum’s overall design. “It’s really trying to belong to the site and the landscape and not feel like this building that just got placed here out of nowhere. … We wanted to enhance the feeling that it’s really special to be in proximity to the statue,” said Cameron Ringness, quoted in the Associated Press. To read the full story, go to http://bit.ly/2Hv2e6e

See the site design, renderings, floor plans, and selected materials in the project booklet here.

ASINEA

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As President of ACSA, I was invited to attend a semi-annual meeting of our sibling organization in Mexico called ASINEA, which stands for Asociación de Instituciones de Enseñanza de la Arquitectura (asinea.org.mx). ASINEA brings together close to 100 accredited schools of architecture in Mexico, whose faculty and administrators meet twice a year in different places around the country. The student association, ENEA (Encuentro Nacional de Estudiantes de Arquitectura), meets at the same time and in the same locations.

León, a city of 1.5 million people in Guanajuato state, some 240 miles northwest from Mexico City, was the site of the 101st meeting of ASINEA. The meeting’s host school was one of our four Affiliate members in Mexico, Universidad de La Salle Bajio (http://bajio.delasalle.edu.mx).

The meeting was used to mark the 55th anniversary of ASINEA, including a large birthday cake (and the obligatory cake cutting ceremony). ASINEA was founded on April 30, 1964, in the picturesque old mining city of Guanajuato, 35 miles from León, so marking the birthday so close to the birthplace of the association seemed entirely appropriate. There were 12 schools at the founding of the association.

The ASINEA/ENEA gatherings are big: I was told that close to 1,000 people have converged on León from all over Mexico. There were actually three events running in parallel – think of our Annual Meeting being combined with the Administrators Conference and then add the AIAS Forum into the mix and you get the idea. Overall, it was a very well run event.

I was given a chance to address the meeting of some 60 administrators, deans and directors from the schools across Mexico. I started in Spanish, telling the group that I wasn’t a typical “gringo”, as they could tell from my name. I then spoke in English about ACSA and our conferences and publications, with most of the attention focused on the next year’s Annual Meeting in San Diego. At the end of the meeting, Marcos Mazari Hiriart, President of ASINEA and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM in Mexico City, and I signed a Memorandum of Understanding, expressing our shared commitment to working together to facilitate contacts and cooperation between our member schools.

I used the meeting as an opportunity to invite our Mexican colleagues to join us in San Diego next year. We discussed the various ways in which they could do so that would make their participation meaningful. One of the ideas was to have the submission of abstracts and papers in Spanish. (We are implementing a multilingual interface to our submission system as part of our agreement to partner with UIA for the Congress in Rio de Janeiro next year.)

I also met Zurizaid Morales Padilla, director of the architecture program at Universidad Iberoamericana in Tijuana. That school is physically the closest in Mexico to the United States. It is located little over half a mile from the US border, in the Playa district, and a relatively short distance from the infamous section of the border wall that runs into the Pacific Ocean.

We plan to work with our colleagues in Mexico to explore the ways in which could begin to develop new and deepen existing connections between our schools across the border. The meeting in León was the first step in that direction.

Pennsylvania State University

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Architecture journal edited by Penn State professor gains international recognition

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The inaugural issue of a new journal on research and architecture has resulted in a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. FAKTUR: Documents and Architecture, which is edited by Pep Avilés, assistant professor of architecture at Penn State, and Matthew Kennedy, an American architect and writer based in Mexico City, is also among the seven finalists in the 2019 FAD Awards for publications in the field of architecture.

The Graham Foundation grant has been issued to Avilés and Kennedy to support the next two issues of FAKTUR which, according to its website, “…responds to the concerns of an emerging generation of architects and aims to bridge the distance between practice and academic scholarship.” The publication is the result of a collaborative effort between the Stuckeman School, the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University and the Centre for Documentary Architecture at Bauhaus-University, Weimar (Germany).

The journal has also been named a finalist in the Thought and Criticism category of the FAD Awards, Europe’s longest-running architecture and interior design awards. A record 616 works were submitted for the 2019 awards, which will be judged by a panel of critics, historians and writers to determine the winners.

Avilés is a well-respected instructor and researcher having taught at Columbia University, The Cooper Union, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Barcelona Institute of Architecture before coming to Penn State. He is the editor of the 2015 Spanish edition of Siegfried Ebeling’s 1926 publication Der Raum als Membran. His writings have been published in magazines such as Footprint, San Rocco, Thresholds, Quaderns d’Architecture i Urbanisme, Clog and Project, and in books such as Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imagery (Avery Review, 2016) and The Other Architect (Spector Books, 2016). He is also the founding principal of the experimental architectural platform The Fautory.

Pennsylvania State University

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Poerschke named Stuckeman Professor of Advanced Design Studies

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Ute Poerschke, professor and interim head of the Department of Architecture, has been awarded the Stuckeman Endowed Professorship for Advanced Design Studies (ADS), which is a two-year appointment within the Stuckeman School. She will assume the new title of Stuckeman Professor of Advanced Design Studies in July.

The intent of the endowment is to enable a faculty member to embark on or complete a project that will benefit from having focused time.

Poerschke intends to spend the first year of her appointment researching the teachings and pedagogy of the Bauhaus, the famous German art school that combined elements of both the fine arts and design education. The school, which was in operation from 1919 to 1933, had one core objective, which was considered radical for its time: to reimagine the material world as a unity of the arts, crafts and industries. Poerschke has been involved in festivities surrounding the Bauhaus Centennial this year and will collaborate with Daniel Purdy, professor of German studies at Penn State, in co-editing a special journal issue and hosting a symposium that focuses on the relevance of Bauhaus ideas, theories, concepts, practices and techniques around the world from the second half of the 20th century through today. The journal issue will be published by the German-English online journal Wolkenkucksheim I Cloud-Cuckoo-Land in August, followed by the symposium at Penn State in September.

During the second year of the professorship, Poerschke plans to focus her efforts on studying solar orientation and daylighting in building designs of the 1920s and 1930s, which were then ubiquitously applied to mass housing by a number of architects and urban planners at the time. The topic ties Poerschke’s interest in history and theory to her expertise in technical systems integration, which is a field she teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Penn State. She also intends to spend time studying and documenting façade performance by visiting specific housing developments that were built in the 1920s and 1930s. Poerschke plans to publish her findings of the modernist solar orientation and daylight studies, as well as façade performance, in a future book.

A German native, Poerschke joined the Department of Architecture at Penn State in 2006 and has received considerable funding for her research projects. She is also a principal of the firm Friedrich-Poerschke-Zwink Architekten | Stadtplaner in Munich, Germany, where she is licensed architect and licensed urban planner. Poerschke is an associate member of the American Institute of Architects, and a LEED-accredited professional.

Tulane University

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Title: Professor Barron Publishes New Sketchbook on Tulane’s Iconic Architecture
May 14, 2019
Following the sketchbook model of his previous books, Tulane School of Architecture Professor Errol Barron recently published a reflection on the building styles, both historic and modern, throughout Tulane’s Uptown campus.Although the book took two years to create and publish, it is a culmination of Barron’s decades spent on and around the campus. In particular, Barron taught an architecture class that tasked students with observing and drawing Tulane’s buildings.“I used to walk students around and give them a sense that ideas don’t exist in isolation. We would connect buildings on campus with buildings that may have inspired them,” Barron said. “I would often draw with them.”

As noted in Barron’s foreword, the book is a personal, not comprehensive, reflection on the campus and its possible architectural inspirations. He used the 1984 book Tulane Places and interviews with former Tulane University Architect Collette Creppell to inform his notes and reflections on the architecture, but the vast majority of the book features Barron’s signature watercolor drawings. The size and layout of the book mimics the sketchbook style of his previous publications New Orleans Observed and Roma Osservata.

The Tulane book starts at the front of campus on St. Charles Avenue with its Romanesque Revival style, especially noticeable in Gibson Hall and Richardson Memorial Hall, and moves through four separate sections leading up to the edge of campus on Claiborne Avenue.

Additionally, the history of the Uptown campus prior to its function as a university is noted in the book’s preface, written by Richard Campanella, Associate Dean for Research at the Tulane School of Architecture and Senior Professor of Practice in Architecture and Geography.

The narrow, rectangular shape of the campus and its quads are a direct result of the land’s previous use as a plantation along the Mississippi River. French surveyors used the method of creating “long lots” to delineate land along the river, giving each plantation owner access to the river and its rich soil and elevated terrain. The administrators of Tulane acquired its sizeable section of from a large tract that once included what is now Audubon Park.

“Tulane students today live and learn within the walls of a wide variety of splendid structures built over the course of 125 years. They walk and bike within the geometry of a space directly traceable to the earliest yeas of New Orleans, 300 years ago,” Campanella writes. “The enriching experience created by this interplay of architecture and geography is beautifully captured in this volume by Errol Barron.”

Copies of the book are for sale at Octavia Books.

Tulane University

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Title: NOAF Contemporary Home Tour Features Alumni
May 10, 2019 by John P. Klingman photographed by Michael Mantese
Two nineteenth-century Uptown New Orleans neighborhoods with complex histories provide the locus for the NOAF 2019 Contemporary Home Tour. The venerable Lower Garden District was a fashionable place to settle in the early nineteenth century, boasting a unique layout that included Coliseum Square as a focal point. Meanwhile, across Magazine Street the Irish Channel developed as a working class neighborhood closely connected with the port activity along the Mississippi River. Following a period of decline in the late twentieth century, today both neighborhoods are thriving; the recent renovation of the Coliseum Square fountain is a noteworthy indication of neighborhood pride, and renovations and new houses are occurring on almost every block in the Irish Channel.Among the new houses being built in these neighborhoods, the majority are reflective of nineteenth century New Orleans building types, particularly the townhouse and the camelback. There are also a number of contemporary designs; and these are the focus of our attention. One may be surprised to see contemporary design in neighborhoods that are under the jurisdiction of the city’s Historic District Landmarks Commission; however, this is consistent with the HDLC guidelines, that allow for a complementary relationship between old and new.

The most appropriate architecture reflects its time, its place and the cultural values of its builders. With respect to place, it is the elements of New Orleans architecture that are more fundamental than stylistic features. Beginning with the interaction between the building and the street; typically porches, balconies or galleries allow for neighborly connections. Second is the provision of shading in our semitropical climate, with vegetation and building components like deep overhangs, shutters and louvers. Third is establishing the scale of the building that is commensurate with that of the surroundings. Finally, there is the relationship between the building and its garden or courtyard, perhaps hinted at from the street. It is the careful attention to these elements that connects a contemporary design approach to New Orleans history.

A less commonly recognized advantage of contemporary design in the historic city concerns legibility. One can argue that the true value of a historic building is more easily recognized when set in contrast to a contemporary neighbor. Instead, we often attempt to show appreciation for the past with a twenty-first century recreation of a nineteenth century style. There is some uneasiness that arises from this approach however. The fine residential structures of the nineteenth century accommodated a lifestyle that is no longer the norm. For example, in earlier times kitchens were service spaces, sometimes not even located within the principal structure; today they often form a hub for family life and entertainment. Newer technologies like the automobile, air conditioning and rooftop solar power have changed the way people think about buildings. The labor-intensive handcraft available in the nineteenth century is less prevalent, and building materials have changed appreciably; New Orleans is a city built with wood, but cementitious siding has replaced old growth cypress. Synthetic stucco, a thin veneer, competes with true stucco, and slate roofs are prohibitively expensive. Often metal roofs are preferable to asphalt shingles.

New Orleans is something of an outlier with respect to embracing contemporary residential design. Of course, one thinks about Los Angeles or Miami as primary examples of the dominance of the Modern, but contemporary residential designs exist in historic cities like New York City and Philadelphia. Cities abroad also provide exciting examples: Montreal, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Dublin come immediately to mind. In Kyoto, the capital of Japan for a thousand years, contemporary houses sit alongside of ancient buildings.

The projects that are featured on the Home Tour provide a variety of approaches to contemporary design. However, they all expand the tradition of New Orleans residential architecture.

Click here to read the full story, including descriptions of each home, many of which were designed and developed by Tulane School of Architecture alumni.

ACSA Call for Reviewers

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Updated Application Deadline: June 25, 2019

ACSA is restructuring the Annual Meeting and implementing changes that better support the needs of architecture faculty and enhance architectural education and research. With these updates, ACSA aims to create a more inclusive, transparent, and impactful event that elevates, addresses, and disseminates knowledge on pressing concerns in society through the agency of architecture and allied disciplines.

ACSA is seeking qualified architecture faculty and practitioners to serve as peer reviewers. This is an exciting opportunity to be a part of ACSA and contribute to architectural research. Peer reviewers are essential to the integrity of ACSA’s review process and we greatly appreciate your interest.

Desired Qualifications

  • Record of peer-review conference presentation or publication;
  • Current teaching position in architecture or affiliated field; OR
  • Experience with architectural research outside of academia

ACSA’s Annual Meeting Committee will review all submissions for qualifications. All submitters will receive a response about their status.

Responsibilities

  • Review ten to twelve 500-word abstracts (this may vary based on submission numbers) and provide ratings and comments;
  • Work with ACSA staff to maintain the blind review process;
  • Opportunity to participate, as a Reviewer, in the second stage of the peer review process by reading and rating full papers.

If you would like to be considered to serve as a reviewer, please apply here. The deadline is June 25, 2019.

PEER-REVIEW PROCESS
The ACSA Annual Meeting Review Committee oversees the peer-review process, which includes matching reviewer’s expertise with that of the submission. Authors will select 2 topics as well as three ranked keywords,based on ACSA’s research areas used in the Index of Scholarship, to their submission, in order to facilitate the matching process.

Topics: Building Science & Technology, Design, Digital Technology, Ecology, Health, History, Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy, Practice, Society + Community, and Urbanism. HERE is link to the Call for Submissions, which include topic descriptions.

All submissions will receive a two-stage peer-review process, with abstracts (for papers and projects) submitted first and then, for authors whose abstracts are accepted, full papers or projects second. Both stages will feature double-blind peer review by at least three reviewers and provide constructive comments that advance the effort and improve the review experience for both reviewers and reviewees.

Final acceptance of the full paper or full project translates to presentation at the conference and inclusion in the Proceedings. Sessions will be composed of both papers and projects, when possible, allowing for both scholarly and applied research to mutually demonstrate impact.

Two-stage Peer Review Process 

Stage 1: Abstracts for papers and projects

    • Abstract submissions for papers and projects include up to 500-word abstracts and up to 5 images. Omit all author names and any other identifying information. Abstract must be written in English.
    • Authors will receive a double-blind review by at least three reviewers and comments for further development for possible full paper and/or project.
    • Following acceptance, authors are asked to submit the full paper/project, responding to reviewers’ comments, for consideration in the conference.

Stage 2: Papers and Projects

    • Full papers should be no longer than 4,000 words, excluding the abstract and endnotes, and may contain up to 5 images. Omit all author names and any other identifying information. Must be written in English.
    • Full projects should include no more than 10 images and may contain up to 1000 words, excluding the abstract and endnotes. Omit all author names and any other identifying information. Must be written in English.
    • Authors will receive a double-blind review by at least three reviewers and comments for further development for possible presentation and publication. 
    • Following acceptance, authors will finalize the full paper or full project addressing reviewers’ comments and required formatting for presentation at the Annual Meeting the subsequent publication.

 

To preview the review form, please click here: ABSTRACT and PAPER/PROJECT.

Tulane University

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Title: Graduate Student Studies Drug-Overdose Prevention Sites

Apr 29, 2019
With the surge of opioid overdose-related fatalities in the U.S., the country is in need of spaces designed to prevent people with drug addictions from accidental death. That is the focus of Tulane School of Architecture graduate student Lucy Satzewich (M.Arch), who recently won a national fellowship from the American Institute of Architects and Academy of Architecture for Health Foundation.

Satzewich is interested in developing standards for designing overdose prevention sites that adhere to a harm-reduction methodology, balance the needs of public and private space, and prioritize the expertise of frontline social workers and health professionals.

Rather than focusing on addiction recovery – though that is available for anyone who is interested – prevention sites allow spaces for safe drug use with the goal of preventing overdoses. One of the most crucial elements to overdose prevention sites is that they carry and distribute Naloxone, an internationally approved medication for reversing heroin and prescription opioid overdoses. Overdose prevention sites also diminish the spread of diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C, discourage public drug use, treat minor wounds, and refer users, if willing, to recovery programs.

“Overdose prevention sites empower users with the choice to enter a facility that holds a lifesaving medication and provide out-reach to marginalized populations wary of traditional health facilities,” Satzewich said. “However, in the U.S. wide adoption of these spaces is being delayed due to concerns about public and user safety.”

The AIA-AAH and AAH Foundation fellowship award will support Satzewich’s travel this summer to visit and talk with stakeholders at clinics and prevention sites in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. From this research, Satzewich will develop a document – with guidance from faculty at Tulane, as well as other experts in healthcare, architecture and design – that identifies best practices for overdose prevention sites. Satzewich also plans to present her findings to national audiences, such as the Healthcare Design Conference in 2020.

“Governments have acknowledged the death toll – nearly 170,000 drug-overdose fatalities in the U.S. last year – and the strain on federal resources related to incarceration and hospitalization, and the medical community has found that safe well-designed buildings can be part of the solution,” Satzewich said. “This research will contribute to the cultivation of health facilities accessible to all people.”

Image: Graphic by Lucy Satzewich on reported overdoses in New Orleans.

Tulane University

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Title: Alumni (M.Arch ’13) Design New Spaces for Starbucks Concept Studio
Apr 25, 2019
Tulane School of Architecture alumni John Nelson (M.Arch ’13) and Guan Wang (M.Arch ’13) are designing spaces for global coffee chain Starbucks’ newest stores, called Roasteries, that create a sense of wonder. The goal, they said, is playing on all the senses.“We do this by using the architecture to elevate roasting, brewing, mixology and baking to performance arts,” Nelson and Wang said. “As a customer, you become enveloped in the processes visually and experientially.”

That inspiration is behind Nelson and Wang’s work on the Starbucks Concept and Innovation Team. Specifically, they have worked on designing the New York City Roastery, which opened in December 2018, and the soon-to-open Chicago location.

“As the Starbucks concept studio, we shape and maintain the design vision from the early stages through construction. Our work focuses on major architectural and branding elements – ceiling, walls, roasting equipment, signage – to customer experience and business operations,” Nelson and Wang said.

A total of six Roasteries are planned or have opened for Starbucks around the world, starting with its flagship store in Seattle and others in Shanghai, Milan, New York City, Chicago, and Tokyo.

It is Starbucks’ hope that the Roastery locations will become destinations for coffee drinkers.

Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, told reporters the Roasteries are “a new concept of a Starbucks, a new concept of a customer experience that is the ultimate in all things coffee.”

Creating new experiences for an established brand is not without its challenges.

“We look at our design challenge as an opportunity to create a deeper brand connection – for both new and faithful Starbucks customers,” Nelson and Wang said. “Customers have very strong connections to our brand, and we knowingly challenge those throughout the project to elicit wonderment, surprise and joy.”

Read press coverage of the New York City Roastery location opening, here.

Photo: Starbucks

Kansas State University

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Seaton/Regnier Hall

The newly renovated and expanded Seaton and Regnier Halls have been operational since August 2017. The late 19th century and early 20th century existing structures have been transformed into an innovative 21st century learning and teaching environment, designed by the architecture firms Ennead Architects, BNIM, el dorado, and landscape architecture firm Confluence. The project included the renovation of 80,000 square feet of Seaton Hall and the addition of 114,000 square feet of new construction. The building has consolidated our fabrication capabilities into one 20,000 square-foot shop, adjacent to the new home for our college’s library. A 300-seat auditorium has also been added to building for guest lectures and events. The studios feature cutting-edge technology with integrated design labs and collaborative spaces, while the energy efficient design reduces maintenance and operating costs.

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