Director David Fortin, served as a co-curator along with Architect Douglas Cardinal and Professor Gerald McMaster (OCAD University)
for UNCEDED: Voices of the Land, which was selected through a national juried competition to represent Canada at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. This was at the Arsenale, Venice, Italy, held May-November, 2018.
MSoA UNCEDED participants included: Master Lecturer Eladia Smoke, Sessional Instructor Jake Chakasim, Adjunct Professor Patrick Stewart and Bohdana Chiupka-Innes and Krystel Clark (students).
The inaugural meeting for the McEwen International Advisory Board occurred on November 27th. Members of the board include: MSoA Founding Director and Chair Terrance Galvin, Current MSoA DirectorDavid Fortin, Bruce Mau, Jason McLennan (McLennan Design) (Marianne McKenna (Architect, KPMB Architects), Alfred Waugh (Architect, Formline Architecture), Cheryl and Rob McEwen.
Architecture Students Design New Santee Sioux Nation Family Resource Center
University of Nebraska College of Architecture master students are helping theSantee Sioux Nation Family Resource Center (SSNFRC) become a reality. After years of planning, consultation and design, this new center is breaking ground January 10th at 2 pm on the Santee Sioux Nation Reservationat the corner of Wounded Man Ave and Visiting Eagle St.,Niobrara, Nebraska, with an estimated fall 2019 completion date. This 950 square foot facility encompasses a Child Advocacy Center and a Services and Support Center for residents and members of the Santee Sioux Nation. Among the amenities, the center will have rooms for private interviews, observations, examinations and a large room and kitchen for family reunions.
The work on the SSNFRC facility began late in 2015 as a collaboration between The Nebraska Children and Families Foundation (NCFF), The Santee Sioux Tribal Council (SSTC) and the PLAIN2015-16 design research studio, instructed by Architecture Associate Professor Jason Griffiths. In the spring of 2016 Griffiths and design-build master students created the concept designs and assisted with construction documents for the project in consultation with SSTC and NCFF.
With the concepts in hand, this allowed the design team to raise funds and begin negotiations with construction professionals.
“Over the next year I was able to maintain enthusiasm and develop details of the project through other classes,” said Griffiths. “These efforts paid off through material donations of brick by Glen-Gery Brick and the International Masonry Institute, windows from Acadia, CLT wall cost deductions from Structurlam and “in-kind” donations of services from engineers Shaffer & Stevens.”
With commitments and financials in place, the NCFF appointedActual Architecturefounder and UNL Architecture Professor Jeffrey L. Day as the architect of record for the final stages of the project including preparing construction documents, construction contract administration and collaborating with Griffiths, the PLAIN studio and contractor Woody Roberts Construction.
“The Santee Sioux Nation Family Resource Center is a fine example of how the College of Architecture can bring a meaningful change for Nebraskans who live in challenging situations. Teaching architecture through “design-build” presents a unique opportunity to provide quality buildings for people who would not normally have the benefit of our profession,” said Griffiths.
A facility located in a remote, rural Nebraska community under federal jurisdiction with the confines of a tight budget presents many challenges that would understandably exclude most working architects. However it’s precisely those difficulties that give College of Architecture students unique learning experiences in design-build education explains Griffiths.
“The process is long and often appears to move slowly but it also provides a true test of the patience and broad, creative thinking needed to make a good building,” said Griffiths. “Through design-build, students learn to apply their knowledge to “real world” situations while maintaining a high quality of architecture.”
Griffiths explains the SSNFRC is a great example of architectural work that elevates ordinary building forms through careful consideration of spatial arrangements.
“It illustrates how the functional aspects of a building can develop into a symbolic architectural language,” said Griffiths. “In this case the message lies in the eloquent arrangement of two squares that are linked together in the corners, a symbol for uniting people whose lives have been disrupted by difficult circumstances. From the exterior, the building appears unremarkable. Its double gables convey the plan arrangement in two simple facades each with a square window. However this simplicity is a pretext for a message of stability that we want the project to convey.”
Through careful consideration and input from stakeholders’ consultations, the students created a facility that was cognizant of the environmental situations surrounding the building’s occupants.
“Children and families coming to this building do so in difficult emotional circumstances. We hope that an unassuming building would help mitigate fear and anxiety wherever possible,” said Griffiths. “To provide privacy, windows selected for the façade that look into examination rooms are partly obscured with a ContraVision, one-way screen, brick pattern, while the larger windows that open to the gathering spaces invite the kind of reconciliation that we hope the building will help achieve.”
Additionally, this building will be the first, fully-conditioned, cross-laminated timber (CLT) building in the Great Plains region. CLT is an emerging form of construction that offers an alternative to concrete and steel construction. It provides a clean, fast-track assembly system with the benefits of carbon sequestration.
“These CLT advantages add to a profound sense of warmth and stability on the interior. The wall and roof panels, produced from solid 4’ thick Douglas Fir, provide a natural finish with a palpable sense of solidity that is rare in contemporary architecture,” said Griffiths. “Once completed SSNFRC will become a showcase for advanced forms of engineered lumber construction and will demonstrate how the College of Architecture is promoting new, innovative, forms of architectures to the next generation of architects.”
Architecture faculty exhibit work at world famous museum
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Yasmine Abbas and DK Osseo-Asare, assistant professors of architecture and engineering design at Penn State, are among the invited artists whose works are on display in the “Africas in Production” exhibition at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The exhibit is part of the Digital Imaginaries project, which began in spring 2018 with events in Senegal and South Africa before heading to Germany. Throughout the year partners including Kër Thiossane, an independent art and multimedia center in Dakar (Senegal), the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival and Wits Arts Museum, both in Johannesburg (South Africa), collaborated on a series of distinct but connected programs, including workshops, seminars, talks, performances and exhibitions. These activities were designed to “bring together artists, architects, makers, hackers and researchers to question and reimagine how globalized technologies shape and shift African futures.
Penn State’s submission to the exhibit stems from the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), founded by Abbas and Osseo-Asare in Ghana. AMP is a youth-driven community-based project that couples the practical know-how of makers in the informal sector with the technical knowledge of students and young professionals in the science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) fields to amplify inclusive innovation.
Abbas and Osseo-Asare’s AMP project has received international attention, winning the Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Innovation Challenge Award, being named the Africa 4 Tech Digital Champion for Educational Technology (EdTech) and the Design Corps Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED) Award for Public Interest Design. Most recently, the duo received seed funding via a Penn State College of Arts and Architecture faculty research grant to advance their “spacecraft” research around community-enabled materials design research, which is currently ongoing with a number of graduate and undergraduate students at the University Park campus.
The pair traveled to Germany in November to install their third-generation AMP Spacecraft, which featured a “building performance” wherein graduate students and faculty from the Karslruhe Institute of Technology participated in an experimental test build to provide feedback on Penn State students’ design work to date. AMP Spacecraft is small-scale, incremental, low-cost and open-source, operating simultaneously as a set of tools and equipment to “craft space,” and empowering makers with limited means to both navigate and terraform their environment. Made in Ghana by grassroots makers and shipped from the first AMP maker hub in Accra’s Agbogbloshie scrapyard, the AMP Spacecraft prototypes a smart canopy device – or “Scanopy” – that collects air quality data and explores opportunities to amplify environmental sensing in data-scarce regions.
While in Germany, Abbas and Osseo-Asare presented the AMP project along with their on-going design research around maker ecosystems in African spaces during a “Tangana” panel at the “Open Codes: The World as a Field of Data” installation at ZKM. Panelists included makers from Ghana and Germany that discussed common trends in open-source maker and technology culture, as well as opportunities for bottom-up (democratic) innovation by leveraging citizen science initiatives and/or models of open science.
ZKM | Karlsruhe is the fourth-highest ranking museum in the world by ArtsFacts.net and houses both spatial arts, such as painting, photography and sculpture, and time-based arts, such as film, video, media art, music, dance, theater and performance. The “Africas in Production” exhibit is now open and will remain on display until March 31, 2019.
The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) are launching a second phase of research into professional practice education and its connection to work in architecture firms. The research will measure practitioners’ perceptions of readiness for professional practice, as well as what recent graduates think about the alignment of their education with firm expectations. The effort, which will begin in early 2019, follows on a 2018 analysis of professional practice education at programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).
“ACSA and NCARB have common interests in improving the alignment of architectural education and practice,” said Michael J. Monti, ACSA Executive Director. “We are pleased to continue collaborating with NCARB on issues that affect the profession and the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”
“Through NCARB’s continued partnership with the ACSA, our 55 licensing boards will gain a deeper understanding of how the current educational landscape is preparing the next generation of architects for practice,” said NCARB CEO Michael Armstrong. “We are particularly interested to learn if key lessons from professional practice courses align with firm expectations.”
Firm leaders and human resources staff at architecture offices will be invited to take the online survey in the coming months, followed by a survey of architectural associates who recently graduated with an accredited professional degree.
AASL Column, December 2018 Lucy Campbell and Barbara Opar, column editors Column by Barbara Opar
Yes, it’s that time of year. Based upon feedback from last year, we thought we’d again share a list of notable books from 2018. Any one of these would make a great gift for you to suggest or give to yourself!
Many books have described and shown Calatrava’s built work. This book, written in the first person, reveals the architect/engineer’s creative process through beautifully presented sketches.
An encyclopedic overview of the modern movement, Bradbury has chosen to divide modernism into two categories: Media & Masters and Houses & Interiors. Many of the images shown are iconic. A robust text with background information and the influence of the designer follows. Furniture, lighting, ceramics and glass, industrial and product design, and graphics and posters make up the first category. In the section on houses and interiors, emphasis is placed on masterfully selected color photographs detailing the structures. The book distills the modern movement in a highly visual and engaging way, making it a great addition to anyone’s collection.
Chalk, Warren. Archigram : the book. London: Circa Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781911422044. 300 pages. $85.07
This book is a must-have for anyone interested in the ideas of Archigram. It faithfully presents the work of this important group, with major endeavors shown in full color. The covers of the zines are realistically shown with the pop-ups found in the originals.
Balkrishna Doshi just won the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, though this title will not be released until late May 2019. But the wait may be worth it as there are few current books on this leading figure in modern Indian architecture.
Susan Jones, responding to the challenge of climate change, has written a book about this new construction technology. Jones’ research includes a study of sustainable forest management and carbon emission issues, then moves on to present the actualization of her research in the designing of her own home.
This new release is the edited version of the multi-volume set based on two HGSD studios and written for the 2014 Venice Biennale. The format is much larger and clearer and errors corrected. Each chapter traces the origins, use and issues related to a specific building element.
The topic of this book is unique with its study of the ceremonial stone landscapes of the Northeastern United States. The author has prepared a field guide to the known, lost, forgotten and misidentified megalithic stone structures, discussing their symbolism and asserting them to be remnants of a past now lost civilization.
This newly released biography of Philip Johnson presents him in all his complexity with his paradoxical views and often controversial stances. The author details Johnson’s contributions to modern architecture such as the creation and funding of MOMA’s architecture department, his impact as a theorist, his changing views on architectural styles and legacy of notable built works. But he also describes the Jewish gay man with a fascination for Nazism. While entertaining, the book delves depth into the life of Philip Johnson, the stararchitect.
Libeskind, Daniel. Edge of Order. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2018. ISBN: 9780451497352. 320 pages. $37.42
In an engaging book, Libeskind reveals his creative process and talks about the myriad sources he draws upon for inspiration for his buildings. Libeskind shares his ideas, sketches, drawings and photographs for a select list of built and unbuilt works, revealing how his architectural projects evolve.
McLeod, Virginia(Ed). Atlas of Brutalist Architecture. New York: Phaidon Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780714875668. 560 pages. $107.00
High resolution black and white photographs help tell the story of this modernist movement. The author lists buildings according to region of the globe, providing a basic description of the work along with function, status and condition. The author’s approach makes a compelling case for the wide variety of forms that constitute this often reviled form of architecture which at one point in time spanned the globe .
Eric Mumford has written a number of critical texts on the urbanism of the modern movement. In this book he presents an overview of both actual and theoretical designs, from a global perspective.
Pauly, Danièle. Le Corbusier: Drawing as Process. . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780300230994. 304 pages. $32.37
Written by a scholar of the work and especially art of Le Corbusier, Pauly discusses how Le Corbusier used drawing to understand the world and how his drawings influenced his other work.
A thorough review of the role of the architectural exhibitions in shaping both discourse and design, Pelkonen highlights watershed moments with stunning images.
Stuckeman School collaborates on new architecture journal
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Stuckeman School has collaborated with the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University and the Centre for Documentary Architecture at Bauhaus-University, Weimar (Germany) to publish a new journal that celebrates research as the source of architectural imagination.
FACTUR: Documents and Architecture is interested in different methods for presenting and discussing projects of architecture that consider journalistic research as fundamental to the cultural construction of aesthetic identities. The name of the journal comes from the German term for a dynamic concept and set of techniques that influenced the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century.
“We want to engage in a conversation with different institutions about the role and impact of architecture in contemporary culture,” said Pep Avilés, FACTUR editor and assistant professor in the Department of Architecture. He also holds the Stuckeman Career Development Professorship in Design at Penn State.
Kennesaw State University thesis students presented ‘Miniatures: A Snapshot of Thesis’ during a 3-hour gallery-style critique.Reviewers consisted of 35-alumni, local practitioners, and faculty divided into 7-teams providing feedback on students critical research as a method of intellectual investigation. Each student’s research culminates in a Theorem that serves as the intellectual grounding of the work to be undertaken in the Thesis Studio during the following semester. This ‘Miniatures’ exhibition is an attempt to help students bridge the gap between idea and project.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Jawaid Haider, a long-time professor of architecture at Penn State, passed away on Friday, Dec. 7. He was 67 years old.
A native of Karachi, Pakistan, Haider served as an assistant professor at Penn State while earning his doctoral degree in interdisciplinary studies from the university in 1987. Prior to that, he was an instructor at Dawood University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi from 1997 to 1983. After completing his doctorate, he went back to Pakistan to become an associate professor at Dawood before returning to Penn State to stay in 1989.
Haider was a sought-after teacher and adviser for both architecture design studio teaching and theory classes. As a faculty member and curriculum designer, he was instrumental in shaping the reputation held by the Department of Architecture at Penn State, especially in advanced architectural design and research of the thesis year of the B.Arch. program. He was the coordinator of the thesis-year level for many years and was influential in designing and developing the graduate programs within the department.
“Being a faculty member with us for over 30 years, Jawaid has left his traces everywhere in the Department of Architecture,” said Ute Poershke, interim department head and professor. “More than 1,500 students have graduated with an architecture degree from our department during this time and it is a comforting thought for us that his teaching resonates in so many lives.”
He received many awards and recognitions during his career, most notably being named a Fulbright Senior Scholar by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission. He also received the College of Arts and Architecture Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and the inaugural Faculty Outreach Award “in recognition of exemplary leadership in applying scholarship in support of society.” Most recently, he was named the recipient of the college’s 2018 Distinguished Teaching Award, which “recognizes faculty members who have contributed significantly to the intellectual and artistic life of the college through their teaching.” Haider’s research interests included architectural issues relevant for children, intergenerational design, public space, architectural design education and comparative theoretical perspectives in architecture. More recently his research interests expanded to include active living strategies in parks and recreation systems. His research explored how the design of an environment or space could be child-friendly and elder-friendly, and he sought to make spaces for all generations to share, and to allow people to better form relationships.
As the principal investigator of a major research project titled, “Planning and Design Strategies for Healthy Living, Parks and Recreation in Pottstown [Pennsylvania] Area,” he influenced both community design and healthy living. He published extensively and received major funding for his research, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation.
“Jawaid also contributed immensely to academic life at Penn State,” said Poerschke. “Noteworthy were his tireless efforts in the planning and chairing of the Facilities Planning Advisory Board, which advised Penn State administrators on the architecture and landscape architecture here on the University Park campus.”
Later in his career, Haider served as the dean of academics at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi for two years and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Architects of Pakistan in recognition of his contributions to architectural education in his home country.
He was active in the State College community through his involvement with Global Connections, a community-based, non-profit organization affiliated with the United Way of Centre County and Penn State, with the mission of promoting intercultural understanding and building a strong, inclusive community through service, education, advocacy and partnerships. He also served as the design consultant for the Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania. He was also involved with the Association of University Women.
Haider is survived by his wife, Talat, and their twin sons, Shuja and Asad, as well as two sisters and three brothers.
Penn State designer’s firm up for Young Architects Program
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Low Design Office (LOWDO), an architectural design firm co-owned by DK Osseo-Asare, assistant professor of architecture and engineering design, has been named one of five finalists for next year’s 20th annual Young Architects Program. The program is run by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1, one of the oldest and largest nonprofit contemporary art institutions in the United States.
Each year, 50 firms comprised of recent architectural school graduates, junior faculty and architects experimenting with new styles or techniques are nominated by deans of architecture schools and editors of architecture publications for the program. The firms submit portfolios of their work for review by a panel consisting of leaders and curators from MoMA and MoMA PS1. The panel culls the group down to five finalists that are then challenged to develop original designs that provide shade, seating and water while working within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling.
The winner of the 2019 Young Architects Program will be announced in February, with the winning design to be installed at MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard in New York City next summer.
This year, MoMA and MoMA PS1 have partnered with the National Museum of XXI Century Arts (MAXXI) in Rome, Italy; CONSTRUCTO in Santiago, Chile; Istanbul Modern in Istanbul, Turkey; and MMCA in Seoul, Korea, to create international editions of the Young Architects Program.
Osseo-Asare and Ryan Bollom started LOWDO in 2006 while they were master’s degree students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The practice was formed around the idea that transformative innovation in creative fields most often originates when the creator must overcome limited means and resources to provide meaning in his or her work. Now a transatlantic architecture and integrated design studio based in Tema, Ghana and Austin, Texas, LOWDO continues to use its founding principles in its practice to deliver high-impact design for a broader public through low-resource, low-tech, low-carbon strategies. The firm’s projects search to find optimal balance between design and resource consumption—to achieve the “most” with the “least.”
For more information and to read about all of the finalists, see the Architect’s Newspaper.
Taught by Professors Liz Martin-Malikian, Peter Pittman and Arash Soleimani, 60-Students display their ‘Materials Exploration’ projects from Environmental Technology: Materials & Methods course. Exploring material characteristics, students worked in teams of 2-3 to make three parametric tiles in concrete, wood, and polymer all with the same design, but with a different material.
Under the direction of Professor Zamila Karimi, architecture students are challenging what constitutes an urban space by creating outdoor furniture that is interactive and playful instead of drab and utilitarian. This fall, students taking the Tactical Urbanism course offered by the Department of Architecture were tasked with creating a series of so-called “urban chairs.” The chairs were designed and built by the students with the intent that they could be configured in multiple ways in order to make public spaces more appealing. See link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A25fR5nLBFk
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