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University of Washington

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University of Washington Professor Mehlika Inanici Awarded the 2023 Leon Gaster Award

 

Professor Mehlika Inanici has been awarded the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) 2023 Leon Gaster Award. This award is presented to the best paper included in the SLL Lighting Research & Technology Journal concerned with lighting applications. The award was first conferred in 1929, and only one award is given annually. Professor Inanici accepted the award at the SLL Annual General Meeting on May 14 in Leeds, England.

University of Washington

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University of Washington Department of Architecture Faculty Elevated to the 2024 AIA College of Fellows

 

This year, 98 architects in the U.S. and beyond were elevated to the AIA College of Fellows, including University of Washington Architecture Professors Ann Marie Borys and Kate Simonen. Nine of the department’s permanent and affiliate faculty are now AIA Fellows. In addition, three UW Architecture alumni were elevated to Fellowship: Samuel Batchelor, designLab Architects in Boston (M.Arch, 2004); Douglas Ito, SMR Architects (BA Architecture, 1992); and Robert Misel, The Miller Hull Partnership LLP (BA Architecture, 1989). Doug Ito is also the recipient of the 2024 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award, which recognizes an architect or organization that champions a range of social issues. UW Architecture hosted a reception/celebration for alumni and friends at the AIA Conference in Washington, D.C. on June 5 at ZGF Architects.

Drexel University

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DesignPhiladelphia Educator Award to Dr. Andrew Phillips, Drexel University’s Architecture Program Director

 

DesignPhiladelphia is thrilled to present its first inaugural honoree for the Designing Futures Annual Breakfast, Dr. Andrew Phillips!

Dr. Andrew Phillips is well known to many in Philadelphia as an accomplished, respected educator and an award-winning architect. Through his work, he earned a strong reputation as an intuitive and highly successful teacher of architecture and design at both high school and university levels. Andrew is a tireless ally of marginalized communities, who has helped generations of students develop their design agency as a vehicle for empowerment and positive change.

Andrew served as Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Design Education at the Charter High School for Architecture + Design (CHAD) and, more recently, as Chair of Design at String Theory Schools. He is also Drexel University’s Architecture Program Director in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Andrew proved his leadership skills and his unique ability to empower students of all backgrounds, especially those faced with socioeconomic inequities and systemic racism. During the first half of his education career, Andrew taught at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design and helped to spearhead a deep exploration into the discipline of architecture, its inquiry processes, and its representational dialogues. His interest in critical making, the affordances of design tools and techniques, the mindsets, and the means necessary for catalysts of agency and social change have been a common thread and priority throughout Andrew’s career.

Click here to read the full article.

Penn State

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Architecture professor named DOE Solar Decathlon Faculty Award winner

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Lisa Iulo, professor of architecture and director of the Hamer Center for Community Design in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, was named the winner of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon 2024 Faculty Award.

Iulo has served as an adviser for the interdisciplinary Penn State Solar Decathlon team for nine consecutive design challenges, including the 2022 team that finished third in the Retrofit Housing Division of the competition. She was the team adviser of two Build Challenge competitions on the National Mall in Washington: in 2007 for the MorningStar Solar Home, which is now part of the Penn State Sustainability Experience Center, and in 2009 for the Natural Fusion home.

Through her involvement with the Solar Decathlon competition and her work with the Energy Efficient Housing Research Group, an outreach arm of the Hamer Center for Community Design, and the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center in the College of Engineering, Iulo has developed Solar Decathlon-related architecture and architectural engineering studio courses at Penn State that connect students with local communities to work on real-world projects that benefit people and the environment.

Examples of such studio course-related projects are the MorningStar Solar Home, which won a BP Solar Performance Award and a PVNews Editors’ Choice Award; and and the award-winning State College Community Land Trust GreenBuild solar duplex, located at 1394 University Drive in State College, which won a Commonwealth Award from the 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania in 2019.

“I am honored to receive this award. The solar decathlon has been a hallmark of my past 20 years at Penn State, and I couldn’t be more proud of our related accomplishments,” said Iulo. “This would not be possible without our exceptional students and my respected colleagues, especially Rahman Azari who graciously nominated me for this award.”

The Solar Decathlon Faculty Award is presented annually to a past or current faculty adviser of a U.S. Solar Decathlon Design Challenge team who demonstrates outstanding commitment to preparing students to design and/or build highly efficient buildings powered by renewables.

Formerly known as the DOE Race to Zero Competition, the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge is a collegiate competition that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. In its current iteration, the competition consists of a design challenge with six divisions, as well as a build challenge. Learn more about the competition on the DOE website.

Penn State

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Architecture Department Welcomes Spanish Architect, Educator to Faculty

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Stuckeman School in the College of Arts and Architecture will welcome Spanish architect and educator Amadeu Santacana to its Department of Architecture faculty as an assistant teaching professor, effective Aug. 1.

Santacana comes to Penn State after teaching at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya/Barcelona Tech Vallès School of Architecture (ESTAV-UPC) in Spain since 2005. He most recently served as Serra Hunter Professor and chair of the architectural design department and was a member of the Proto research group where he focused his work on machine learning and relational architecture.

“We are excited that Amadeu Santacana will be joining us at Penn State this fall,” said Frank Jacobus, professor and head of the Department of Architecture and Stuckeman Chair of Integrated Design. “His extensive teaching experience spans notable institutions, and he is an accomplished author and editor with significant contributions to architectural literature. His works showcase his impact on contemporary architecture discourse, and his exhibitions and curatorial projects at prestigious venues further highlight his innovative vision.”

Santacana has had two books published: “Event in a World as Juxtaposition,” published by Fundación Arquia in 2020 and “Residential Landscapes,” published by AxA in 2022. He is also co-editor of “Create!” (Actar, 2014), “Crossed Lines: New Territories of Design” (Actar, 2003) and “Soriano & Palacios: It’s Small, It Rains and with Ants” (Actar, 2000). Santacana has collaborated with several magazines including “Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme” and “Fisuras de cultura contemporánea” and in February 2024, his co-authored article — titled “The impact of architecturally qualified data in deep learning methods for the automatic generation of social housing layouts” — was published in the Journal of Automation in Construction.

Santacana has also curated exhibitions such as “Crossed Lines: New Territories of Design” at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, “Diagrams” in the “Climate Change Series” for the Housing State Department at Madrid and the “P Event” at the Spanish Foundation of the Official College of Architects of Madrid.

In addition to his time at ESTAV-UPC, Santacana has been a visiting professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Madrid, UIC Barcelona, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture.

“We are thrilled to have the world-renowned architect Amadeu Santacana joining our faculty at the Stuckeman School this fall,” said Chingwen Cheng, director of the Stuckeman School. “His global perspective and expertise in the emerging technology of machine learning and design bring exceptional additional assets to the architecture department and the school.”

In practice, Santacana is a partner at Bartleby Studio, which opened in 2020, and he served as a partner at Nug Architects from 2000 to 2020. He earned his doctorate from the Barcelona School of Architecture and his undergraduate degree from ESTAV-UPC.

Penn State

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Architecture Department Head to Participate in Loghaven Summer Artist Residency

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Frank Jacobus, professor and head of the Department of Architecture and Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, is set to go on a four-week artist residency at Loghaven in Knoxville, Tennessee to work on a sculpture garden pavilion designed by artificial intelligence (AI).

Loghaven is a competitive retreat-based artist residency welcoming creatives from many disciplines. Jacobus will reside there from May 20 to June 14. The residency asks candidates to pitch a project, so Jacobus and his business partner, Marc Manack, associate professor of architecture at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, pitched a pavilion designed by using AI as a tool for their creative ideation.

Jacobus and Manack are principals of SILO Architecture, Research and Design.

Jacobus said the final result may not look like the AI rendering, but the tool has allowed the duo to get creative and flexible with materials.

“The design process can be in the abstract, but it can also include cost, material and what’s available,” Jacobus said. “It feels like we’re jazz musicians riffing and improvising, and when opportunities arise, we take them based on the materials we can get.”

Given the project’s strict four-week deadline, Jacobus said that he and Manack will have to be adaptable to challenges that may arise on the building site and not get too attached to one particular part of the project knowing that material availability could change quickly.

“We’re looking for the solution and we’re adaptable to the situation,” Jacobus said. “We’re always open to ideas for how we can get this done.”

The pavilion will be part of a sculpture garden within a forest that will eventually be open for public use. The site for the sculpture garden is owned by John Sanders, founding partner of Sanders Pace Architecture. According to Jacobus, Sanders bought the houses over time to create something new on the land.

Jacobus is also looking forward to learning from the other residents at Loghaven to expand his creativity as an artist.

“You’re there in a community of creative people, and I’ll be able to talk to the textile artists, the ceramicists, and riff off each other,” Jacobus said. “You get to know people and get inspired by their work.”

The pavilion project will not be Jacobus’s first time experimenting with AI as a design tool. His co-authored book, “Artificial Intelligent Architecture: New Paradigms in Architectural Practice and Production,” released in December 2023 by ORO Editions, captures the use of AI in architecture in its infancy.

Penn State

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Stuckeman Architecture Graduate Student Named to Metropolis Future100

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Meisam Dadfarmay, a master of architecture student in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School who will graduate from Penn State in August, has been named one of the top 100 architecture graduate students in the United States and Canada by Metropolis magazine. The Future100 Architecture Graduate Winners list recognizes the top graduate students of the class of 2024 as determined by the Metropolis team.

“Meisam’s design [style] demonstrates a fusion of creativity, functionality and performance,” said Rahman Azari, associate professor of architecture and Dadfarmay’s nominator for the Metropolis honor. “His projects reflect a keen understanding of spatial dynamics and transform concepts into tangible spaces that meet programmatical requirements and evoke a sense of inspiration.”

Originally from Ardebil, Iran, Dadfarmay earned his bachelor of architecture at Marlik Higher Education Institute in Iran in 2010. He went on to open his own boutique design office with 20 staff members in Tehran, Iran, in 2014. Due to economic challenges affecting small offices, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, he made the difficult decision to close the office in 2022.

He then turned his attention back to his studies and said he came to Penn State to study architecture because “of the University’s reputation for high-level instruction and distinguished faculty members.”

“The blend of theoretical knowledge and practical application offered by the instructors aligns with my professional goals in architecture,” he said.

As a designer, Dadfarmay said he tries to find and address the challenges of each project, on large and small scales — such as environmental concerns and contextual factors, or the project itself, and “let these guide my design process and solutions.”

His thesis project, “Dream House,” was a project he designed for himself as an architect and resulted in an honorable mention for the Department of Architecture’s 2024 Haider Award for Design Excellence in Graduate Studies.

“It is a proposal for vertical city growth in Tokyo, which is a dialogue with my precedent project which was ‘Tower House,’ designed by Takamitsu Azuma in 1966. Tower House, a project designed for architecture itself, is located close to my thesis project site, and both are situated in on tiny sites,” Dadfarmay said. “The structure stands as a testament to distance, a medium through which the city’s pulse is both felt and muffled, allowing one to float just out of reach, yet forever within sight of the tangled lives below.”

Dadfarmy interned with Azuma Architect & Associates in Tokyo last summer, which sparked an interest in Japan’s architectural landscape that he hopes to explore further during his career. Following his graduation from Penn State in August 2024, he hopes to secure a job with a highly regarded design firm in the hopes of eventually re-opening his own office in the United States or Japan.

“The blend of theoretical knowledge and practical application offered by Penn State has enhanced my portfolio, positioning me well to pursue opportunities with reputable firms moving forward,” Dadfarmy said. “Working for such firms will not only allow me to evaluate my expertise in design but also provide invaluable insights into the industry and ultimately prepare me to reopen my own design firm.”

The complete list of Future100 Architecture Graduate Winners can be found on the Metropolis website.

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