University of Southern California

Vinayak Bharne lectured on “Practicing Urban Design: From High Art to High Activism” at the South China Agricultural University’s College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture. He also spoke on “The Sacred Urbanism of Hindu India” at the Sacred Space Sacred Thread Global Conference at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Travis Longcore (Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program) was a presenter on Ecologically Sensitive Lighting Design at the 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. His paper “Biological and ecological effects of light pollution” was published in eLS: Citable Reviews in the Life Sciences. Dr. Longcore also had a poster and a paper accepted to and presented at the 9th California Channel Islands Symposium, which reported on a habitat suitability model for an endangered plant and the quantitative prediction of vegetation patterns to inform restoration and landscape management.

Construction was recently completed for Geoffrey von Oeyen‘s design for the Project and Idea Realization Lab (PIRL), a new design technology lab and classroom for a middle school in Pacific Palisades, California, that celebrates the design process as integral to education. Both indoors and out, the two teaching spaces in PIRL provide comprehensive learning opportunities that enable an exploratory approach toward multidisciplinary, design-based collaboration. The interior classroom, taking spatial and programmatic cues from Stanford’s Institute of Design, provides a technology platform for creative collaboration on projects ranging from robotics to filmmaking. The student-operated retractable canopy fabricated by a racing sailboat rigger is a didactic expression of architecture, engineering, and sailing design that creates a covered outdoor teaching and making space.

Hunter Knight lectured at Cal Poly Pomona. The talk was titled Out of Bounds and Out of Ideas, where he discussed recent work of his office Weather Projects.

Alexander Robinson shared a part of his upcoming manuscript on the Owens Lake at the “Realms and Realities” Colloquium organized by Bradley Cantrell and hosted at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in November. He was also interviewed as part of an Archinect podcast event on the Los Angeles River in October.

Eric Haas’s firm DSH recently completed their third and fourth projects for the non-profit Para Los Niños: an expansion of their Family Wellness Center – an adaptive reuse project providing counseling and therapy services – and a preschool for 100 children, both in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. They are beginning construction of an Early Head Start preschool and infant care center in Hollywood for the Youth Policy Institute. The Head Start facilities are part of a Promise Zone grant, an Obama Administration initiative to partner with local non-profits to provide an array of services in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Trudi Sandmeier, director of the USC Heritage Conservation program, recently lectured at Cornell University to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Cornell Historic Preservation Planning program – her talk was entitled “Conservation Planning on the Edge: A “Left”ist Perspective.”

Detox USA, a project by Marcos Sánchez in collaboration with Mark Wasiuta and Florencia Alvarez, examines the recent expansion of addiction recovery spaces and therapy techniques in Southern California and internationally. Detox USA was shown at the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennale, co-curated by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley.

Lorcan O’Herlihy’s project SL11024 is currently on view at the Design Museum in London until February 19, 2017 as part of the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition. His firm Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA] is the only American firm represented, where SL11024 is exhibited alongside work from OMA, BIG, and Herzog and de Meuron. In addition, LOHA has been selected by the City of Detroit to develop a comprehensive neighborhood, landscape, public realm, and green infrastructural strategy for the Grand River and Fenkell Corridors in Northwest Detroit. The project team is tasked with developing a holistic and comprehensive plan for strengthening the vibrancy and quality of life of this historic neighborhood.

Patrick Tighe, FAIA, Adjunct Professor hsa the following news this month: 2 AIA Awards from the Los Angeles Chapter, 3 Best of Year Awards from Interior Design Magazine, A Best of Design Award from The Architects Newspaper, and also Connexion, a commercial project in Burbank designed for Lincoln Properties Inc was published in Interior Design Magazine. A new monograph of the work of Patrick Tighe entitled, Building Dichotomy, with an intro by Thiom Mayne was released, and is now available on Amazon.

Vittoria Di Palma’s book Wasteland, A History (Yale, 2014) is the recipient of the Herbert Baxter Adams prize. The American Historical Association (AHA) awards the prize annually in recognition of an outstanding book published in English in the field of European history.

Professor Joon-Ho Choi received the Best Paper Award at the 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation & Energy Conservation in Buildings (IAQVEC). He presented one of his recent research, entitled “Comfort at Workstation: Comprehensive POE Research on Office Environment of Southern California” at the conference. The research identified and resolved technical issues of the current post-occupancy evaluation methodologies based on the use of 421 IEQ datasets collected from office environments within the university and commercial office buildings. Professor Choi has been recently elected as a board member of the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC), and he will serve for ARCC from 2017 to 2019.

Prof Graeme Maxwell Morland at USC, School of Architecture, and Principal, GEM architects, has recently completed the schematic design studies for a 24 unit Research Scholars Housing and Communal Conference/Meeting Center for visiting global scholars at the HUNTINGTON Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. The project, which is monastic in nature will be set within a dense grove of existing fruit trees and is designed to be totally energy self-sufficient. It is anticipated that the project will now enter into the preliminary design development phase in 2017.

Assistant Professor Kyle Konis’ submission to the 2016 National AIA Upjohn Research Initiative – “A Circadian Daylight Metric and Design Assist Tool for Improved Occupant Health and Well-Being” – was selected and awarded a $20,240 grant.

Laurel Consuelo Broughton and her studio WELCOMEPROJECTS were included in the multi-firm installation, The Kid Gets Out of the Picture at Materials and Applications in Los Angeles. The large, outdoor installation was curated by The LADG and supported by The Graham Foundation. In October, Laurel lectured with Andrew Kovacs as part of the Dean’s Lecture Series at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Zachary Tate Porter delivered the 2016 Design of Theory Lecture at SCI-Arc in November. The lecture, entitled “Cuts and Fills: Constructing a Discourse on Ground,” highlighted Porter’s multi-modal research on the role of ground within architectural theory and practice.

Ken Breisch has published a new book, The Los Angeles Central Library: Building an Architectural Icon, 1872-1933, (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2016), and presented the lecture, “Bertram Goodhue and Irving J. Gill, The Panama California Exhibition and The Los Angeles Public Library,” in the Art, Design and Architecture Lecture Series at the University of California at Santa Barbara in November. He has been asked to lecture on his new book by the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians in January.

R. Scott Mitchell and Sofia Borges’s MADWORKSHOP Homeless Studio has partnered with Hope of the Valley Recuse Mission and the City of Los Angeles to develop a modular housing solution for immediate stabilization of the city’s homeless. Their efforts have been featured in WIRED Magazine, Azure Magazine, Archinect, and USC News.

Next November 5th, Maria Esnaola and her studio KnitKnot will be one of the guest speakers at the TEDX at University of Macedonia 2016. Under the title “Gravity of Thoughts”, and they will also organize a Workshop and installation that evaluates collaborative design techniques and construction. http://www.tedxuniversityofmacedonia.com/en/index.html#theme

Maria Esnaola and her studio KnitKnot architecture started the construction of a school project for Nicaragua in El Jicarito. EL JICARITO SCHOOL is an innovative low-cost school design that brings a community together through collaborative construction methods, using local materials, while creating a new educational space. Here are the highlights for the process:

May 24th: launched a fundraising campaign through Indiegogo.
May 28th: the project meets the 106% of the fundraising goals. 22,180 USD total funds raised.
April 12nd: published in Plataforma Arquitectura: http://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl/cl/785163/knitknot-architecturelanza-campana-de-fondos-para-construir-escuela-en-nicaragua
April 18th: “Tiny revolutions” in Architizer http://architizer.com/blog/crowdfund-a-nicaraguan-school-in-el-jicarito/
April 22nd: the project is published in Archdaily http://www.archdaily.com/785498/knitknot-architecture-seeks-funds-fornicaraguanschool
July 15th: Paul Keskey, editor of Architizer, praises Knit Knot in an interview for Housely, Massachusetts.

“If there’s one current trend in architecture you’re excited about what is it and why are you excited? Maria Esnaola is very excited about the growing potential for the web to help fund public interest design and humanitarian architecture projects, with more creative people harnessing crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We recently covered Knitknot Architecture’s campaign to crowdfund a school in Nicaragua. They successfully achieved their goal in May; I’m delighted for them and the project has given me renewed faith in the potential for small creative firms to get innovative projects like this off the ground.” Read more at http://housely.com/paul-keskeys/

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Check out USC’s StudyArchitecture Profile Page here!

Texas A&M University

January 12, 2017/in School News Awards, West Central Region /by Matrix Admin

ACSA Counselor and Architecture Professor earns 2016 Regan Interdisciplinary Prize

For orchestrating transformational educational experiences through innovative design studios and research initiatives that facilitate student collaboration with peers and professionals from other disciplines, Ahmed K. Ali, assistant professor of architecture, was chosen to receive the 2016 J. Thomas Regan Interdisciplinary Prize.

Established by the College of Architecture’s Dean’s Advisory Council to honor Regan, former dean of the college and champion of interdisciplinary education in the built environment disciplines, the prize is awarded annually to a faculty member selected by a faculty committee from a pool of nominees. Regan died in 2015.

In a spring 2016 studio, Ali’s students collaborated with construction science students, Gessner Engineering, the Coulter and Lily Rush Hoppess Foundation and the city of Bryan to design and build a prototype structure for vendors at the Brazos Valley Farmers Market.

The studio immersed students “in an in-depth and hands-on learning experience in the design, engineering, fabrication, and construction of the structure,” said Weiling He, associate professor of architecture, in a letter supporting Ali’s nomination.

That same studio also engaged graduate landscape architecture students, who created master plans for an historic city block in Bryan that incorporated the farmers market structures, spaces for a new visitor center building, courtyards for outdoor activities and a community garden.

“His students appreciate his direction, enthusiasm and skills in leading such complex projects,” said George Mann, professor of architecture, in a letter supporting Ali’s nomination. “His enthusiasm for teaching by doing is inspiring and I believe he is becoming one of the emerging leaders of the college.”

In fall 2016 studio, Ali’s students collaborated with Zahner Metals, General Motors and the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development to design building envelopes skins, and roofing systems from auto manufacturing byproducts.

“Ali is an internationally recognized academic advocating resource reuse in the construction industry,” said He. “His design innovations that employ reused materials have been published and presented in journals and conferences worldwide,” said He.

Ali, who joined the Texas A&M faculty in 2015, earned three graduate degrees at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University — a Ph.D. in 2012, a Master of Science in Architecture in 2012 and a Master of Architecture in 2004 — as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture degree at Alexandria University in Egypt in 1997.

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Check out Texas A&M’s program on StudyArchitecture’s website!

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

January 12, 2017/in School News West Central Region /by Matrix Admin

University of Nebraska’s CRP Studio Is Making a Difference in Lincoln Neighborhoods

Great places to live rarely happen by accident. Sought-after cities and neighborhoods take years of planning to develop, maintain and in some cases redevelop. Most cities have areas that are economically depressed and in need of revitalization. Assessing the condition of these older neighborhoods is an important first step in planning for positive change. Graduate students pursuing the Master of Community and Regional Planning (MCRP) degree at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln have been collaborating this semester with NeighborWorks Lincoln, the Lincoln/Lancaster County Planning Department and the City of Lincoln Urban Development Department in the initial stages of community planning in one of Lincoln’s older neighborhoods.

Residents’ concerns about vacant and neglected properties, graffiti, weeds, litter and other safety and quality-of-life concerns prompted the collaboration between the NeighborWorks Lincoln and the Community and Regional Planning (CRP) program. NeighborWorks Lincoln is one of over 240 nonprofit community development organizations in the NeighborWorks America network. This 2010 pilot project, funded by the Woods Charitable Fund, allowed the work to assess physical conditions, especially the housing stock, in several of Lincoln’s older neighborhoods.

Even though that grant-funded project has ended, the need to assess and improve Lincoln neighborhoods still exists. NeighborWorks Lincoln is currently in the process of developing more moderate- to low-income housing in Lincoln’s South Salt Creek Neighborhood, either by building new construction and/or rehabilitating existing homes.

The collaborative emphasis involves much more than a focus on improving housing; NeighborWorks and CRP want to see the neighborhood holistically enriched and stimulated as a result of residents becoming involved in a community planning process. As part of the collaboration, CRP agreed to participate in the data collection and analysis process in the South Salt Creek Neighborhood as the focus of a semester-long master’s studio project. Students have conducted a door-to-door survey of residents and a condition-of-properties observational survey that uses 35 physical conditions criteria in order to build a quantitative database. In addition to the questionnaires, the team has met with neighborhood residents to inform the community about their work and gauge interest for future grassroots efforts.

This partnership has apparently been beneficial to everyone involved. For the students, it is an invaluable learning experience. “This is a great opportunity for students to conduct field work, assemble and analyze data, and understand the relationship between nonprofit organizations and city governments and how they interact and work together,” commented Gordon Scholz, CRP professor and interim program director. For NeighborWorks Lincoln and the neighborhood residents, the project has helped identify and provide evidence of issues in the neighborhood, as well as generate interest and elicit participation from residents. Furthermore, the project is providing a foundation for further neighborhood revitalization planning efforts.

“There are only two staff persons at NeighborWorks Lincoln who work with community engagement, so we’re pretty swamped. This background information-gathering which the students have conducted is a crucial first step in preparing to create a revitalization plan for any area. NWL and CRP have a long history of working together, which is a win/win because it expands NWL’s capacity, provides students with hands-on experience and benefits the community,” stated Pat Anderson-Sifuentez, community builder for NeighborWorks Lincoln. She continues, “City staff members have been cut back over the years, so if CRP students can assist with gathering and analyzing some information necessary, such as census data, property assessment scans and resident surveys, it helps NWL and Planning staff in their work.”

One of the reasons this partnership was worked well thus far is the mutual understanding of community planning as a long-term and continuing process. “At the outset in this project, Gordon Scholz, NWL staff and Lincoln Planning and Urban Development staff met to make sure that the information gathered would be put to good use,” said Anderson-Sifuentez. “The work has already evolved over the years from doing just scans of properties, expanding to include resident surveys and public meetings. I hope we can continue to build on this process so that future University classes can build on what the previous classes have done.”

When the semester ends, it doesn’t mean a student has to stop working on the project, Scholz adds. “After this semester, if a student wants to continue working on the project, they can choose to pursue it through independent study or a professional project in subsequent semesters.”

In addition to supporting community development work, NeighborWorks Lincoln sees this project not only providing students with a great learning experience, but also impacting future individual decisions made by each student. “These students are improving the community they live in, and projects like this also serve as a way to connect students with meaningful service learning opportunities that will engage them with the community and possibly encourage them to stay in the area after graduation,” stated Chief Operating Officer of NeighborWorks Lincoln Shawn Ryba.

An affinity for Lincoln and its residents may have started to take root among the students.

“It was great to interact with residents of the community, and it will be fun to watch the exciting future this community has in store,” commented CRP student Maggie Harthoorn. Other students were equally enthusiastic about their skill development throughout this semester-long project.

“This experience has helped me to hone my GIS, Illustrator and InDesign skills in an environment with real deadlines and deliverables to a third-party partner such as NeighborWorks,” commented CRP student Andy Pedley.

As a culmination of their community condition analysis, CRP students will make recommendations to NeighborWorks Lincoln for community improvements in the neighborhood they have studied. These results will give city stakeholders a useful perspective regarding the conditions of this neighborhood and a reference for future planning and decision-making.

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Visit UNL’s StudyArchitecture Profile Page!

The Changing World of the E-book

December 7, 2016/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Barbara Opar, Syracuse University Libraries

Love them or lump them? How do you feel about e-books in architectural libraries? VOTE HERE

Odds are some of you have reservations. But let’s take another look at the e-book in the academic architecture library. E-books have been part of library collections for almost two decades, but in many quarters there is still confusion about them. Librarians in arts-related disciplines are sometimes reluctant to select e-only content. Will the user be able to access the title easily? Will they stop coming into the library? Users are troubled by the inherent inconsistency. But for good or bad, e-books are here to stay. In most arts libraries, we will continue to live in a parallel universe and the physical book will be purchased and used alongside the e-format. However, strides have been made in e-book production and we must look to the benefits of 24/7 accessibility while reminding ourselves of the inconsistencies across platforms.

E-book has become an umbrella term and is often applied to the contents of any book accessible in electronic form. In academic libraries, e-text is a more appropriate term. Students and faculty today do not routinely use devices like the Kindle or Nook to access materials provided by their institutions.

The e-text revolution began with Project Gutenberg in 1971. The often told tale has Michael Hart keying the text of the Declaration of Independence into a mainframe computer at the University of Illinois. Hart’s initial vision was to create a library of 10,000 public domain titles. That goal was reached in 2003. As time passed, Hart turned to different delivery options like Adobe Acrobat. The concept of the e-text changed too. Initial collaborative efforts of an altruistic nature were overshadowed by commercial ventures.

It is, however, these commercial ventures which have made the difference in the number and expanded selection of architectural titles available to libraries. While librarians have chosen and will continue to add individual e-book titles to the collections for which they are responsible, the enhanced access to e-content has largely come through commercial vendor packages. Humanities oriented and science related vendors have created packages of e titles available to libraries on a subscription or purchase basis. The cost of subscriptions varies and is determined by a number of factors including consortial arrangements, FTE, and even the number of other vendor products held by the institution. The cost of purchase can often be spread out over several years. Most often large packages are held for ‘end of year’ fund availability.

For libraries then, one benefit is the ease of purchase. They are able to add extensive content without individual selection. Cost per title is also under market. A library without strong holdings with respect to sustainability can quickly build a collection.

Who are the vendors? JSTOR, one of the strongest humanities e-journal content providers, has added books to its holdings. Like their e-journal content, the text is high resolution, displays well, and the platform is easy to use. The fields of architectural, landscape and planning history are well represented. Architectural guidebooks, studies of masterworks, and monographs on architects make up the majority of content A few titles from the 1970s are included, with the bulk of the texts having imprints from the last decade. Titles include: AIA Guide to Chicago (2014), American Architects and their Books 1840-1915 (2007), Creating Medieval Cairo (2008), Design after Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities (2012), Hijacking Sustainability (2009), Hitler’s Berlin: Abused City (2012), and Making Suburbia: New Histories of Everyday America (2015).

Similar content is available from the ACLS Humanities site sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies and the University of Michigan Library. Alberto Perez Gomez’ Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (1983), FLO, a Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (1983) and The Horace’s Villa Project (2006) are some of the titles included in this package. A table of contents allows for easy selection of content. Book reviews are included.

Another e-content provider is Ebrary. Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory, 1993-2010 (2010) by A. Krista Sykes, and Harry Francis Mallgrave’s important anthology- Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870 (2005) are hosted here. But Ebrary also includes the 11^th edition of Architectural Graphic Standards. This collection then contains titles core to the discipline. The titles are available for download or online reading. The number of simultaneous users is often limited and capped by the vendor.

An especially well-rounded collection of architecture titles comes from EBSCO. EBSCO’s content spans the entire field of architecture and its related bodies of knowledge. The collection is rich in design related resources like Designing Interior Architecture: Concept, Typology, Material, Construction (2013), Digital Workflows in Architecture: Design-Assembly-Industry (2012) and Solar Architecture: Strategies, Visions, Concepts (2012). The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities (2011) and The Globalization of Modern Architecture: The Impact of Politics, Economics, and Social Change on Architecture and Urban Design since 1990 (2012) are among those works dealing with architecture and society. But theory and history have not been left out. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, Pier Vittorio Aureli’s important work from 2011 and Alan Colquhoun’s Modern Architecture (2002) are included in this database of significant and sought after works.

There are also any number of publisher collections which focus on specific aspects of the discipline. Early American Imprints, Early English Books Online, Early European Books and Eighteenth Century Collections provide access to an extensive corpus of architectural treatises and pattern books.

Books 24/7, Credo Reference and Sage Knowledge are among other sources of e-content. Books 24/7 has rich content with respect to all aspects of sustainability. Credo Reference includes titles like 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture. Sage Knowledge is an important provider of sociological content. For engineering related resources, Knovel and Springer are key content providers. A recent Springer addition is Architectural Design: Conception and Specification of Interactive Systems (2016)

So solid architectural content is definitely available online. Are there downsides? Yes, as with any technology. Content display varies among vendors. The ability to go back and forth between individual chapters is difficult. Downloading issues exist. Limits on printing are problematic and vary across vendor platforms. In some packages, books are actually checked out. Until recently, many e-books were published well after the print title, necessitating either a waiting period or duplication of content. This is however changing and more titles are coming out simultaneously in print and e version.

E-books will only grow in importance. The benefits? 24/7 access as has been noted. The ability to easily provide multiple copies of a title is key for libraries. Faculty can also embed content links in course management software such as Blackboard.

But it is the strong content that should be the deciding factor. If a library has a number of packages as outlined above they can truly support distance education. Course reserves become easier to both process and access. For many courses or research topics, the patron can do most of their library work at anytime and anywhere. But remember that it is the library that makes all of this possible.

Call for Nominations: 2017 ACSA Representative on NAAB Visiting Team Roster

December 5, 2016/in ACSA News Board of Directors /by Matrix Admin

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
2017 ACSA Representatives on NAAB Visiting Team Roster
Deadline: March 1, 2017

The ACSA Board of Directors seeks nominees for 2017 ACSA representatives on the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) school visitation team roster member for a term of four years. The final selection of faculty members participating in the accrediting process will be made by NAAB.

Nominating Procedure

Members of ACSA schools shall be nominated annually by the ACSA Board of Directors for inclusion on a roster of members available to serve on visiting teams for a term of four years.
Proposals for nomination shall be solicited from the membership via ACSA News. Proposals must include a 2-page curriculum vitae (please include any accreditation experience).
The ACSA Nominations Committee shall examine dossiers submitted and recommend to the board candidates for inclusion on visitation team rosters.

Nominee Qualifications

The candidate should demonstrate:
Reasonable length and breadth of full-time teaching experience;
A record of acknowledged scholarship or professional work;
Administrative experience; and
An association with several different schools.

Each candidate will be assessed on personal merit, and may not answer completely to all these criteria; however, a nominee must be a full-time faculty member in an accredited architectural program (including faculty on sabbatical or on temporary leave of absence.)

ACSA Nominee Selection
Candidates for NAAB team members shall be selected to represent geographic distribution of ACSA regional groupings. The number of candidates submitted to NAAB will be limited in order to increase the likelihood of their timely selection by NAAB for service.

Description of Team and Visit
Pending acceptance of the Architectural Program Report (APR), a team is selected to visit the school. The site visit is intended to validate and supplement the school’s APR through direct observation. During the visit, the team evaluates the school and its architecture programs through a process of both structured and unstructured interactions. The visit is intended to allow NAAB to develop an in-depth assessment of the school and its programs, and to consider the tangible aspects of the school’s nature. It also identifies concerns that were not effectively communicated in the APR.

The visit is not independent of the other parts of the accreditation process. The visiting team submits a report to NAAB; NAAB then makes a decision regarding accreditation based on the school’s documentation, the team report, and other communications.

Team Selection
The visiting team consists of a chairperson and members selected from a roster of candidates submitted to NAAB by NCARB, ACSA, the AIA, and AIAS. Each of these organizations is invited to update its roster annually by providing resumes of prospective team members.

A team generally consists of four members, one each from ACSA, NCARB, AIA, and AIAS. NAAB selects the team and submits the list to the school to be visited. The school may question the appointment of members where a conflict of interest arises. The selection of the chairperson is at the discretion of NAAB. The board will consider all challenges. For the purposes of a challenge, conflict of interest may be cited if:

The nominee comes from the same geographic area and is affiliated with a rival institution;
The nominee has had a previous affiliation with the institution;
The school can demonstrate that the nominee is not competent to evaluate the program.

NAAB tends to rely on experienced team members in order to maintain the quality level of its visits and reports, and to comply with COPA and U.S. Department of Education guidelines. Each team member shall have had previous visit experience, either as a team member or observer, or shall be required to attend a training/briefing session at the ACSA Administrators Conference or ACSA Annual Meeting.

Nominations Deadline and Calendar
The deadline for receipt of letters of nomination, including a 2-page curriculum vitae (please include any accreditation experience), is March 1, 2017. E-mail nomination preferred; please send all nomination information to eellis@acsa-arch.org. ACSA will notify those nominees whose names will be forwarded to NAAB by May 2017. ACSA nominees selected to participate on a visiting team will be required to complete and submit a standard NAAB Visiting Team Nomination form. NAAB will issue the roster of faculty members selected for 2017-2018 team visits in November 2017.

Nominations should be sent to:

Eric Wayne Ellis (ACSA, Board Nominations)
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Email: eellis@acsa-arch.org

Cubs Win. Do We?

November 18, 2016/in ACSA News /by Matrix Admin

From the President
Bruce Lindsey, Washington University in St. Louis

It was wonderful to be in Chicago for the 2016 ACSA Administrators Conference. Chi-Town held a parade for the world champion Cubs on Friday November 4^th with the route passing directly by our hotel. Reported as the 7^th largest gathering in human history with over 5 million people in attendance, Joe Madden’s t-shirt conveyed the message, “we didn’t suck.”

The conference, titled Gaps and Overlaps, brought together over 200 administrators and school leaders. Thanks to co-chairs, Marshall Brown of IIT and Meejin Yoon of MIT, and to those who participated in a series of engaging panels, keynotes, and morning breakout sessions. The breakout sessions discussed priorities laid out in ACSA’s new strategic plan and introduced the three newly formed committees that will help carry them out: the Education Committee, chaired by Lynne Dearborn; the Leadership Committee, chaired by Rebecca O’Neal Dagg; and the Research & Scholarship Committee, chaired by Shannon Criss. This new structure is off to a great start and we are excited by the strong response from member faculty to participate.

The Education Committee is tackling a complex and defining problem for architectural education and practice: diversity and its attendant action of inclusion. Current models of ecology suggest that diversity = survival and complexity = life. An ecology of design might be diversity = relevance. As stated in his definition of complementarity, Niels Bohr, the late Danish physicist suggested that the richness of shared experience that comes from multiple, overlapping, and at times mutually exclusive points of view move us to be creative, complex and alive, reminding us that diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status is also intellectual diversity.

In the two weeks since the historic gathering in Chicago, it seems even more important to reiterate that ACSA steadfastly stands in support of diversity, inclusiveness, equity, civility, and civil discourse in architectural education specifically and education broadly understood as the implicit foundation of a democratic society. To paraphrase Jesse Jackson, we win by the margin of our hope to call us to action.

Bruce Lindsey

University of Buffalo

November 16, 2016/in School News /by Matrix Admin

Assistant Professor Shannon Bassett presented the paper, “New Architectural Trajectories: Operating at the Intersection(s) of Rupture(s): Recovering Architectural, Cultural and Ecological Landscapes through Design Acupunctures” in the “New Trajectories in Academia Indeterminate Urbanisms” session at the 2016 ACSA International Conference in Chile. This work was based on her design research and teaching in China.

Assistant Professor Shannon Bassett’s professional work, entitled “(Re) Stitch Tampa, designing the post war Coastal City with Ecologies” was selected to be shown at the BUGAIK International Architecture Exhibition organized by the Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam Chapter of the Architectural Institute of Korea from November 25-29, 2016. This work will be published by ACTAR.

Assistant Professor Martha Bohm, Director of the Grow House – a project designed by UB and a winner in the 2016 International Solar Decathlon – received an AIAWNY 2016 Design Award for the project on behalf of the design and construction team of UB students and faculty.

Assistant Professor Julia Jamrozik and Adjunct Assistant Professor Coryn Kempster completed the public installation project ‘Full Circle’ in Buffalo in October and the opening was celebrated with a public event on October 25, 2016.The project was commissioned by CEPA Gallery and C.S.I Curatorial Projects for CEPA’s West Side Lofts Project and selected by design competition. (More info http://www.ck-jj.con/fullcircle2016)

Assistant Professor Julia Jamrozik was a contributor to ‘African Modernism’. The book received the 2016 DAM Book Award.

Assistant Professor Nicholas Rajkovich chaired the symposium ‘From Sandy to Snowvember’held in Buffalo in November. The series of presentations and discussions, which focused on climate change and its impact on building design across New York State, brought together a multi-disciplinary group that included representatives from NYSERDA, UB research and professionals from practice.

American University of Sharjah

November 9, 2016/in School News Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

The Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates is pleased to announce the following faculty appointments commencing Fall 2016.

Jason Carlow has been appointed as an Assistant Professor. His design work, research and teaching are centered on the relationship between digital and traditional modes of drawing, modeling and fabrication. He holds a B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. His design and research work has been published and exhibited internationally in venues including the Hong Kong / Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, the Venice Biennale of Architecture and the Beijing Architecture Biennial as well as in architectural exhibitions in Hong Kong, Xian, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Shanghai, London and Washington DC.

Greg Watson has been appointed as a Professor. Before joining AUS, he was the Emogene Pliner Professor of Architecture at LSU and served as an associate professor at Mississippi State University, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Minnesota. He has also held visiting and adjunct positions at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the Maine College of Art, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Watson’s teaching and research focuses on design process, materials, landscape design and representation. Throughout his academic career he has received numerous awards, most recently the 2015 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Distinguished Professor Award.

As an architect, his work includes award-winning projects while practicing in Chicago, Minneapolis, Maine, South Carolina and Mississippi. His paintings, drawings, and prints have been widely exhibited at galleries in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Annapolis, Mississippi, and Louisiana. These scholarly pursuits in architecture and art have been supported from the Mississippi State University Office of Research, the University of Minnesota College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Watson holds a BA in psychology from Columbia University and a Master of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

Matthew A. Trimble has been appointed as an Assistant Professor. Trimble is a principal and founder of Radlab, an experimental design and fabrication firm. He has a diverse range of experience working and consulting in the field of architecture for firms that include Neil M. Denari Architects, Behnisch Behnisch and Partner, Preston Scott Cohen, Inc, and dECOi Architects. Trimble has taught seminars, workshops, and studios internationally for both graduate and undergraduate students at the Boston Architectural College, the Wentworth Institute of Technology, the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Trimble holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture degree from The University of Memphis, where he received the Frances F. Austin Scholarship, and a Master of Architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was awarded the Avalon Travel Fellowship.

Mara Marcu has been appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor for the Fall of 2016. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati and founder of MM13. Her work focuses on providing for a digital and material workflow that connects design, fabrication, and culture-specific topics. Prior to her academic career, she worked for Rafael Vinoly Architects in NYC, and on the Shobac Cottages, as part of Ghost Lab 7, with Brian MacKay-Lyons in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2010 Marcu trained with Pritzker Prize Laureate Glenn Murcutt in Australia. Her education includes a Master of Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Houston where she received the Best in Show Design Award. In 2011 she was the recipient of the University of Virginia Fellowship. Mara is the founder of ECHOS with the first upcoming volume published with Actar.

Igor Peraza has rejoined the architecture faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor for the 2016-2017 academic year. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Peraza holds a BSc of Architecture from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, received a scholarship to do his Master of Architecture at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, and obtained his Ph.D at the University of Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan. Professionally, he worked for five years at the Atelier of Arata Isozaki and led the Domus (Museum of Mankind) project on-site in La Coruña, Spain. In 2000 he relocated to Barcelona to work with Miralles Tagliabue as Director of the Santa Caterina Market project. Peraza went on to serve as Director of EMBT’s Shanghai office were he led numerous projects including the Spanish Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo, the New Campus of Fudan University in Shanghai, and the Museum for the Chinese painter Zhang Daqian. He has previously taught at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the European Institute of Design, Tongji University, and served as a visiting professor at the Lebanese American University from 2013 to 2015.

Material Order: Building Collections and Creating Community

November 8, 2016/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Mark Pompelia, Visual and Material Resource Librarian, Rhode Island School of Design

Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library (GSD) and Rhode Island School of Design’s Fleet Library (RISD) announce the launch of a consortium of libraries with materials collections. Responding to expressed need for material description and access in an open source environment, Material Order provides a shared cataloging utility and collection management system, as well as a framework for a growing community.

The partnership began in 2011 to pursue a shared cataloging and search system. In 2012, RISD received a National Forum grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to organize an international symposium that clarified the fundamental issues and challenges, formulated solutions, and promoted the role of libraries in serving material collection curricular and research needs of faculty and students in art, architecture, and design disciplines.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries, held in June 2013 at RISD, assembled a roster of international keynote speakers, funded fifteen participant librarians and directors from stakeholder institutions, and ultimately gathered nearly one hundred attendees for a multi-day and multi-format event, including a workshop for over forty librarians. Speakers, participants, and attendees all communicated the growing need for students in art and design programs to become better educated when selecting and using materials in projects.

Wide acknowledgment of the absence of a resource for material classification and description in design-related fields, unlike those found in materials science and engineering, fueled the conversation further. The existence of such consensus provided the basis for an emerging community—loosely knit but united around a common development: libraries supporting art and design programs are developing collections of material samples in order to support the curriculum and research in their institutions.

The GSD-RISD materials database project team was introduced to CollectionSpace (CS), part of the LYRASIS family of platforms, at a June 2015 meeting at Harvard University that included the Materials Collection at the GSD library. With its strong and proven experience in developing management platforms for object-based collections, CollectionSpace was selected as the right partner for further defining and developing this project to completion.

CS staff and GSD-RISD project team members conducted frequent group teleconferencing meetings to examine CS functionality for the materials database and for development of a consortium of materials collections. CS staff reviewed the GSD-RISD -derived database schema and gained a thorough understanding of the project as both shared and local implementations. With that clarity and the experience of other CS client projects, CS staff re-purposed a sizable portion of existing programming to be redeployed for Material Order.

Material Order’s shared cataloging utility is cloud -hosted and -accessed by multiple institutions, which will facilitate the larger goal of building the consortium. Both GSD and RISD have recently launched the full database and are beginning to use it. At the same time, GSD-RISD are defining and developing foundational and guiding policies, procedures, and documents to establish and sustain the use of a shared database.

This current academic year will offer a concentrated outreach effort including both broad and targeted communication and presentations on the features, benefits, and operation of Material Order, which include the use of the cataloging tool and its authorities, resource creation, and community development. In an effort to expand the consortium, we will be contacting institutions that have previously expressed interest in the database development and will be offering recorded and live demonstrations of the system through the year. We will also be attending conferences through the year to network with colleagues and that will support development of the consortium.

Equity By Design Committee Releases Early Results of Their 2016 Survey

November 4, 2016/in ACSA News Research /by Matrix Admin

AIA San Francisco’s Equity by Design Committee announced early findings from the 2016 Equity in Architecture Survey. The survey revealed clear predictors of success within the profession for both men and women. These included transparency in the promotion process, access to mentoring by firm leaders, and sharing similar values within the firm. However, the survey also showed that men were more likely to report having access to each of these ingredients for a satisfying career. ACSA served as a research partner for the survey and participated in last weekend’s fourth symposium, titled Equity by Design: Metrics, Meaning, & Matrices. Find graphic survey results Equity by Design website http://eqxdesign.com/.

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