Other ACSA Websites

Study Architecture ProPEL

Auburn University

/in /by

Tiger Giving Day, a special 24-hour fundraising initiative held at Auburn University as part of Giving Tuesday on December 1, was a success for the College of Architecture, Design and Construction. CADC’s two projects were both funded beyond their published goal: 
Build Hale County Homes: Rural Studio Designing 20K Houses: $65,492 (327% of goal!) 

3D Printing Prosthetics for Wounded Veterans: $9,400 (104% of goal!) to provide researchers and students with 3D printers and supplies to create better prosthetics for veterans. 

CADC’s Rural Studio is part of Auburn University’s Place Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. APLU’s fourth annual Innovation & Economic Prosperity University Awards honor public universities that are actively engaged in and promoting regional economic development. Universities compete in four different categories that recognize different components of economic engagement: talent, innovation, place and connections. The Place Award “recognizes Auburn for excelling in community, social and cultural development work.” Auburn’s application highlighted the work of Rural Studio, the National Poultry Technology Center and the off-bottom oyster farming initiative at the Auburn University Shellfish Lab. For the more, click here.

Carie Tindill, B.Arch 2005 and MIDC 2006, has opened Auburn University’s first licensed bakery—Cakeitecture Bakery. She brings her design and construction skills to creating bespoke cakes, cookies, cake pops, and cupcakes. She has partnered with Auburn’s Office of Trademark Management and Licensing to be able to use Auburn’s logos and trademarks, which means she can make cakes shaped like Aubie. Carie was recently profiled in Auburn’s Take Five.

McAlpine Tankersley Architecture and McAlpine Booth and Ferrier Interiors have been selected for Architectural Digest’s prestigious AD100 for the third time. Now in its thirtieth year, McAlpine Tankersley is the Montgomery, Alabama-based partnership of Auburn Architecture graduates Bobby McAlpine ’81 and ’83, Greg Tankerlsey ’85, John Sease ’92, Chris Tippett ’92, and David Baker ’98. McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors, a partnership formed with Bobby McAlpine, Ray Booth and Susan Ferrier in 1997, maintains offices in Nashville, Atlanta, and New York. Working independently and in collaboration, both firms are internationally recognized for their innovative design. Read more and see some of the projects that have been in Architecture Digest over the past few years here.

 

University of Southern California

/in /by

Hadrian Predock, Director of Undergraduate Programs at USC was invited as thesis juror at Sciarc, invited to the Chicago Architecture Biennial as representative of USC School of Architecture. He is currently curating an exhibition titled Errors, Estrangement, Messes and Fictions, which includes the work of emerging recent and past USC faculty who are gaining national attention for their work.  Hadrian Predock Architecture was established after the dissolution of Predock Frane Architects. Current projects include private residences in Sonoma and Los Angeles, an art gallery in LA, a mixed-use community center in LA, among other projects. 

USC School of Architecture Undergraduate Study Abroad Program, Asian Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism (AALU), held 3 workshops in 3 cities, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.  Faculty participants included Professors Masami Kobayashi and Yasutaka Yoshimura from Meiji University, Professors Eunice Seng and Anderson Lee from Hong Kong University, Professor Bing Bu, and Professors Yo-ichiro Hakomori, John Dutton, Andy Ku and John Mutlow from USC.  The topic of design research was urban “hybridity” as exhibited in high rise, high density housing in Hong Kong, “zakkyo” composite buildings in Tokyo, and the rapidly transforming Shanghai district of Dinghaiqiao.  The three universities will hold a public exhibition of the student’s work between Dec 7 and Dec 18 at the Hong Kong University Shanghai Study Center Gallery.

Dr. Travis Longcore (Landscape Architecture Program) was a keynote speaker at the Annual General Meeting of the International Dark-Sky Association in Phoenix in November, speaking on Light Pollution as Global Change.  He was also co-author of a paper in the journal Ecology, “Belowground interactions with aboveground consequences: Invasive earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.”  

Karen Kensek has been invited as a premier speaker to the first Shenzhen International BIM Summit, January 2016. Co-organized by the National Higher Education Advisory Committee on Architecture, Shenzhen University, and the China Smart Construction Group, Co., Ltd., her talk will be on integrating BIM in higher education in the United States:  research and teaching. 

Geoffrey von Oeyen, Assistant Professor of Practice, has been invited to serve as a visiting juror on final studio reviews at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design on December 8 and 9, 2015, and to lecture at the The Knowlton School at Ohio State University on March 30, 2016. His three commercial buildings under construction in Winder, Georgia, approach completion in early 2016, and he is halfway through the construction of a new residential project in Malibu, California. 

Patrick Tighe, Adjunct Professor, received an AIA Award from the California Chapter for the Monte Karp Residence, Pacific Palisades, CA. He also received an AIA Award from the South Bay Chapter for the Garrison Residence Redondo Beach, CA, which was also featured in the November issue of Interior Design Magazine.  Tighe was featured in 50 under 50, Innovators of the 21st Century. His project “Trahan Ranch,” in Austin, Texas was featured in Global Architecture, GA Houses #144.

From the President

/in /by

Uncharted Territories

In many ways, the title of the 2015 ACSA Administrators Conference has already proven prescient. Hosted by the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Uncharted Territories was, by any measure, a resounding success. Co-chairs Patricia Oliver (Dean, University of Houston) and Francisco Javier Rodriguez (Dean, University of Puerto Rico) assembled a compelling program. Attendance, among the highest in recent memory, included school administrators from 10 nations representing 5 continents. It marked the first time a national ACSA conference had been held on the island in over three decades.

Much as we did at the ACSA business lunch in San Juan, I would like to provide the membership with an update on our activities. A key part of our presentation in San Juan centered on collateral discussions with and about NAAB. We have published both the update we gave at the lunch, and subsequent actions of the ACSA Board, on our Accreditation page.

 

ACSA Activities

Our 2015-16 schedule of conferences, competitions and events is in full swing.

Between the Autonomous and Contingent Object was the title of the 2015 Thematic Fall Conference, hosted in October by Syracuse University. Co-chaired by professors Roger Hubeli and Julie Larsen, the conference focused on architectural theory and discourse, employing a provocative format structured around a series of debates, and included keynote presentations by Brett Steele (AA London), Hernan Diaz Alonso (SCI-Arc), and Amale Andraos (Columbia University).

The 104th Annual Meeting, titled Shaping New Knowledges, will focus on the multiple modalities and products of architectural research currently underway at member schools. Robert Corser (University of Washington) and Sharon Haar (University of Michigan) serve as co-chairs of the conference, which will be hosted by the University of Washington in Seattle next March. Already, the meeting has attracted among the highest number of paper and project submissions in recent years.

Cross-Americas: Probing Disglobal Networks is the title of the 2016 International Conference. Focused on global discourse in architectural practice and research, the bi-annual conference, hosted by the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, will be held next June in Santiago de Chile. The institutional affiliations of its co-chairs span the Americas: Vera Parlac (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada); Dana Cupkova (Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, USA); Alfredo Andia (Florida International University, Florida, USA); and Umberto Bonomo and Macarena Cortes (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile).

Looking ahead, we have dates for the 2016 Fall Conference, focused on design and health. Building Well-Being will take place September 22-24 in Honolulu, hosted by the University of Hawaii an Manoa. The 2016 Administrators Conference is scheduled for November 3-5 in Chicago. 

ACSA is hosting four student design competitions this year.

 

Our three-year Communications Campaign, which launched IMadeThat.com and a social media hashtag initiative last spring to develop interest and content among students, will enter a new phase with the debut of StudyArchitecture.com in spring of 2016. The interactive website is designed to assist member schools with recruitment by providing future architecture students and their families with information about architecture education and about the schools that offer these programs of study. The site will replace the online Guide to Architecture Schools but use updated information collected from each member school. It will also connect members with the prospective students who visit the site.

Board Activities

New and continuing initiatives of the Board include a series of task forces charged with engaging collateral organizations and supporting and advancing the work of our member schools.

A Research Task Force is exploring strategies to position ACSA at the center of disciplinary and transdisciplinary research endeavors, becoming an increasingly valuable resource to our members as they pursue collaborative funded projects. This spring, the task force will deliver proposals for ACSA to expand its role as convener, connector, and cataloger of faculty scholarship. 

An International Task Force is charged with exploring the articulation of an international strategy for ACSA, positioning the organization to be more relevant to architecture schools and faculty outside of North America. Representatives from every collateral are involved in these conversations, which focus on educational quality (including teaching and outcomes); growing international networks for research, scholarship, and its dissemination; and identifying opportunities for international collaboration through multiple modes of practice.

Three board committees have formed a Peer Review Task Force charged with growing opportunities for academic peer-review, recognition, publication, presentation, and exhibition for our members. This includes widening the range of available venues and modalities.

The board is creating a new strategic plan, moving us from a comprehensive plan to one that is deliberately strategic, as well as initiating governance review to improve the work we do.  

The first result is a Bylaws Revision proposed to change our officer terms and duties to enhance continuity and effectiveness. Now approved by the membership, it will combine the positions of secretary and treasurer, and provide an incoming president a longer engagement with the organization before assuming the position of leadership.

In parallel, we are also engaged in a comprehensive re-examination of our board and committee structure in order to become increasingly nimble, more inclusive, better positioned to pursue projects representative of member interests, and to optimize the impact of architectural education.

Collateral Liaisons. Our board members are working with our collateral organizations in multiple critical areas:

Members of the ACSA board form part of the NCARB Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure Committee (IPAL), and the Intern Architect Committee (IAC). 

With AIA and in conjunction with the 2016 AIA National Convention in Philadelphia, ACSA will co-lead the second edition of the AIA | ACSA Intersections Symposium: Innovative Technologies in Design and Delivery. The one-day workshop will be focused on research in building technology that brings together our academic and practice communities. 

Path Forward

During the conference in San Juan we convened a lunchtime discussion about the work of the five collateral organizations have been doing regarding the funding, governance, and organizational structure of NAAB. You can find this information and ongoing updates on the status of that process on our Accreditation page. 

We look forward to advancing these initiatives in the months to come. Please contact me or other members of the ACSA board with your feedback and suggestions.

ACSA Update 12.4.15

/in /by

ACSA Update

 
December 4, 2015

acsa


facebook twitter linkedin vimeo vimeo vimeo

acsa

2015-16 Budget & Enrollment Survey

ACSA has released the results of our annual survey, which this year showed some stabilization in budgets and signs of improvement for applications and enrollment in architecture schools. The full report is now available on ACSA’s data resources page.

acsa

2016 Topaz Medallion

On Wednesday, AIA and ACSA named Douglas S. Kelbaugh, as the 2016 winner of the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architecture Education.

acsa

Journal Impact: Real, Imagined, or Manipulated?

In the past few years, the term “impact factor” has become increasingly important in the tenure process in schools of architecture. However, the concept is not new. Read the latest AASL column on our blog.


acsa
Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education.
 

ACSA Update 12.11.15

/in /by

ACSA Update

 
December 11, 2015facebook twitter linkedinvimeo

acsa


acsa

Prepare Your Abstracts Over the Break

The 2016 ACSA International Conference will focus on emerging disglobal narratives in the academic and design communities throughout the Americas through seven topics and one open category. Authors are invited to submit 500 word abstracts, in English or Spanish, and a maximum of 5 images. Deadline: January 20, 2016.

acsa

Knowlton School Remembers Associate Professor Lisa Tilder

It is with deep sadness that the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture announced the death of Lisa Tilder, Associate Professor of Architecture, on November 30. Lisa served the ACSA in a number of capacities: East Central Regional Director, ACSA Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Regional Directors Committee, Publications Committee, Awards Committee, and Nominations Committee.

acsa

Design and Health Research Consortium Adds Six New Members

The Architects Foundation, along with the American Institute of Architects and ACSA, named six more schools of architecture and public health as members of the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium. The consortium helps translate research on design’s influence on public health into architectural practice for the public, policymakers, and design and public health professionals.

acsa

Toshiko Mori Honored with 2016 Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal

Toshiko Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and was chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002 to 2008. She is principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, which she established in 1981 in New York City. Toshiko will be presented with the 2016 Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal at the Annual ACSA Meeting in Seattle, Washington in March 2016.

acsa

Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education.
 

University of Buffalo

/in /by

UB’s  GRoW house was awarded second place in the US Solar Decathlon earning 941.191 out of a possible 1,000 points.

Irene Ayad gave a lecture – “New York Art Deco from Jazz Age to Depression” – at the State Linguistic University in Moscow.

 “Special Relationships” – a chapter written by Professor Brian Carter -was published in the CAA 2015 Yearbook.

Paul Battaglia is launching the manufacture of the Hi-Sabin ™ Panel through his company, STC Architectural Products. The acoustical clouds are made of melamine foam with extraordinary sound absorbing characteristics. Their light weight make installation simple and inexpensive.

Café Fargo, an adaptive reuse project designed by Stephanie Davidson, and Georg Rafailidis has been awarded a ‘Best of Canada’ design award by the Canadian Interiors magazine. It was also recently published in the Deutsche Bauzeitung DB, AZURE and Architectural Digest.

Assistant Professor Georg Rafailidis presented the paper ‘Café Fargo’ at the ACSA Fall Conference at Syracuse University.

Selective Insulation – an insulated work space designed by Davidson Rafailidis and built in 2009 – was recently published in ‘Working in Style’ by the Swiss publisher Braun Verlag.

Assistant Professor Shannon Bassett presented ‘Shanghai Water Urbanisms-recovering Shanghai’s post-industrial waterfront-landscape. Strategies for sustainable (re)development in China’s cities’ at the IACP annual conference in June in Chongqing, China. In addition she chaired the session on Urban Design.

Assistant Professor Bassett was an invited professor at the 2015 Busan International Architecture Design Workshop organized by the Busan International Architecture Festival and Pusan National University in Korea. Professor Bassett’s urban design master plan for Bradenton, Florida was also exhibited in the NAUAIK exhibition and featured in the ensuing publication.

Architects Foundation's Design and Health Research Consortium Expands, Adding Six New Members

/in /by

The Architects Foundation, along with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), today named six more schools of architecture and public health as members of the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium. The consortium helps translate research on design’s influence on public health into architectural practice for the public, policymakers, and design and public health professionals.

“These additional research teams will add to the influence the consortium is already having with some of the nation’s leading thinkers about the growing connection between design and public health,” said Architects Foundation Executive Director Sherry-Lea Bloodworth Botop. “We chose these new members because their research has the best potential for affecting policy across a wide swath of issues at the intersection of the built environment and public health.”

“The new members add depth to the collective work of the consortium, particularly in areas of physical activity and natural systems,” Michael Monti, ACSA Executive Director said. “Their work will translate findings for practice and add rigorous research that others can build on.”

Over a three-year period, the Architects Foundation, the AIA and its partners will provide institutional support and capacity building for the new consortium members, promoting collaboration through local and national partnerships and enable knowledge-sharing through conference calls and face-to-face events. Whenever appropriate, the AIA and its partners will promote the activities of the consortium with potential funders.

The AIA will also issue an annual report on the activities and accomplishments of the consortium members. Today, the Architects Foundation issued its first annual report on the activities of the consortium’s original 11 members.

The new Consortium member teams are:

• Morgan State University. The university, a Historically Black Institution (HBI) in Baltimore, is committed to the education of minorities. The University’s Community, Design, Health (CDH) Forum was initiated in August. This forum encourages interdisciplinary research on the relationships among community, design, and health. Its goal is to engage students from multiple departments–architecture, planning, landscape, sociology, public health, and psychology, and nursing–with academic and professional conversations about health and design. Using Baltimore’s urban infrastructure as the background for understanding public health concerns, CDH aspires to develop undergraduate and graduate students who can identify, design, and develop healthy environments.

• University of Memphis School of Public Health. Memphis and its Delta region, with some of the highest rates of poverty in the nation, leads the country in many public health challenges, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases. Yet walking safely is a challenge that restricts many individuals from enjoying their neighborhood gaining access to goods and services by foot. Memphis has one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the country, with between 300 to 400 pedestrian injuries every year and between 10 to 20 pedestrian fatalities. The school’s Memphis Walks’ initiative focuses on improving quality of life through improved walkability, promoting physical activity, improved air quality, and social cohesion via walking. Its goals are to further document the importance of walkability to public health and wellbeing as well as make the case for why walking more should be a priority in urban neighborhoods.

• School of Architecture, University of Minnesota. While the connections between health and the physical environment are increasingly better understood, little exists to guide and coordinate the activities of architects responsible for designing these environments. The school’s team of health-focused, human-centered systems designers, architects, and public health experts plan to engage in “in situ” research and collaborate with a low income urban community in Minneapolis to develop a systematic Design + Health Equity scorecard to 1) aid in identifying key community specific environmental assets and barriers to health equity needs and 2) offer tangible tools that guide the design/redesign at the building- block and community level.

• School of Architecture, University of Virginia. According to the American Institute of Stress, nearly one in five of American adults – or around 40 million Americans- suffers from stress-related anxiety disorders. The World Health Organization in 2011 found that 31 percent of Americans are likely to suffer from an anxiety problem at some point during their lifetimes – the worst rate in the world. Work- related stress and depression is the largest occupational health problem in the USA, and the key cause of absenteeism. This project establishes a stress environment consortium to build evidence on how urban green infrastructure (UGI) – including natural typologies like green walls/roofs can support stress mitigation and, in turn, promote health resilience and protection from chronic disease. Its goal is to develop a new national capacity to measure and understand the link between UGI and stress mitigation, including gender, race and income disparities.

• University of Washington, Department of Architecture. The University of Washington team focuses on health in the built environment in their established research initiatives at building and community levels. These initiatives include using Seattle’s Bullitt Center, which was designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, as a laboratory to test the intersection between health and the built environment on multiple scales, research on design and technology fostering energy efficiency and healthy human environments, and interdisciplinary teaching initiatives in health and the built environment. Through their multidisciplinary research and strong connection with practicing Architecture, Engineering, and Construction professionals, the team is well poised to make significant contributions to four of the six AIA Research Consortium’s approaches to health.

• Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Brown School of Social Work. The Sam Fox School’s Center for Health Research & Design uses design research methods to develop new knowledge that leads to innovative solutions for improving the experience of health and delivery of care from the community to the hospital and back. The Brown School’s Prevention Research Center explores behaviors that place Americans at risk for chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer, and stroke among vulnerable populations. The schools’ multidisciplinary research teams have collaborated on projects that address how environmental factors impact health conditions and in turn the sustainability of our communities, often intersecting with natural systems that also support the overall connectedness of the residents.

The AIA has organized its design and health initiative around six evidence-based approaches that architects can use at the building and urban scale. These six approaches—environmental quality, natural systems, physical activity, safety, sensory environments, and social connectedness—recognize that the physical environment creates health opportunities and facilitates positive health behaviors.

See these six approaches to achieving health through built environment design & policy here:
http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aiab104538.pdf

About the Architects Foundation:
The Architects Foundation preserves, honors and advances excellence in design for the benefit of the public. As a nonprofit philanthropic extension of the American Institute of Architects, the Architects Foundation is the preeminent voice and advocate for architecture and design in America. The Architects Foundation is dedicated to the belief that good design is good for all and plays an essential role in transforming lives and building a better world.

About The American Institute of Architects
Founded in 1857, members of the American Institute of Architects consistently work to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. Through nearly 300 state and local chapters, the AIA advocates for public policies that promote economic vitality and public wellbeing. Members adhere to a code of ethics and conduct to ensure the highest professional standards. The AIA provides members with tools and resources to assist them in their careers and business as well as engaging civic and government leaders, and the public to find solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. Visit www.aia.org.

About the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
ACSA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, membership association founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. The school membership in ACSA has grown from 10 charter members to over 250 schools in several membership categories. These include full membership for all accredited programs in the United States and government-sanctioned schools in Canada, candidate membership for schools seeking accreditation, and affiliate membership for schools for two-year and international programs. Through these schools, over 5,000 architecture faculty members are represented. In addition, over 500 supporting members composed of architecture firms, product associations and individuals add to the breadth of interest and support of ACSA goals. Visit www.acsa-arch.org.

The Ohio State University

/in /by

It is with deep sadness that the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University announces the death of Lisa Tilder, Associate Professor of Architecture.  On November 30, Lisa succumbed to a long battle with cancer while surrounded by her family.  Lisa taught at the Knowlton School for more than 20 years and was an alumna (’92) of its Master of Architecture program.  She is survived by her husband, Stephen Turk, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Knowlton School. 

Lisa served the ACSA in a number of capacities: East Central Regional Director, ACSA Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Regional Directors Committee, Publications Committee, Awards Committee, and Nominations Committee.

Lisa was co-editor of Design Ecologies: Essays on the Nature of Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press, and the recipient of numerous awards including the Young Architect’s Award of the Architectural League of New York and the Far Eastern International Digital Architectural Design Merit Award.  She was the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the US Department of Energy, and others.  Her work has been featured in publications ranging from AD: Architectural Design to Metropolis and has been exhibited widely at venues including Storefront for Architecture, The Urban Center, and OK Center for Contemporary Art.  She was a licensed Architect and co-founder of Ohio State’s first Solar Decathlon entry and the Pod Home, an award-winning micro-home that serves as a permanent exhibition at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus.

To respect Lisa’s wishes, Stephen and Lisa’s family have limited her internment to a small, family-only observance.  Soon after the Spring 2016 term begins, the school will stage a Celebration of Lisa’s Life to honor her love of her students and the school, and the incomparable, selfless joy she imparted to all who knew her.  Details for the event will be announced as they become specific.

University of Southern California

/in /by

Diane Ghirardo organized a conference for the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (UCLA) on “Love and Death in the Renaissance Castle,” in November 2015, where she also presented a paper entitled “Lovers and Demons.” In December 2015, she presented a paper entitled “The Seals of Lucrezia Borgia and Isabella d’Este” at a conference on Seals and Status at the British Museum, London. 

David Gerber, Assistant Professor, is co-chairing a special session at the 2016 ACSA Annual conference on Big Data and the City. He was a keynote speaker at Brazil’s SindusCON annual Building Information Modeling conference and at Anahuac University in Mexico City. 

On November 17, 2015 Victor J. Jones, assistant professor of architecture inaugurated a new lecture series at Arc en rêve centre d’architecture in Bordeaux, France. Organized by Gilles Ragot, Émilie d’Orgeix, Gilles-Antoine Langlois, and Gauthier Bolle, the series is dedicated to new research in architectural history (XX-XXI centuries). Jones presented ‘Sens dessus dessous: le pont de Basento’ (Topsy-turvy: The Basento Bridge), a lecture about the Basento Viaduct (1966-76) in Potenza Italy. In anticipation of his forthcoming book about the Basento Viaduct, Jones also lectured at the Institut national des sciences appliquées in Strasbourg, France on November 8, 2015 and the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium on November 23, 2015.   

Alexander Robinson is presenting a paper on the intricacies of combining Blue-Green Open Space with Urban Infrastructure in Los Angeles at the international conference Water, Megacities, and Global Change at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris alongside the major global warming conference, COP21. Following this, he will be presenting his work in Belgium at the KU Leuven Landscape Architecture Series.

Vinayak Bharne was among the nine international trans-disciplinary urban thinkers and invited speakers honored at the Urban Edge Award Seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning (SARUP). Introduced in 2006, the biennial Urban Edge Award (now in its fifth iteration) recognizes excellence in the broad field of urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change within the public realm through engaging research, critical practice and urban activism. Bharne was also recently part of a panel discussion on the Los Angeles Mobility Plan 2035 in the USC Urban Growth Seminar Series. His article “The Affordable City: Balancing Two Extremes with an Equitable Middle” was published in My Liveable City, Oct-Dec 2015 issue in India.

Larchmont Charter at Lafayette Park, the renovation of Welton Becket’s 1955 New York Life building for a charter school by Adjunct Associate Professor Eric Haas‘s firm DSH // architecture, was published on savingplaces.org, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Hraztan Zeitlian, AIA, LEED BD+C, NCARB, was on this Year’s  Jury for the American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) Design Awards. He was also on the AIACC Monterey Design Conference Organizing Committee. The Conference was held in mid-October.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang will be speaking as part of the Future Tense Lecture Series hosted by the Alaska Design Forum on  Monday Dec 7 (Anchorage), Tuesday Dec 8 (Juneau), and Wednesday Dec 9 (Fairbanks).  His firm, Synthesis Design + Architecture was recently honored with a 2015 A&D Trophy Award (Best Retail/Commercial Building) for  The Groove@CentralWorld in Bangkok, and a 2015 SXSWEco Place By Design Award (Data/Technology Category) for the Pure Tension Pavilion.   The recent release of “50 Under 50: Innovators of the 21st Century” by Images Publishing and edited by Beverly Russell, Eva Maddox, and Farooq Ameen features the work of multiple USC faculty including Patrick Tighe (Patrick Tighe Architecture), Scott Uriu (B+U), Alice Kimm (JFAK) and Alvin Huang (Synthesis Design + Architecture), as well as USC alumnus Mark Lee ’91 (JohnstonMarklee). 

Professor G. Goetz Schierle was appointed Executive Editor of the Journal of Steel Structures & Construction.

Victor Regnier will return to Lisbon, Portugal in the Winter and northern Europe in the Spring to continue his research on housing and community design for frail and long-lived populations.  

Scott Uriu, lecturer at USC has been included in the new book Fifty Under Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century, by Images Publishing The book showcases honorees located across many different countries, including Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States.  A distinguished five-person jury presided over the final selection: Stanley Tigerman, founding partner, Tigerman McCurry, Chicago; Ralph Johnson, design principal, Perkins+Will, Chicago; Jeanne Gang, founder Gang Studio, Chicago; Marion Weiss, founding partner, WEISS/MANFREDI, New York; and Qingyun Ma, Dean of Architecture, University of Southern California, and founder MADA s.p.a.m., Shanghai and Beijing.

 

American University of Sharjah

/in /by

 

The American University of Sharjah Department of Architecture is pleased to announce a number of award winning projects completed as part of the Design Build Initiative.

The Tarkeeb Wall, completed this fall under the guidance of Associate Professor William Sarnecky and Project Leader Layth Mahdi received the Design Award for design excellence in the Student Graduation Project Category at the 2015 AIA Middle East Design Awards. Fourteen students are credited with the completion of this project, which serves as a space for gathering and display at the entrance of the College of Architecture, Art, and Design.

Be-ah Reclaimed Wall, the culmination of the inaugural interior design build studio led by Assistant Professor Daniel Chavez received an Honorable Mention in the Student Graduation Project Category at the 2015 AIA Middle East Design Awards. Taking advantage of reclaimed material from a local landfill, the studio and project served as the culmination of the interior design degree sequence.

Completed in the summer of 2015, the AVM Pavilion led by former Professor Assistant Kenneth Tracy won a Merit Award in the Student Graduation Project Category at this year’s AIA Middle East Design Awards. Serving as the manifestation of a year long option studio, the jury “praise(d)” the student’s design process and the “quality of the end product”.

In the spring of this year, former Assistant Professor Emily Baker was honoured with a ACSA design build award in association with her fifth year Audi-Fab Research Studio. The project had previously won a 2014 AIA Middle East Merit Award in the Student Graduation Category.

Through the University’s support of the Design-Build Initiative directed by Professor Michael Hughes and the CAAD Labs directed by Assistant Professor Ammar Kalo the Department of Architecture is committed to full-scale teaching.   The College of Architecture, Art and Design Labs house an extensive and ever growing array of analog and digital equipment enabling faculty and student research in robotics, thermoforming, CNC milling / routing, rapid prototyping, wood and metal fabrication, and ceramics.

(photo credits: William Sarnecky and Juan Roldan)

 

We use cookies and other tracking technologies for performance, analytics, marketing, and more customized site experiences. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our terms. Learn more about these in our Privacy Policy. ACSA reserves the right to delete content and suspend user accounts that it determines to be inappropriate.

OKLearn more