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Send the AIA College of Fellows Feedback on Their Support for Architecture Research

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The AIA College of Fellows is reviewing its programs and has asked for input from the ACSA membership on The Latrobe Prize and the The Upjohn Research Initiative. 

We invite ACSA members to respond via email to one or more of the following questions posed by the College of Fellows. 

Email feedback@acsa-arch.org. The deadline for responses is October 9. All emails will be forwarded to the College of Fellows leadership. 

The Latrobe Prize

    • Are you aware of the AIA College of Fellows Latrobe Prize for research?
    • Is your faculty aware of it?
    • Do you see it as a valuable outlet for your faculty to get architectural research funded?
    • Have you or any of your faculty applied for the Latrobe Prize since its inception in 2000?
    • Do you think the Latrobe Prize grant should continue to be supported by the College of Fellows?
    • Do you feel that it indicates that AIA and COF supports more research in the profession and the connection to architectural education?
    • Does the Latrobe Prize change your image of the AIA and its programs to your faculty and students?

The Upjohn Research Initiative

    • Are you aware of the AIA’s Upjohn research grant program?
    • Is your faculty aware of it?
    • Do you see it as a valuable outlet for your faculty to get architectural research funded?
    • Have you or any of your faculty applied for the Upjohn grants?
    • Do you think that the Upjohn research grants should continue to be supported by the AIA?
    • Do you feel that it indicates that AIA supports more research in the profession and the connection to architectural education?
    • Does the Upjohn grant program change your image of the AIA and its program to your faculty and students?

Latrobe/Upjohn

    • Do you see the two programs as complimentary or competitive?

Architecture Schools Stay Ahead of the Economy: A Letter to the Wall Street Journal

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ACSA sent the following letter in response to an opinion piece in the September 29 Wall Street Journal. 
To the Editor: 
Frank Mruk’s argument about drops in enrollment at architecture programs (“Architect Licensing Needs a Gut Rehab”) reflect common anecdotes from many architecture schools across the United States. Whether the qualifications process for architects is the reason for the drops or the lever that will change enrollment patterns, however, is even more open to question.
 
Based on market research we conducted about prospective graduate and undergraduate students, the coming waves of college students are as savvy about educational return on investment as they are skeptical about choosing career paths solely based on starting salary or on the standardized identity that comes with joining a licensed profession.
 
Instead they seek educational experiences that allow them to actualize their skills immediately. Think about the growth of the Maker Movement, where students tinker and experiment with projects at a range of scales, and you’ll understand that today’s students are sophisticated doers who seek impact as their reward nearly as much as a competitive paycheck or corner office.
 
In response to these trends, architecture and design schools are already increasing flexibility in their programs so that students can find a range of experiences while still staying within a stable professional framework. Some of these experiences involve studying while working toward the architect’s license, while others involve acquiring more specialized skills and knowledge while still completing a generalist architecture degree.
 
This should be good news to parents of future students. The profession still needs future firm partners, while at the same time schools can produce architectural professionals who go on to pursue careers improving the quality of the built environment. What used to be called alternative careers in architecture are no longer marginal, but part of an expanding tradition.
 
Marilys Nepomechie
President, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 
Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives, Florida International University Department of Architecture

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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David Baird, Professor and Director of the UNLV School of Architecture, recently announced that he will step down as Director and return to the faculty starting January 1st, 2016. Over the past 6 years Baird’s administrative accomplishments have been numerous, including the development of a design-construction initiative responsible for placing 2nd in the 2013 Solar Decathlon Competition. The design-build studio is currently designing and constructing modular facilities for the Nevada State Parks. Baird will return to teaching—having more time to devote to his scholarship, artwork, and award winning design + construction firm. 

ACSA Update 9.25.15

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ACSA Update

 
September 25, 2015

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Design & Health Research Consortium Seeks to Include Up to Six New Teams

The Architects Foundation, the American Institute of Architects, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture have announced an open Request for Qualifications for ACSA and ASPPH member schools and programs interested in joining the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium. The consortium is in its second year of gathering multi-disciplinary teams to advance and translate university-led research in the area of design and health. Qualifications will be accepted until October 16, 2015.

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2015 Administrators Conference

This year’s ACSA Administrators Conference will take place November 12-14, 2015 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Titled Uncharted Territories, the theme will focus on new challenges that are relevant to the present and the future of architectural pedagogy.

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Where is Your #SMLXL?

The upcoming issue of JAE, edited by Alicia Imperiale and Enrique Ramirez, coincides with the 20th anniversary of Koolhaas/OMA’s ‪S,M,L,XL. With this in mind, we asked to see your copies. You have until September 30 to share yours. Take a look at the submissions so far.

Seeking Input: Information Seeking Habits of Architecture Faculty Survey

What if architecture faculty could research five times faster? What if all their information needs were right at their fingertips, readily available from their academic libraries? That may seem like an unattainable dream for most architecture librarians, but if librarians and faculty communicate more openly about the research needs of faculty, and how best to meet them, we could get closer to realizing it.

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Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education.
 

University of Southern California

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I would welcome hearing from any of your students who might be interested in graduate studies in building science at the University of Southern California.  We are an expensive private University, but we have some scholarship funding to help partially offset tuition.  We are not as expensive as some people think!

We have an outstanding and growing faculty supporting building science (Schiler, Schierle, Carlson, Noble, Konis, Choi, Kensek, Gerber, Huang, Borden, Sung, and more).  Our two new faculty have settled in already (Kyle Konis and Joon-Ho Choi).

Prof. Marc Schiler has been promoted to Vice-Dean.

I am now the Director of the Building Science program (again) and still chair of the Ph.D. program in building science.

Please have interested students contact me by email: dnoble@usc.edu

Thank you.

Doug

Douglas E. Noble, FAIA, Ph.D.       
Chair of the Ph.D. Program and Co-Founder of the CLIPPER Lab
School of Architecture
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California  90089-0291  USA
213•740•4589
dnoble@usc.edu

University of Southern California

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Professor Graeme Morland was honored with a major exhibit this semester at the USC School of Architecture.  “A RETROSPECTIVE, 50+ YEARS OF ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES, 1963—2015. BC. (before computer).  The work exhibited presumed to be both educational and informative to students of architecture and design at USC today, and hopefully fueled the healthy discussion and debate regarding design description and presentation which now bridges from the soul of emotion with hand drawings, to the current wizardry of digital technology.   An exhibition of work, initiated at the Glasgow school of Art, Scotland, developed at the U of I in Chicago, and realized at USC in Los Angeles, covering a 5o+ year period, required the compilation, editing and formatting of hundreds of drawings, generally classified in three categories, namely, A) The “Sketchbook”.  Images of places and events visited, B) Drawings that describe “ Visions of Place”, architectural  ideas & projects, and C) Drawings that inform the anatomy and material assembly of “Place”,  the method and process of  “making and constructing.” A catalogue of this exhibit will be forthcoming.

Lisa Little will be a presenter at the Los Angeles AIA ‘Powerful’ symposium at the Annenberg Space for Photography on February 27th. Her topic is entitled “A Diversity of Practice: Expanding Opportunities”. 

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) is hosting a recent survey and report by Lauren Matchison on their website.  The survey, The Effect of Social Media on Architecture Graduate School Selection, takes a close look at how prospective graduate students use social media as a tool to research architecture schools.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang has been named to Engineering Record News California’s “Top 20 under 40 2015” and annual award which honors the “cream of the crop in the design and construction industry who have built extraordinary industry portfolios before the age of 40”. Huang recently gave a lecture on his recent work at the CalPoly Pomona Department of Architecture, and will also be lectures in March at Syracuse University School of Architecture and the CalPoly San Luis Obispo LA Metro Program. 

The latest built project of Lecturer Nefeli Chatzimina has been nominated for the Mies Van der Rohe Awards 2015 and was featured as a cover for the EK Magazine. During February Nefeli lectured at the BNCA University of Pune, the University of Mumbai and the Studio-X of Columbia University in Mumbai, India.

Professor Kyle Konis, Ph.D, AIA was recently awarded $149,400 from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to support research and development of his project entitled the Occupant Mobile Gateway (O.M.G.), which received the highest ranking during technical peer-review among all proposals submitted statewide. The objective of the O.M.G. is to leverage mobile sensing as a platform to enable design teams to validate and continually refine the performance of low-energy and environmentally responsive design strategies. The project is a continuation of a multi-disciplinary collaboration between Professor Konis and Professor Murali Annavaram in the Viterbi School of Engineering.

Vittoria Di Palma’s book, Wasteland, A History (Yale University Press, 2014) has won two prizes.  It was awarded the 2015 J. B. Jackson Book Prize by The Foundation for Landscape Studies, and was the runner-up in the Architecture and Urban Planning category for the 2015 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE).

Hraztan Zeitlian was appointed to the American Institute of Architects California Council’s prestigious Monterey Design Conference Committee (AIACC MDC), with other USC Faculty Larry Scarpa and Alice Kimm as well as Anne Fougeron, and David Meckel among others. http://aiacc.org/mdc/about-mdc/

Professor Gail Borden was elected to the AIA College of Fellows as the youngest member in California. He was awarded the 2015 USC Associate Award for Artistic Expression, the highest honor the University faculty bestow on it members for significant artistic expression.  His solo exhibition “Faceted Line” opened late February at Galleri Urbane in Dallas, Texas presenting his newest paintings which implement space, depth, and color to create shallow and abstract architectural environments. He was recently commissioned by Routledge to do a follow-up book entitled Lineament: Material and Geometry in Architectural Production to build on his best-selling book Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production.

Associate Professor Charles Lagreco in collaboration with Lecturer Gary Paige and Associate Dean Gail Borden have submitted a grant proposal to USC Neighborhood Outreach for a partnership with the 32nd Street / USC Magnet Center K-12 school to work together on a School of Architecture Research + Design + Build Program to build a portable performance facility to support the school and the neighborhood around USC. The proposal which identifies a $150,000 budget target to design and build the project, is proposed to extend over three semesters in the 2015-16 academic year and is partially funded by the Marnell Endowment recently established to provide support for design build studios in the School of Architecture curriculum.

At the request of the USC Career Center and intended for the entire university community, Professor Michael Hricak recently spoke on, and moderated a panel focused on, Careers in Design.

Lecturer Andy Ku and his firm OCDC have been selected for a public art commission in Downtown Los Angeles. The project takes on the idea of “traffic” as both a cultural mission and an urban contextual activity. The design depicts the signs of nature and culture in a single environment, as a contemporary meditation on traditional Japanese woodblock prints (Ukiyo-e “drawings of the floating word”) 

Karen Kensek has two research papers for the upcoming Architecture Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) Conference, Chicago, IL, 2015. 

Hijazi, Mohammad, Karen Kensek, and Kyle Konis, “Bridging the gap: supporting data transparency of BIM to BEM” 

Chen, Yiyu, Karen Kensek, Joon-Ho Choi, and Marc Schiler, “Using modified weather files for predicting future building performance,” accepted for the Architecture Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) Conference

In January, Rob Ley won an invited design competition to develop and fabricate a permanent installation for the Portland Zoo in Oregon.  Also in January, Rob completed a permanent installation for the Kansas City Police Department.

Seeking Input: Information Seeking Habits of Architecture Faculty Survey

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Written by Lucy Campbell, Librarian, NewSchool of Architecture and Design
Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors

What if architecture faculty could research five times faster? What if all their information needs were right at their fingertips, readily available from their academic libraries? That may seem like an unattainable dream for most architecture librarians, but if librarians and faculty communicate more openly about the research needs of faculty, and how best to meet them, we could get closer to realizing it.

To that end, I am surveying architecture faculty across the United States about their information seeking habits in order to help librarians be even more efficient and helpful than they already are now. Student needs are surveyed, scrutinized and analyzed repeatedly in our field. Studies abound that tell us how they search, where they search, and what they search. However faculty can have very different interests. Librarians can analyze library usage statistics and engage in one-on-one research consultations with faculty, but if they don’t ask faculty about their research habits as a group, they are missing a key part of the story.

Architectural research is a peculiar multi-headed beast. As a profession, and field of study encompassing the arts, sciences, social sciences and humanities, architecture is all of these and yet none of them. Design encompasses an indefinable combination of disciplines which makes it both fascinating and frustrating. Because of this unique cross-disciplinary nature, I am especially interested in how information needs differ when applied to pedagogy, trends in the field, and personal inspiration.

This survey won’t provide all the answers, but I hope it will shed some light on the particular and unique aspects of how faculty engage with research on a daily basis. So I am asking architecture faculty to take the survey, and for AASL members to share my short survey with their faculty so we can gain some valuable insight. It will remain open through October 31st and results will be shared with all.

Librarians who send out the survey: please email me to let me know a rough number of recipients so I can keep tabs on response rates. Thanks in advance for your support.

Survey: Information Seeking Habits of Architecture Faculty
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/architectureinfo

Author email: lcampbell@newschoolarch.edu

ACSA Update 9.18.15

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ACSA Update

 
September 18, 2015

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Online Registration Ends Next Week

Syracuse University School of Architecture is hosting this year’s ACSA Fall Conference, October 8-10. Register online by September 23, 2015.

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ACSA 104: Call for Papers

ACSA invites paper submissions under 23 thematic session topics plus an additional open category. Authors may submit only one paper per session topic. The same paper may not be submitted to multiple topics. Deadline extended to September 25, 2015.

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2015-16 Architectural Education Awards

The deadline for submissions to the 2016 Architectural Education Awards has been extended to September 25, 2015. Learn about new award categories, eligibility, and how to apply at acsa-arch.org/awards.

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Where is Your #SMLXL?

The upcoming issue of JAE, edited by Alicia Imperiale and Enrique Ramirez, coincides with the 20th anniversary of Koolhaas/OMA’s _S,M,L,XL. With this in mind, we asked to see your copies. You have until September 30 to share yours. Take a look at the submissions so far.

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Design & Health Research Consortium Looks to Include Up to Six New Teams

The AIA Foundation, AIA, and ACSA invite member schools interested in joining the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium to submit qualifications by October 16, 2015. The consortium, in its second year, seeks to advance university-led research in the area of design and health. Download the RFQ here, which includes a link to the submission form.

ACSA CAREERS

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Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture

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Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education.
 

Auburn University

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Two Architecture students, Lucanus Grady (Men’s Track & Field) and Marshay Ryan (Women’s Track & Field), have been named to the 2015 Spring SEC Honor Roll, and are among the 107 Auburn Athletes on the SEC Honor Roll. 

To be named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll, a student-athlete must meet is a grade point average of 3.00 or above for either the preceding academic year (two semesters or three quarters) or have a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 or above at the nominating institution. Read more here.

Three publications created by the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s Communications and Marketing have won Certificates of Excellence in Graphic Design USA’s 2015 American Inhouse Design competition. From nearly 6,000 entries, only 15 percent were recognized with a Certificates of Excellence. For more, read here.

Charlene LeBleu, FASLA, has been appointed Program Chair and Graduate Provisional Officer of Landscape Architecture effective August 1. LeBleu joined the faculty of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape in 2004 and is an associate professor of landscape architecture. Her primary areas of interest and research have been focused on green building and water quality issues, especially issues related to low impact development design. Read more here.

Read the Summer Issue of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s newsletter here.

University of Detroit Mercy

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The Volterra International Design Workshop was organized jointly by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and the Volterra-Detroit Foundation from July 29 to August 8, 2015 in Volterra, Italy. In addition to the host team from UDM SOA, students and faculty from three other academic institutions participated in the workshop: University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (USA), Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), and University of Pisa (Italy). Architect James Timberlake from Kieran Timberlake in Philadelphia attended as a special guest of the workshop to provide the intellectual leadership and connect the students with the most progressive ideas in the architectural profession.

The theme of the workshop was “Society and Technology: Water, Food, Waste, and Energy”. The workshop consisted of three interwoven components: pre-workshop research, a lecture series, and a design challenge. 

The focus of the school teams’ pre-workshop research was on their universities’ hometowns. Following the general theme of the workshop, the students studied the relationship between and mutual impact of the availability and distribution of fundamental resources (energy, water, food) and city development. 

The lecture series was designed to give students insight into the history and the contemporary problems of Volterra, as well as to present a modern vision of architectural research and practice. Beyond the general introduction and the historical tour of the city, the Volterra theme was further advanced in the presentations of the Director of the Pinacoteca in Volterra, archeologist Alessandro Furiesi (on water management in Volterra from antiquity to modern times), architect Andrea Bianchi (on the deterioration of the Tuscan landscape caused by the industrial use of land in Volterra territory) and the president of the social cooperative “La Torre” in Volterra Marco Bruchi (on the problems of garbage removal and recycling in the Comune of Volterra). 

A connection between the context and the goal of the workshop was provided in lectures by Dean Will Wittig and Professor Wladek Fuchs (University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture). Finally, James Timberlake gave two highly inspiring talks about “Making of an Architect”, as well as his firm’s design and research philosophy and most recent projects. 

At the core of the workshop was the unique opportunity for everybody to collaborate over an architectural design problem. The city of Volterra is a wonderful urban laboratory, presenting a great balance of the medieval city scale, form and tradition, contrasted with problems resulting from the needs of a living city organism. The site selected for the design challenge lies just outside of the city’s medieval walls, alongside the ruins of the Roman Theater, and it is bordered by one of the main streets bypassing the historic center. Currently used as a municipal parking lot, the site presents great potential for a much more significant role in the city’s urban fabric. The functional program of the project was branded as an “Ecological Forum”, a city district focused on the ecological values of urban living, and complementing the historical urban core of Volterra. 

During the workshop, the students and professors were divided into three mixed groups, to generate and test multiple concepts. An additional level of design insight and inspiration was offered to all groups during the project reviews by James Timberlake, Will Wittig and Giulio Pucci (University of Pisa). 

The workshop concluded with project presentations, a discussion, and a public exhibition at the Volterra International Residential College. The projects generated a significant amount of interest and discussion among the city officials and residents who came to the exhibition. The site and its current use is a matter of significant public interest in Volterra. The work presented at the exhibition has been clearly seen as a valuable voice in the discussion about potential directions for the city future development. 

Two primary notions permeated the final presentations and discussion among the workshop participants. The first was the importance of research in design, and the value of design as a form of research. The design outcomes of the workshop have clearly identified a direction for further studies at the scale of the entire city. This would involve the vehicular traffic pattern inside and around the city, and the potential for a green belt around the medieval center of Volterra – instead of the existing chain of parking lots. Thus the design ideas formulated this year have become the first step in research toward next year’s workshop.

The workshop was also an excellent experience in teamwork and design collaboration in an international context. Over the course of ten days, the students had the opportunity to share and confront their ideas and skills in the continuous dialogue with their colleagues and faculty mentors. Considering the nature and the character of the contemporary architectural practice, collaborative design work should be considered an essential part of professional education. After all, the most important quality in an architectural office environment, and one which can be built only through a genuine and continuous collaboration is – in the words of James Timberlake – “the collective intelligence”.

 

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