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Auburn University

In the fall of 2010, the Elmore County Economic Development Authority approached the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture for help envisioning design options for a new interpretive center at the site of a five-mile wide meteor impact crater in Wetumpka, Alabama.  Today the remains of this crater create one of the only accessible ocean impact craters in the world, and the ECEDA hopes the facility will one day become part of a “trail” of science and space related attractions that would begin the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Sixty second-year architecture students, under the direction of Professors Justin Miller, Ryan Salvas, Bob Faust, and Robert Sproull developed design proposals for the facility as part of an annual competition sponsored by the Alabama Forestry Association and the City of Wetumpka.  The students’ designs were judged by a panel of architects and special guests from Elmore County who included Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis.  The winning model, belonging to student Ryan Zimmerman, was unveiled at a press conference and reception at the City of Wetumpka Administration Building on August 23.

The City of Wetumpka and ECEDA are currently working with Auburn University Montgomery’s Center for Government to complete various grant applications for the project and hope to break ground on the crater center by January 1, 2015.

_Andrew Freear, Wiatt Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Director of the Rural Studio, was included in the Oxford American’s ”The Most Creative Teachers in the South” (August 2011, Issue 74).

One of thirteen educators chosen from throughout the region, Freear was included among “Influential educators admired by their students and colleagues, whose classrooms serve as forums for social change, whose homes become their classroom, and in some cases, whose assignments become homes.”

Professor Christian Dagg, Associate Professor and Program Chair of the Interior Architecture program, has been named Acting Head of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture while Professor David Hinson completes a sabbatical leave.

Auburn University

Charlene LeBleu, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, has been elected to the American Society of Landscape Architecture’s Council of Fellows, the highest honor that ASLA bestows upon its members. LeBleu, who joined the faculty of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture in 2004, was nominated by Alabama ASLA chapter for her contribution of knowledge to the profession of landscape architecture and for her lifelong pursuit of research, education and leadership in storm water research, design, and implementation. She will be inducted into the Council of Fellows at the ASLA annual meeting in Boston on November 17, 2013. LeBleu is the third ASLA Fellow in the State of Alabama, and the first woman Fellow in Alabama since 1899.

Ivan Vanchev and Doug Bacon, students in the Master of Integrated Design and Construction program, received an Honorable Mention  in the 2013 Leicester B. Holland Prize: A Single Sheet Measured Design Competition for their drawing, “Auburn Oaks and Toomer’s Corner.” Thier drawing will be put in the Library of Congress and will be available on the National Park Service website as part of the Historic America Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER).  Vanchev and Bacon produced their entry as part of an independent study directed by Professor Rebecca Retzlaff.

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) was well represented  when winners were recently announced for the 2013 Birmingham AIA Design Awards competition. Many Honor and Merit Awards were awarded to alumni-led teams and firms. Williams Blackstock Architecture (Joel Blackstock ’80), Dungan Nequette Architects (Jeff Dungan  ’93 and Louis Nequette ’93), Live Design Group  (Aubrey Garrison III ’66, Craig Krawczyk ’97, Jeff Quinn ’78) and GA Studio (several Auburn alumni associates and interns) were among those represented in multiple award categories.

APLA alumnus Samuel “Jack” Bassett (’08) is one of six young professionals chosen by the Design Futures Council as an Emerging Leader for 2013. Each honoree will receive  a scholarship to attend the 12th annual Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October. The annual summit brings together a delegation of 100 people from the world’s most influential design, engineering and construction firms to explore innovation in sustainable design. The scholarship is sponsored by DuPont Building Innovations as a way to invest in the young talent in the design and construction industry.

 

Auburn University

Two faculty members from the College of Architecture, Design and Construction will be awarded the Distinguished Design-Build Leadership Award from the Design-Build Institute of America. The co-directors of the CADC’s Masters of Integrated Design and Construction program (formerly the Design-Build program) Paul Holley and Joshua Emig will receive the Distinguished Design-Build Leadership Award in the Faculty category at DBIA’s Design-Build Conference and Expo in Orlando, FL on October 20. Holley, Aderholdt Professor in the School of McWhorter School of Building Science, and Emig, Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture, will be recognized for their work in establishing the collaborative integrated design and construction program at Auburn.

 The Green for Life! project has been added to the National ASLA website as a Case Study for Green Infrastructure and Stormwater Management.  This demonstration project, created by College of Architecture, Design and Construction students, was awarded the Best Community Design Award by the Alabama Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in Birmingham on March 26, 2011 and received the Outstanding Team Project Award from the Alabama Chapter of American Planning Association in Eufaula on April 1, 2011. Under the direction of Charlene LeBleu, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Rebecca O’Neal Dagg, Interim Dean of the CADC, and Carla Jackson Bell, CADC Director of Multicultural Affairs, the project took a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to solving the Center’s storm water runoff problems and creating a companion watershed education program.

For the final event planned in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of ongoing sponsorship from Alagasco, the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture hosted a two day reunion for Alagasco members and past winners of the Alagasco Student Design Competition.  Festivities began with a dinner graciously hosted by Auburn University’s own President and Mrs. Gogue, and held at the President’s home on Auburn University’s campus.  Activities continued on the following day and included an exhibit of past and present Alagasco Student Design Competition work, followed by lunch and a discussion between current students and past design winners.  The School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture is proud of the long relationship forged with Alagasco and looks forward to 50 more years of involvement.

On October 12 the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture gathered to celebrate the donors of over 30 scholarships along with the student recipients.  

Auburn University

APLA alum Nicholas Holt (‘93) was recently named a Senior Fellows of the Design Futures Council by the Design Futures Council (DFC). Technical director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s New York office, Holt was one of thirteen inductees named for “significant contributions toward the understanding of changing trends, new research, and applied knowledge that improve the built environment and the human condition.” (http://www.di.net/news/design-futures-council-announces-2013-senior-fellows/)

Professor Christian Dagg, AIA, has been named as Program Chair for the Master of Integrated Design & Construction program, a collaborative academic program between the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture and the McWhorter School of Building Science.  Dagg has been on the faculty of Auburn University’s School of Architecture since the fall of 2000, where he has served in several leadership positions, including Program Chair for Interior Architecture and a year level coordinator for Second and Fourth Year Design Studios in Architecture.

A retrospective of the work of Professor Emeritus, Robert L. Faust will be hosted by the Department of Art in the College of Liberal Arts at the Biggin Art Gallery, Biggin Hall, Auburn University during the month of December. Drawings, photographs and models of Faust’s work as an architect will be featured. The exhibit is curated by APLA’s Professor Christian Dagg.

An integrated studio of third and fourth year Interior Architecture students has mounted an exhibit cataloging design possibilities for the Atlanta Central Library in Atlanta, Georgia. Commissioned in the late 1960’s but not completed until 1980, the iconic downtown library is the final building by celebrated modern architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981). Using the work of Breuer as a guide, the studio led by Kevin Moore and Nathan Foust has re-imagined the expansive public interior by developing meaningful luminous and acoustic variety. The exhibit of student work is on display in the Dudley Commons Gallery, at Auburn University’s College or Architecture Design and Construction, weekdays until September 30.

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s Rural Studio has been awarded a $42,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the documentation of the Rural Studio’s 20 years of bringing quality design to rural Alabama. The project will include the creation of a documentary and social media campaign that highlights Rural Studio’s anniversary project to build eight 20K House projects. Art Works grants support exemplary projects in thirteen artistic disciplines and fields: arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, opera, presenting, theater and musical theater, and visual arts.

OCUS 11 ante litteram, an exhibition of new works by Margaret Fletcher, Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, will open on Saturday, September 14, at Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. An opening reception will be on Saturday, September 14 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Fletcher will deliver an artist talk on Saturday, October 12 at 2 p.m.

The 2013 Lecture Series of the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture is entitled “Renegades + Outlaws: Design Thinking at the Edge.”  The series is conceived as a way to consider perceptual outliers within the design profession. Wide interpretation of the lecture series theme is encouraged, from practitioners that rely on collaborative practices of art, architecture, filmmaking, and design to practitioners that engage in significant contextual work designed to profoundly affect the essential community in which it resides. Lecturers will elaborate on projects, processes, research, motivation, missions, etc. that have evolved within their practices and have created moments that we can identify as driven by designers who are outlaws and renegades. Details for about the lecturers and the lecture calendar can be found at:  http://cadc.auburn.edu/apla/Lists/APLANews/DispForm.aspx?ID=207

Auburn University

School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture Professors’ Elena Bartell and Andrew Freear, along with APLA School Head David Hinson, are included in the inaugural Public Interest Design 100. This list of 100 people and teams “seeks to honor many of the diverse, passionate people at the intersection of design and service.”

A student team from the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture was the first place winner for the second year in a row in the National Organization of Minority Architects’ (NOMA) student design competition. This year’s student design competition team included: Damian Bolden (fifth-year Architecture), Tina Maceri (fourth-year Architecture), Valecia Wilson (first-year Community Planning), Brandon Cummings (first-year Community Planning), Taiwei Wan (fourth-year Architecture), Jack Mok (fourth-year Architecture), Cierra Heard (fourth-year Architecture), and Rachel Latham (fourth-year Architecture). Their winning proposal, “Renovate>Cultivate>Innovate” emphasized collective innovation that grows from the renovation of existing infrastructure and the cultivation of a live/make district. The team identified and strengthened a stunning diversity of activities along a walkable route from rural community to urban village to industrial corridor. The team’s holistic approach was praised by the jury of design professionals as “a catalyst for healing land, people, and economics.”

The Institute for International Education announced that Donneisha Clark, a senior in the College of Architecture Design and Construction has been awarded a Gilman Scholarship for study abroad to Turkey during the spring semester of 2013.  Established in 2000, the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program is a nationally competitive scholarship program sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. The scholarship offers grants for U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to pursue academic studies abroad.

Auburn University

APLA Alum Ginger Krieg-Dosier (B.Arch / B.Int.Arch.’00), and her company bioMASON, won the 2013 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, and €500,000, with the invention of a sustainable brick that is “grown” using bacteria and has a CO2 free production process. The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is considered the largest annual worldwide competition for entrepreneurs and was created to instigate change and discover new products or services that combine sustainability with change.

On Sept 30 Carlos Jiménez, Principal and Lead Designer at Carlos Jiménez Studio_ lectured at Auburn University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture as part of the 2013 fall lecture series titled, “Renegades + Outlaws:  Design Thinking at the Edge.” Carlos Jiménez Studio is an award winning, internationally recognized firm founded in 1983 and is based in Houston, Texas. 

Architect and APLA Alum, Al York, AIA (’88, BArch) celebrates with his firm McKinney York Architects (www.mckinneyyork.com) the announcement that they are honored with the 2013 Architecture Firm Achievement Award, given by the Texas Society of Architects (TxA). Recognized as the highest honor the Texas Society of Architects can confer upon an architecture firm, McKinney York now takes its place among a select group of influential Texas firms who have also received this award. 

“Wanderlust,” a letterpress project created by Kyle Wherry, a fourth-year student in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, has been chosen for exhibition in the “918 Letterpress Ephemera Show” at Samford University in Birmingham, October 18 to November 29. Out of 548 entries, Wherry’s was one of the 129 chosen to be part of the show; it will be published in the exhibition catalog and become part of the permanent collection at Samford University. Wherry created “Wanderlust,” an accordion fold book, in a Letterpress course that was taught summer semester by Robert Finkel, an assistant professor of graphic design

Professor Matt Hall (ARCH) joins the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) faculty this 2013 fall semester with the following adjunct instructors:  Nathan Foust (ARCH), Judd Langham (MLA), Jeff Collins (ARCH), Jacqueline Margetts (MLA), Randall Vaughan (ARCH), Ben Weisman (ARCH/MCP – Urban Studio), John Threadgill (MLA), Xavier Vendrell (ARCH – Rural Studio), Dick Hudgens (ARCH-Rural Studio).

A team of students from architecture, community planning and landscape architecture won the 2013 National Organization for Minority Architects (NOMA) Student Design Competition. The student team included Tina Maceri, Alex Therrien, Cordetrus Johnson, Jason Groomes,Yubei Hu, Taiwei Wang, Torrance Wong, Valecia Wilson, Sarah Curry, Claudia Paz-Melendez, Jack Mok, George Criminale, and Byung Choe. Faculty advisors Kevin MooreMargaret FletcherDr. Carla Jackson Bell and Nathan Foust provided team support. An Auburn APLA team has won this competition three years in a row.

On September 20 the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture held an annual awards banquet to honor student award and scholarship recipients. This event also celebrates the donors of each student gift, and provides them with an opportunity to spend time with the student recipient.