The School of Architecture and Planning at The Catholic University of America is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Highlighting this milestone is a three-day symposium in October on “Transcending Architecture – Aesthetics and Ethics of the Numinous.” Lectures on sacred architecture will be led by a field of renowned scholars and practitioners from disciplines ranging from architecture and religion to philosophy and social work. The symposium is organized by Associate Professor Dr. Julio Bermudez, director of the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate concentration.  For more information check: http://www.sacred-space.net/symposium/

Architect Juhani Pallasmaa is the Professor in Residence at CUArch this Fall 2011. He is directing a month long graduate studio investigating the relationship between architecture and spirituality. He is also thoroughly involved in the life of the school through guest talks, reviews, and spontaneous engagement with students. Juhani Pallasmaa’s residence is made possible in part by the Clarence Walton Fund for Catholic Architecture. Past Walton Critics include architects Antoine Predock (2009) and Craig Hartman (2010). Visit CUAArch site at http://publicaffairs.cua.edu/releases/2011/ArchVisitor.cfm for more information.

Assistant Professor Hollee Hitchcock Becker and Associate Professor Julie Ju-Youn Kim joined The Catholic University of America in August. Professor Becker comes to CUA from Kent State University and has degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Kent State University. She will be teaching Structures and doing research on environmentally-adaptive facades and pre-fabricated disaster resistant replacement housing. Professor Kim comes from The University of Mercy at Detroit where she also directed the March program. She has degrees from Wellesley College and MIT and is the founder of c2architecturestudio, an award-winning design practice included in Architectural Record’s Emerging Architect series (06/10). This is also one of 12 architectural firms included by the Korean Architects Association as “Young Korean Architects in the Global Context.” Professor Kim will be teaching Design Studios, building technology and directing the 2012 Summer Institute for Architecture.

Professor Randy Ott, Dean of the School of Architecture, was recognized with an award of the AIA Washington DC chapter in the ‘Unbuilt’ category. The “Salt Chapel” on the edge of Utah’s Great Salt Lake was chosen among more than 100 submissions presented. The jury found the project an adventurous exploration or form, context, and poetry.

Associate Professor Dr. Adnan Morshed, was invited by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, to present the paper, “The Central Threat: Dhaka as a Frontier in the Climate-Change Narrative of Bangladesh.” Dr. Morshed’s article, “Ascending with Nine Chains to the Moon: Buckminster Fuller’s ideation of the Genius,” was published in the GSD journal New Geographies. His review of the National Building Museum exhibition, Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s, is forthcoming in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Associate Professor Eric Jenkins presented the paper “Belcamp: A Little Bit of Europe in Maryland” at the Conference on Company Towns of the Bata Concern held in Prague, March 2011.

Professor of Practice Dr. Raj Barr-Kumar, FAIA RIBA, was the keynote speaker at the Memorial Celebration honoring Architect Raimund Abraham held at the Austrian Embassy in Washington DC last September.  His award-winning design of the restaurant ‘Bibiana’ in Washington DC was featured in the Fall issue of Architecture DC. He was also the keynote speaker at the City School of Architecture and the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, and a featured speaker at the Pacific Area Quantity Surveyors World Congress. The Financial Times of Sri Lanka published a full page interview with Dr Barr entitled “Go Green to Make Green.”