Students from the Master of Urban Design (m.U.D.) program at the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University have won the Outstanding Student Project Award from the Michigan Association of Planning (MAP/APA Michigan) for the “Mid-Century Modern Design Guidelines” they developed for the City of Southfield, Michigan.
The award was presented on Oct. 17 at the MAP annual conference in Traverse City. Winning the award were one LTU graduate student and two graduates of the m.U.D. program, Carolina Ferrero and Michael Mason. LTU graduate student Matthew Galbraith, CoAD student representative to MAP, acted as the nominator. In order to complete the design guidelines, the LTU students extended the internship they took for a course, Principals and Practices of Urban Design, taught by m.U.D. coordinator and Assistant Professor Constance Bodurow. Working as interns in the planning department under Planning Director Terry Croad, the students documented three districts/neighborhoods and dozens of buildings built in the Mid-Century Modern style from the 1950s to the early 1970s that are important to the architectural heritage of Southfield, which grew rapidly after World War II as a first-ring suburb of Detroit.
One of the most significant buildings in Southfield is the former Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office designed by Minoru Yamasaki, a Troy-based architect best known for the World Trade Center in New York.
The design guidelines provide the Southfield Planning Department with an essential tool to keep significant structures and districts intact. The guidelines not only define the style and identify significant structures, but also provide recommendations for enhancements through the use of case studies.
The student authors gathered input from local historians, architects, and academics in order to comprehensively identify, document, and inventory the city’s significant resources. The recommendations made by the students were considered and applied, resulting in the adoption of Low Impact Design Guidelines for the City of Southfield.
“The Mid-Century Modern Design Guidelines is a valuable asset for the Planning Department in our understanding and review of redevelopment of existing Mid-Century Modern buildings and sites,” said Terry Croad, Southfield’s director of planning who worked with the student interns.
The MAP award recognizes the high-quality design guidelines and detailed direction exhibited throughout the manual.
Photo: North Carolina State University’s team in Walt Disney’s Imagineering 21st ImagiNations Design Competition L-R Kyle Thompson, Michael Habersetzer, Andy Park, Brian Gaudio Photo Credit: Gary Krueger, Walt Disney Imagineering
February 3, 2012 — Glendale, CA – The winners of the annual Walt Disney Imagineering ImagiNations Design Competition were announced on Friday, February 3 at Imagineering headquarters in Glendale, California. The ImagiNations Design Competition is a program designed and sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering to encourage university students to consider careers in creative and technical fields including digital arts, engineering, and architecture.
For this year’s ImagiNations design competition, students from American universities and colleges were given a unique challenge: “Imagine it’s the year 3011. Disney has entertainment experiences all over the world, many which don’t even exist today. The human race is finally living on the moon and Walt Disney Imagineering wants to be the first one to provide entertainment and/or recreation to the new citizens there. What would you imagine that this new Disney experience could be?”
First Place and “Best in Show” was awarded to students Brian Gaudio, Michael Habersetzer, Andy Park and Kyle Thompson of North Carolina State University. Their project, “The Mind of Molly Mouse” utilizes modern-day 3011 technology to communicate the sweeping story of Molly, a descendant of Mickey Mouse, over the course of their stay.
Second Place was awarded to Carnegie Mellon University “Create the Night Finale,” which is an interactive nighttime spectacular and experience. The three members of the Carnegie Mellon University team are Michael Honeck, Ping Li, and Franz Mendonsa.
Third Place was awarded to Utah State University for their Disney Galactic Cruiseline: “The Oneiro.” Guests will be at ease in this contemporary environment designed to offer the luxuries of a seven-star resort with the thrill of space exploration. The three members of the Utah State University team are Jason Cooper, Adam Dambrink and Philip Le Goubin.
Twenty-one college students from six universities were finalists in Walt Disney Imagineering’s 21st ImagiNations Design Competition. ImagiNations is an annual program designed and sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm of all Disney Parks and Resorts worldwide, which allows participants to showcase their talents and gain practical knowledge in design from leaders in immersive storytelling and themed entertainment.
This marks the third time in four years that a North Carolina State University team has placed in the top three. Last year’s North Carolina State team “Fantasia: The Lost Symphony,” placed second in the competition.
Participants work for several months on their concepts and presentations, which are evaluated by a team of Imagineers. The projects and concepts presented are not necessarily intended to be built by Disney – they are a way for the entrants to demonstrate their skill and creative abilities. In consideration for the opportunities provided by Imagineering, submissions become the sole property of Walt Disney Imagineering and Imagineering retains all rights to use and/or display the submissions and the materials contained in them.
A position at Walt Disney Imagineering is often found on surveys of “dream occupations,” and the company uses ImagiNations as a way to reach out to the widest possible talent pool for its future. The top three placed teams were awarded cash prizes with the first place team receiving $3,000. An additional $1,000 grant was awarded to the first place team, to be equally divided among its sponsoring universities and/or organizations.
The six teams of finalists visited Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale from January 30 to February 3 to make professional presentations to the judging panel, interview for paid internships and get a behind-the-scenes tour of Disneyland from the viewpoint of Imagineers. During their week at Imagineering, the teams met and networked with Imagineers from a variety of disciplines.
Imagineers are famous for telling stories through three-dimensional attractions and experiences. The judges are looking in particular for the ability of technology, architecture, costumes, transportation, and attractions to support the story – and participants are advised to “begin with a great story before developing anything else.”
The judges apply the same criteria to the entries as they would to their own work – beginning with the team’s ability to collaborate across different disciplines and backgrounds; the mastery of their individual skills; whether it provides an engaging guest experience; the ability of the experience to demonstrate respect and inclusion for the diverse array of families who visit Walt Disney parks & resorts, and that it is unique in that it is not limited to what guests already experience in Disney parks and resorts.
The competition is open to students from colleges and universities in the United States that are Juniors, Seniors, or full-time Graduate students, or within one year after graduation, enrolled in Architecture, Arts, Animation, Computer Science, Construction/Project Management, Creative Writing, Engineering, Game Design, Graphics/ Communications Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, Interactive Media Design, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Media Production (Digital, TV, Film), Theater Design & Production.
Dr. Henrique Houayek and his team that laureated honorable mention in the International Architecture competition for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Port. This competition was organized by the City Council of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian Government. and its theme was to revitalize the old Rio de Janeiro Port by hosting a substantial part of the 2016 Olympic games facilities – Games operational support, Olympic villages, media and convention center, offices and hotels.
Dr. Henrique Houayek was also part of the team that won first prize in the International Architecture competition for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Park. This competition was organized by the City Council of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian Government. and its theme was to develop a new part of the city inserting multiple stadiums, hotels, media and Olympic training center, moreover this project aims to develop a new lecagy for the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Associate Professor Chris Livingston and Assistant Professor Zuzanna Karczewska attended an international conference in Delft, Netherlands organized by European Association of Envisioning Architecture. Chris Livingston’s paper was entitled “The ‘Surgeon-Anatomist’ – Architecture, Medicine and possible trajectories for Visualization within Building Information Modeling” and Zuzanna Karczewska’s “Tangibility and Duration of Drawing”.
Associate Professor Maire O’Neill has an upcoming exhibit titled “Taking Stock – A morphology: field documentation of agricultural buildings” at the Ravalli County Museum in Hamilton, Montana. This exhibit includes building documentation and interpretive drawings reflecting the evolving building practices of livestock producers and farmers settling the intermountain west. It includes a typological and morphological analysis and will take place October through December 2011.
A proposal written by Milenka Jirasko was one of three international winners of the Berkeley Prize Travel Fellowship Competition allowing her to research the former Auschwitz concentration camp in rural Poland this summer. She won a $3,200 travel stipend to allow her to research sacred spaces that are open to the public under the guidance of Associate Professor Maire O’Neill. Fellow students Carson Booth, Rachel Haugen, Britni Jezirorski and Chris Taleffwere among 33 semifinalists selected overall. The prize is given by the University of California, Berkeley and the Berkeley Prize Endowment to enable winners to travel to gain a deeper understanding of the social art of architecture.
A team of Montana State University students has won a competition to design an 85-foot ice-climbing tower as part of an attempt to lure the 2013 world cup of ice climbing championship to the Gallatin County Fairgrounds in Bozeman. The team led by Michael Spencer of Willow Creek, a recent graduate of the MSU School of Architecture, with Tymer Tilton of Missoula a current architecture student, and MSU engineering student P.J. Kolnik, won the MSU-based competition to design the Bozeman Ice Tower under the guidance of Associate Professor Mike Everts. Everts says “the winning design is composed of angled climbing surfaces that attach to stacked, side-cycled shipping containers. The containers, in addition to being economical and sustainable, are designed to be temporary lodging for visiting athletes”. The winning design, which can be seen on the Web, http://bozemanicetower.wordpress.com/, includes a tower that can be used for ice or traditional climbing surrounded by a spectator area that will allow the structure to be used as an outdoor concert venue.
Associate Professor Mike Everts received an Honorable mention for the 2011 NCARB Prize.The submission titled “The Next Generation of Mountain Architects” was recognized by the jury for teaching students leadership skills, communications skills, and how to participate in the community decision-marking process. With guidance from non-faculty architect practitioners and professors, students researched and designed a culturally and environmentally sensitive community center in Phortse, Nepal near Mt. Everest. Students then traveled to Nepal to work with local officials, contractors, and villagers to dig the foundation and construct critical building component prototypes.
Assistant professor Catalina Freixas and senior lecturer Pablo Moyano Fernandez participated in the 7th conference on Perspectivas Urbanas 7, Ciudades Americanas, organized by the Escuela de Arquitectura, Universidad Europea de Madrid, which introduced three perspectives on the current state of American cities. Freixas and oyano introduced the phenomenon of “ungrowth” in American cities, with a focus on St. Louis as an example of a shrinking city. Their presentation includes their ongoing research on eco-urbanism strategies as a response to the problem of “thinning” in post-industrial cities. The proceedings from the conference will be published inPerspectivas Urbanas 7.
Freixas and Moyano’s full paper “Eco-urbanism: Sustainable Strategies for Vacant Lots in St. Louis”, has been selected for oral presentation at the EDRA45 New Orleans and publication in the EDRA45 Conference Proceedings. The paper introduces The Sustainable Land Lab, an initiative by the Sustainability Office of Washington University in St. Louis that aims to showcase strategies that can transform vacant land into sustainability-advancing assets. The paper discusses the five implemented projects that resulted from the Sustainable Land Lab Competition using the Triple Bottom Line Sustainability criterion as defined by the City of St. Louis Sustainability Plan. Present research looks into HUB: Hybrid Urban Bioscapes, a finalist proposal focused on a synergistic approach to eco-urbanism, while ongoing research aims to ultimately assess all five projects.
Assistant professor Catalina Freixas co-authored an article on biomimicry titled “Developing a Common Ground for Learning from Nature,” which was published in the fall 2013 issue of Zygote Quarterly.
Zeuler R. Lima’s recently published Lina Bo Bardi (Yale University Press, 2013) has been listed among the top 10 design books of 2013 by The Guardian (United Kingdom) and also among the 10 notable books by Designers and Books (USA).
The University of Oklahoma joined Harvard University as one of only two universities with multiple teams honored in the 10th annual Urban Land Institute Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. One OU team received an “Honorable Mention First Place” and the other an “Honorable Mention Overall Merit” in the competition, placing them both in the top 10 percent of the field, which consisted of 139 graduate-level teams from 64 universities throughout United States and Canada. Serving as advisers were Blair Humphreys, executive director of the Institute for Quality Communities, and Associate Professor of Architecture Hans Butzer. “The Veranda” placed fifth receiving “First Place Honorable Mention” and featured a dynamic public space connected to the Buffalo Bayou trail network. The team members were fifth-year architecture students Adelle York, who served as team leader, Aric Yarberry and Grant Hromas; regional and city planning graduate student Ty McCarthy, and MBA student Ohm Devani. “The Foundry” received an “Honorable Mention Overall Merit” for their proposal to create a district designed to empower startup entrepreneurs. Members of the team were regional and city planning graduate students Phillips Walters, who served as the team leader, and Shane Hampton; landscape architecture graduate student Alex Tyler; architecture graduate student Grant Evert, and fifth-year architecture student Preston Kunz. Read more.
University of Oklahoma architecture and construction science students made history by winning all categories of the 17th Region V Associated Schools of Construction/TEXO Student Competition, a first for any university in the region and a first for the competition. The OU students won in the Commercial Building, Design Build, Design Build International, and Heavy Civil categories of the competition held in Dallas. The teams were coached by Tammy McCuen, OU assistant professor of construction science, and Anthony Cricchio, OU assistant professor of architecture (Design Build); Ken Robson, OU construction science professor, and Dublin Institute of Technology Professor Lloyd Scott (International Design Build); Dominique Pittenger, OU adjunct professor of construction science (Heavy Civil); and Richard Ryan, OU professor of construction science (Commercial Building). Read more.
The OU College of Architecture will remodel an old nearby hotel that was damaged in a 2009 fire. The Alvis Hotel in Pauls Valley suffered fire damage in Sept. 2009. The students, alongside associate professor of architecture Ron Frantz, will assist in the remodeling of the hotel, which was built in the late 1800s. The Alvis property is working toward being registered with the National Register of Historic Places, which will open the project up to tax credits and federal funding to allow the students a large amount of leeway, Frantz said. Read more.
Faculty in the College of Architecture will present papers and research during our second annual Research and Creative Activity Day on March 14, 2012. See the full schedule and topics.
Designers James Burnett and Jereck Boss of Project 180, the significant street and public space overhaul underway in downtown Oklahoma City, will speak about their work in Norman and Oklahoma City as part of the Streets for People lecture series presented by the Institute for Quality Communities on Thursday, March 15, 2012.
Favrot Professor of Architecture Ammar Eloueini, Intl. Assoc. AIA and principal of Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio is one of the five finalist for the prestigious 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. He is competing for the opportunity to design and construct an installation within MoMA PS1’s courtyard in Long Island City, Queens. The winners will be announced in February 2012.
Tulane School of Architecture is pleased to announce the publication of Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington by Professor Emerita Ellen Weiss from Newsouth Bookswith a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This text interweaves the life of the first academically trained African American architect with his life’s work—the campus of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Professor Weiss has taught architectural and planning history at many prestigious universities for nearly half a century. She has served on the boards of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, and the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians.
Architecture Professor David Seamon attended the 30th annual International Human Research Science Conference, held in Oxford, England, July 27-30, 2011. He organized a symposium, “Lived Relationalities among Place, Space, and Environmental Embodiment.” The three symposium presenters were health sociologist Dr. Andrew Moore, a research associate with the Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre at Keele University in Staffordshire, England; Dr. Sam Griffiths, a Lecturer in urban morphology and theory at University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture; and Seamon, whose presentation was entitled, “‘Seeing’ Merleau-Ponty’s Perception: Possibilities in the Urban Photographs of New York City Photographer Saul Leiter. Seamon also presented “Homeworld, Alienworld, and Being at Home in Alan Ball’s HBO Television Series, Six Feet Under,” a blind-reviewed paper presented at the 7th annual Religion, Literature, and the Arts conference held at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, August 27. The conference theme was “Uncanny Homecomings: Narrative, Structures, Existential Questions, Theological Visions.”
Professor Donald Watts joined more than one hundred former Peace Corps Volunteers who had served in Afghanistan as part of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps in Washington D.C. He represented our college at a special reception for former Peace Corps Afghanistan volunteers hosted by His Excellency, Ambassador Eklil Hakimi at the Afghan Embassy in Washington. Watts served as the architectural coordinator of the Kansas State University / Kabul University Partnership Program occurring between 2007 and 2010.
Assistant Professors Nathan Howe and Sam Zeller with the help of fourth-year studentsEthan Rhoades, Hana Havlova, Matthew Whetstone and Scott Davis entered and won the international design competition The 2011 Friends of Seger Park Playground Sprayground in Philadelphia, PA. This competition was to look at the site of their existing water feature and envision a design that would be contemporary, interactive and provide an icon for their park. The team has now been commissioned to produce a promotional model and construction documents while Seger Park continues to raise funds for the project’s implementation.
Greg Sheldon, James Pfeiffer, and Rick Schladweiler from the Kansas City-based firm BNIM are co-teaching a fourth-year design studio this fall. The trio is quite enthusiastic about diving into teaching design. Sheldon, associate principal at the firm, and 2006 Architect of the Year for the AIA Kansas City chapter, taught building construction techniques to beginning students at the KC campus of the University of Missouri, but has never taught studio. The trio intends to fold verifiable design techniques into the studio’s semester-long project.
The competition focused on a site in the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood of Red Hook, with a population of public housing residents and working artists and designers, and a number of new residential and commercial developments. With a focus on regenerating the urban manufacturing sector and addressing housing needs, entrants, working individually or in teams, were tasked with incorporating affordable housing units; a bike sharing and repair shop; as well as a vocational, manufacturing and distribution center for the innovative use of wood technology.
“Today, timber is being used in new, innovative ways to help address the economic and environmental challenges of the build environment,” said Cees de Jager, executive director of BSLC. “This competition brought to life the way the design community is recognizing the benefits of wood – from reduced economic and environmental impact to enhanced aesthetic value and structural performance – to design buildings and communities of the future.”
The projects will be on view at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons from October 24-31, and at the 2013 Greenbuild Conference in Philadelphia (November), the 2014 ACSA Annual Meeting in Miami (April) and the American Institute of Architects 2014 Convention in Chicago (June).
“The winning submissions for the Timber in the City competition embraced advances in timber and building technologies to address the economic and environmental considerations of the challenge in remarkable ways,” said Andrew Bernheimer, director of the Master of Architecture program at Parsons. “By situating the competition in Brooklyn, our goal is to catalyze the design community and government agencies to better recognize the potential of larger-scale wood design and construction in cities.”
Awards, totaling $30,000, were presented to teams of students and faculty and recent graduates for their unique celebrations of wood products.
First Place: “Grow Your Own City” – the University of Oregon’s winning submission attracted the jurors with its use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) as a new building technology to create a cost-effective, environmentally friendly solution for the Red Hook community. The team addressed the community’s need for livable and recreational areas that support a wide range of daily activities for inhabitants.
Students: Benjamin Bye, Alex Kenton and Jason Rood from the University of Oregon
Faculty Sponsors: Judith Sheine, University of Oregon and Mikhail Gershfeld, Cal Poly Pomona, Civil Engineering Department
Second Place: “Cultivating Timber” – the University of Texas at Austin also leveraged CLT as the primary building material for their design. In working to reduce greenhouse gasses and embodied energy accompanied with transporting materials, the team proposed to bring the manufacturing equipment to the site and develop the CLT panels locally. Overall, designing a community that demonstrated the use of timber in an urban environment and worked to provide residents with sustainable living options.
Student: Christopher Gardner, University of Texas at Austin
Faculty Sponsor: Ulrich Dangel, University of Texas at Austin
Additionally, two student teams were selected as honorable mention winners:
Swamp Machine – Students: Benjamin Ahearn, Kristin Karlsson and Carey Moran, University of Washington / Faculty Sponsors: Richard Mohler and Elizabeth Golden, University of Washington
House of Wood – Student: Emily Hagen, Virginia Tech / Faculty Sponsor: Heinrich Schnoedt, Virginia Tech
As well as two individual recent graduates were selected as honorable mention winners:
Courtyard Cathedral – Timothy Olson, Jan 2012 graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Habitat @ Red Hook – Sam Pitnick, May 2010 graduate of University of Southern California
The winning projects were chosen by a panel of distinguished jury members in the architecture community, including the following:
Mark Cruvellier, Cornell University
Michael Green, MGA | Michael Green Architecture, Vancouver
Abby Hamlin, Hamlin Venture
Alan Organschi, Yale University
Tricia Stuth, University of Tennesee, Knoxville
Andrew Waugh, Waugh Thistleton Architects, London
“We are exceptionally pleased with the turnout for the competition which is in its first year,” said Norman Millar, ACSA President. “Both the jury members and the involvement of more than 1,000 students and recent graduates created a very engaging dynamic for the future of timber construction. These young designers were challenged to examine the benefits that wood can offer for urban design projects.”
The competition ran from August 2012 through May 22, 2013 and included 1,082 student and recent graduate participants. The design jury met in July to select the winning projects and honorable mentions. For full details on the competition and the winning submissions visit https://www.acsa-arch.org/timber.
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) represents all accredited programs and their faculty across the United States and Canada, as well as nonaccredited and international affiliate members around the world. ACSA, unique in its representative role for schools of architecture, provides a forum for ideas on the leading edge of architectural thought. Issues that will affect the architectural profession in the future are being examined today in ACSA member schools. The association maintains a variety of activities that influence, communicate, and record important issues. Such endeavors include scholarly meetings, workshops, publications, awards and competition programs, support for architectural research, policy development, and liaison with allied organizations. For more information, please visit www.acsa-arch.org.
Binational Softwood Lumber Council The Binational Softwood Lumber Council (BSLC), a nonprofit organization, was established in 2006 by the Canadian and U.S. governments. The BSLC champions the use of softwood lumber products as part of the shift to a more environmentally responsible and economically viable building sector. Sustainably harvested wood products from North America create jobs in rural communities, reduce costs and can help reduce the overall environmental footprint of a home or building. For more information, visit www.softwoodlumber.org.
Parsons The New School for Design Parsons The New School for Design is a global leader in design education, with programs that span the disciplines of design and the fine arts. Parsons prepares students to creatively and critically address the complex conditions of contemporary global society. Its curriculum is geared toward synthesizing rigorous craft with cutting-edge theory and research methods, and encourages collaborative and individual approaches that cut across a wide array of disciplines. The School of Constructed Environments at Parsons is the only integrated school of interior design, lighting design, product design and architecture in the country. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/parsons/sce.
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