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Texas A&M University

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Texas A&M environmental design students presented five design concepts for two state-of-the-art hospitals proposed as part of a giant medical complex to be located in an underserved region of Nigeria at an April 28 event attended by Nigerian investors and dignitaries at Legacy Hall in the Jon L. Hagler Center.

The architecture-for-health studio project, including designs for a an 800-bed adult specialty hospital and a 400-bed mother/child hospital, was undertaken during the spring 2014 semester in collaboration with HKS Inc., the Dallas-based international architecture firm that is working with Thompson & Grace Investments of Nigeria to develop a world-class 100-acre medical service and research complex to be known as the Thompson & Grace Medical City.

The five dual-hospital concepts unveiled at the April 28 gathering were designed by five, four-student teams in a studio directed by George J. Mann, the Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA Endowed Professor of Health Facilities Design.

A master plan for the multi-use development, created in fall 2013 by three Texas A&M landscape architecture students directed by Chanam Lee, associate professor of landscape architecture and presented to investors last February, also includes a medical school and research institute, conference center, buildings for office and residential use, an elementary school and an artisan village.

In 2014,Texas A&M’s “The Big Event” went worldwide. Numerous public spaces in Europe received “facelifts” from College of Architecture students in three study abroad venues as a “thank you” to their host communities — mirroring the annual Big Event tradition in Bryan/College Station in which students perform volunteer community-beautifying tasks including cleaning, planting, painting and yardwork.

A total of 122 students in Barcelona, Spain; Bonn, Germany; and Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy muddied their boots, turned earth and wielded hammer, nails and other tools. “We are very proud of our College of Architecture students studying abroad this term who have transported the Aggie “Big Event” tradition around the world,” said Elton Abbott, assistant dean for international programs & initiatives. “It’s a great way to show the Aggie spirit to our global partners.”

Design for Pediatric and Neonatal Critical Care, a new book aiding clinicians tasked with planning new pediatric and neonatal intensive care environments, authored by Dr. Mardelle McCuskey Shepley, FAIA, director of Texas A&M’s Center for Health Systems and Design, is receiving favorable reviews.

“Planning for a new pediatric or neonatal ICU is daunting for most clinicians,” said Bob White, director of the Regional Newborn Program at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Ind. “Few have prior experience, and the skills needed are far different from those they use on a regular basis,” Shepley’s book, he said, “fills this void in remarkable fashion.”

A professor of architecture who joined the Texas A&M faculty in 1993, Shepley is a member of the American College of Healthcare Architects’ Council of Fellows. She published influential books in the healthcare field, such as Health Facility Evaluation for Designing Practitioners (2010) and Design for Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Approach (2009, co-authored with Professor Kirk Hamilton).

The Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University held the 3rd annual Celebration of Excellence on May 9, 2014 at the College Station Hilton. This event, a sequence of presentations and selections from the completing Master’s thesis projects, culminated as a whole-day jury with five student finalists presenting their thesis projects to the entire school. Awards were presented to top students and faculty of the year during the event.

The jury of 2014 consisted of:

  • Velpeau Hawes, Jr. ‘58, head of Hawes Consulting, a member of the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows;
  • Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram, associate professor of architecture, University of Texas;
    • Jeff Potter ‘78, former president, American Institute of Architects, member of the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows, and
    • Bijan Youssefzadeh, director of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington.

“These awards recognize not only our most promising students and their individual accomplishments, but also represent the level of excellence of all our students,” said Ward Wells, head of the Department of Architecture. “The recognition of students and faculty is truly a cause for a celebration of excellence.”

The event is a project of the department’s Council of Excellence, an elite group of department friends and former students committed to supporting and enhancing architecture program excellence, building relationships with students and bridging gaps between the academic and professional worlds.

University of Kansas

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The Department of Architecture celebrates its centennial with a reunion that will take place in Lawrence April 26-27, 2013. The centennial was launched last spring with the publication of Vitruvius on the Plains: Architectural thought at Kansas, 1912-2012 (The Lowell Press, 2012). Edited by Professor Stephen Grabow, the book offers a brief history of the school and its faculty. It contains a collection of thirty-seven essays written over the last century. The collection illustrates the way various schools of thought have converged at KU during the past 100 years.

Associate Professor Shannon Criss was recently elected to serve as the ACSA West Central Regional Director. She has also been selected to serve a two-year appointment as a University of Kansas Service Learning Faculty Fellow. She will work with faculty and staff to program new initiatives that broaden the understanding of engaged-community learning pedagogy within the university. She also recently presented a paper at the Biannual National Conference of the Design Communication Association at Oklahoma State University in October 2012 entitled  “Drawn Through: The Sectional Perspective as a Tool of Engagement.”

Students in Professor Kent Spreckelmeyer’s Health & Wellness capstone studio won a number of honors for their spring 2012 semester work. Sara Mae Martens, Maia Hoelzinger, Stephen Mayer, and Lindsay Slavin won an honorable mention for their submission to the AIAS/SAGE “Renewing Home” Competition.  Rana Elmghirbi won a third-place award in the Open Political Response category of the [Un]Restricted Access Competition, hosted by Architecture for Humanity. Dan DeWeese won first prize in the open-submission category of the ACSA Steel Competition.  Sara Mae Martens had her thesis project published in the November 2012 issue of the AIA/AAH Academy Journal, and Graham Sinclair had his thesis published in the October 2012 issue of Healthcare Design.

Four graduate students won an honorable mention in the ACSA’s Sustainable Lab Competition. The students, Ike Chinton, Joel Herman, Sara Lichti, and Taylor Maine were in a design studio taught by Associate Professor Paola Sanguinetti.  

The University of Kansas awarded Keith Diaz Moore, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, one of five Strategic Initiative grants. This grant will support an interdisciplinary examination of the role architecture plays in resilient lifestyles for older adults.  This research involves colleagues in environmental studies, gerontology, nursing, occupational therapy, psychology, political science and urban planning. It is notable for placing architecture and design at the forefront of KU’s efforts to enhance its impact upon the world. 

Assistant Professor Chad Kraus and the students of the design-build Dirt Works Studio completed the Roth Trailhead, a 122-foot-long rammed earth wall and sun-shading canopy. The Roth Trailhead received an Honor Award from AIA Kansas and the Monsters of Design Best-in-Show award from the AIA Kansas City Young Architects Forum. In addition, during the summer of 2012, Professor Kraus presented and published two essays on rammed earth architecture as part of RESTAPIA 2012, the First International Conference on Rammed Earth Conservation in Valencia, Spain.

In June, Architecture Lecturer Bob Coffeen, received a Bose Educational Excellence Award. He also served as chair for the national meeting of the Acoustical Society of America held in Kansas City in October. 

NIls Gore, Associate Professor and Interim Chair, presented a paper at the ACSA Offsite conference entitled “Designing Better Portable Classrooms.” The paper described a design studio process that started with the observation that virtually every school district in the U.S. utilizes portable classroom units as a way of relieving overcrowding and as “short-term” solutions to changing enrollments, shifting demographics, and uncertain funding for capital improvement projects. 

Assistant professors Genevieve Baudoin and Bruce A. Johnson presented a paper entitled, “Off-Site / Off-World: Prefabrication for Extreme Conditions and Unpredictability,” at the ACSA Off-Site Conference in Philadelphia, PA. Their paper is a product of their overlapping research in the integration of systems, structure and site. It explores the techniques employed in parallel industries at the limits of prefabrication as a means of generating site-specific relationships in normative prefabrication.

Chester Dean Lecturer Frank Zilm along with Professors Kent Spreckelmeyer and Keith Diaz Moore, received an honorable mention for their 2012 NCARB Awards proposal. It was titled, “Integrating Specialized Knowledge in Architectural Curricula”. The awards are intended “to challenge conventional teaching pedagogy and create new curricular models for design studios. ”

In August, Studio 804 – led by Dan Rockhill, the Department of Architecture’s J.L. Constant Professor of Architecture – completed Galileo’s Pavilion, a highly sustainable classroom building, for Johnson County Community College, in Overland Park, Kansas. This fall, Studio 804 received two AIA Kansas Honor Awards for Galileo’s Pavilion and another project, the Center for Design Research, completed in 2011.

In early November, the American Institute of Architecture Students sponsored the Midwest Quad Conference. The event, themed “Building Communities” was held in Kansas City, Mo., and drew over 300 students from 13 states. Professor Dan Rockhill gave the keynote, address. The SADP’s Dean, John Gaunt, held a drawing workshop. Faculty members Genevieve Baudoin, Bruce Johnson, Chad Kraus, and Anne Patterson also gave presentations. Assistant Professor Kapila Silva is the KU AIAS faculty advisor.   

University of Oklahoma

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Assistant Professor Catherine Barrett contributed to a recent publication, the Dictionnaire universel des femmes créatrices (Universal Dictionary of Creative Women), published by Editions des femmes (Paris: 2013). Her contribution, written in French, included three essays about American women: one on the architect Josephine Wright Chapman, one on the architect Mary Colter, and one on the landscape architect Lutah Riggs.

Associate Professor David L. Boeck served as advisor to a team of 4th and 5th year Architecture students in the 2013 NOMAS Design Competition, which called for developing property on the near-northeast side of Indianapolis in the Friends and Neighbors, Oakhill, Fall Creek Place, and Reagan Park neighborhoods. This project incorporated ideas from city-developed plan to create a carbon neutral mixed-used transit oriented development (TOD). The team attended the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) Conference and presented their solution entitled Indy Park.



The Center for Middle Eastern Architecture and Culture (CMEAC) at the College of Architecture established Spring 2012 by Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi sponsored a special screening, a presentation by, and banquet for the award-winning Canadian/Iranian author and documentary filmmaker Dr. Farzin Rezaeian on his latest film Recreating Pasargadae: Cyrus the Great’s Paradise.

Assistant Professor Daniel Butko presented an authored poster entitled Mining Landscapes of Waste and a separate paper entitled Returning to Earth coauthored with Assistant Professor Dr. Lisa Holliday (CNS), Assistant Professor Matthew Reyes (CNS), Dr. Kianoosh Hatami (CEES), and Dr. Chris Ramseyer (COE) at the 2013 ACSA Fall Conference in Fort Lauderdale.

Architecture Division Director and Professor Hans E. Butzer, with his practice Butzer Gardner Architects, received AIA Honor Awards from the AIA Oklahoma Chapter for the Woodland Residence and 7@Crown Heights. He and his team also earned an AIA Merit Award for the Nichols Law Firm from the AIA Central States Region. Professor Butzer also made an invited TEDx presentation titled “Surroundings Matter” at a TED-sponsored event. Hans, along with his Skydance Bridge Design Team, presented at the AIA Oklahoma/Central States Region Convention with a focus on collaboration. Hans was also an invited lecturer in the University Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability Seminar Series, presenting his firm’s work and its relationship to culture, place, and identity.

A team of undergraduate Architecture students led by Assistant Professor Thomas Cline was awarded 2nd place in the 2013 AIA Central States Student Design Competition. The team consisted of 4th year students Bud Hardage and Minh Tran, 3rd year student Jessika Poteet, and 2nd year students Corey Hardy and Victor Trautman (alternate). The competition pairs regional student teams with local architecture firms over a 16 hour charrette.

Associate Professor Lee Fithian presented a paper coauthored with CNS Associate Professor Tamera McCuen entitled BIMStorm OKC: A Virtual Event to Build Community and Enhance Connectivity at the FOREFRONT: Architects as Collaborative Leaders conference in Salt Lake City. FOREFRONT is a conference jointly sponsored by the AIA Center for Integrated Practice, AIA Utah, and the University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning and is in partnership with ACSA.

In other news, a group of faculty and students from the College of Architecture’s Compressed Earth Block (CEB) research team consisting of Assistant Professors Daniel Butko (Arch), Dr. Lisa Holliday (CNS), Matthew Reyes (CNS), Scott Williams (LA), Dean Charles Graham, 4th year Architecture student Aaron Crandall, and 3rd year Construction Science student Holly Snow coauthored and presented a total of four papers and two posters at the 2013 Earth USA Conference in Santa Fe, NM.

Cornell University

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Assistant Professor Jeremy Foster joined the faculty of the Department of Architecture as a tenure-track appointment, effective July 1, 2012. Foster’s research focus includes the history and theory of landscapes, cities and built environments, and the role of socio-spatial practices and ideologies in shaping urban environments. He is the author of Washed with Sun: Landscape and the Making of White South Africa (2008, University of Pittsburgh Press) along with numerous scholarly articles. He was educated at the University of Cape Town, University of Pennsylvania, and University of London.

 
Mark Cruvellier has been promoted to the rank of full professor in the Department of Architecture. As Chairman of the Department, Cruvellier was also appointed to the Nathaniel and Margaret Owings Professorship of Architecture.

Kent Kleinman has been appointed to a second five-year term as the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, beginning July 1, 2013. 
http://aap.cornell.edu/arch/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=564866

Assistant Professor Jenny Sabin was commissioned by Nike as part of their new FlyKnit Collective to design, fabricate, and build a pavilion structure in New York City. Nike’s FlyKnit Collective is a platform for creative innovators worldwide to generate dialogue around and interact with the fundamental design principals of performance, lightness, formfitting, and sustainability, ultimately converting these abstract benefits into practical, physical structures and spaces that inspire the communities around them in transformative ways. The pavilion is made from threads that change color in the sun or glow at night. The pavilion opened Sept. 15, 2012 and is up through Nov. 4, 2012 at Nike Bowery Stadium, 276 Bowery, New York City.
http://aap.cornell.edu/arch/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=559436

Milstein Hall, internationally recognized for its design since opening in August 2011, has received LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The 47,000-square-foot Milstein Hall is an addition to the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and provides studio space for 200 students, a gallery, critique spaces, and a 250-seat auditorium.
http://aap.cornell.edu/arch/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=562372

Drexel University

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After 37 years on the Drexel faculty and 25 years of leadership Paul M. Hirshorn, AIA has retired at the end of the academic year 2010-2011. Hirshorn was Head of the Department of Architecture from 1986 to 2007, Head of the Department of Architecture + Interiors from 2007 to 2010 and served as Architecture Program Director this past year. Under his leadership the Arfaa Lecture Series was established, the Architecture Program’s off-campus studies programs were launched and the unique 2+4 architecture degree program was created. Paul Hirshorn has worked tirelessly for the Department, the Program and for Drexel University and we would like to thank and acknowledge him for his many contributions.


Assistant Professor Dr. Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis, AIA has assumed the position of Program Director for Architecture in July 2011. Dr. Altenmüller-Lewis had served as Associate Director of the Architecture Program since she began teaching at Drexel in September 2008. This past spring Professor Altenmüller-Lewis won the prestigious Allen Rothwarf Award for Teaching Excellence, Drexel’ University’s highest teaching award.

Erik Sundquist has joined the Department of Architecture + Interiors as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Architecture Program. Prior to his appointment at Drexel University, Sundquist taught at the College of Architecture and the Arts at Florida International University in Miami Florida. As a practicing architectural designer he has collaborated with architects, artists, industrial designers and interior designers on high profile projects that span four continents. Eric Sundquist received his BA in Psychology and Economics from The University of Massachusetts, a MA in Political Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook and his MArch from Florida International University. In his teaching and research, he has explored the role of sustainability in professional practice and effects of digital based design on traditional notions of building tectonics and scale.

Nicole Koltick has been promoted to Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture + Interiors. She coordinates the technology course work and digital initiatives in the Interiors Design undergraduate and Interior Architecture and Design graduate programs. Nicole Koltick received an M. Arch. from UCLA and a BFA, in Art with University Honors, from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a principal of the trans-dicsiplinary design firm lutz/koltick. Koltick’s current research interests include future speculation, robotics, computation, artificial intelligence and interactive environments. She is interested in exploring the boundaries between technology, science, the “natural,” the built environment and its inhabitants. Nicole Koltick works with complex and fantastical narratives as well as multi-agent systems and advanced computational strategies to envision new landscapes, environments and territories for inhabitation.

University of Minnesota

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Blaine Brownell, Assistant Professor
This year, Princeton Architectural Press published Brownell’s fourth book, entitled Matter in the Floating World: Conversations with Leading Japanese Architects and Designers. The book considers Japan’s sophisticated design and material culture, and is organized along four primary themes—lightness, atmosphere, flow, and emergence. The book includes interviews with twenty individuals including Hitoshi Abe, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and Kazuyo Sejima. Brownell continues to write a monthly one-page column entitled “Mind & Matter” in Architect magazine, in addition to a blog that appears twice a week on Architect’s website. In July, Brownell wrote “An Uncertain Future” about Japanese architects’ perspectives on rebuilding Japan in a supplement to the London Times. His article “Peering into the Floating World” about Japanese designers’ approaches to light and materials appeared in the June issue of Architectural Lighting. Christopher Kanal interviewed Brownell for his article “Houses of the Rising Sun” in the November issue of Sublime magazine. Brownell also gave lectures entitled ““Material Evolution: Assessing Disruptive Change in Technology and Nature” at Harvard University on September 16 and “Material Resilience: Innovative Technologies for Adaptable Buildings and Cities” at the University of Southern California on September 13. Brownell continues to co-direct the Master of Science in Architecture–Sustainable Design program with Jim Lutz at the University of Minnesota.

Marc Swackhamer, Associate Professor of Architecture
The Weisman Art Museum (WAM) at the University of Minnesota announced in October that a team led by School of Architecture Adjunct Professors Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James of VJAA, working with Associate Professor Marc Swackhamer and Blair Satterfield of HouMinn Practice and artist Diane Willow, Associate Professor in the University of Minnesota School of Fine Art, was announced the winner of the Weisman Art Museum’s Plaza Design Competition. The competition focused on the plaza at the east end of Washington Avenue Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. This is a busy thoroughfare for bikers and pedestrians. Students, staff, faculty and visitors to the Twin Cities Campus, over 20,000 people per day, use this important public space. The next phase of the project will be to hold meetings with the winning team, and the campus community, in the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration to refine the design and implement the plan.

John Comazzi, Assistant Professor of Architecture
John Comazzi (Assistant Professor of Architecture and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture), was an invited presenter and moderator at the annual conference of the Association of Architecture Organizations in Philadelphia, PA.  Comazzi is a co-chair of the organizations Architecture and Design Education Network (A+DEN).  He has also been invited to join the planning committee for the upcoming Midwest regional conference for the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) to be held in Minneapolis in April 2012.  

Professor Julia W. Robinson
Julia Robinson is teaching an undergraduate design studio that is working with the Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood of the city of St Paul, exploring how to design dense housing acceptable to the neighborhood on a 2 1/2 acre site.

Lawrence Technological University

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The College of Architecture and Design granted Professor Joonsub Kim, Ph.D. a promotion to Full Professor, Scott Shall, Associate Professor/Architecture Department Chair was granted tenure, and Professors James Stevens (Arch) and Peter Beaugard (Art and Design) were granted promotions to the rank of Associate Professors with tenure.

Boston Architectural College

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Boston Architectural College Announces the Appointment of Three Design Heads

The Boston Architectural College announces the appointment of three new department Heads.

Maria Bellalta has been named Head of the BAC’s Landscape Architecture program. Her professional credentials include practice with Sasaki Associates, Copley Wolff Design, and Martha Swartz Partners. She has worked on planning and landscape projects throughout the United States and Western Europe, with an emphasis on urban sustainability. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and from the Landscape Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has taught at Harvard, at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile, and at the Boston Architectural College. “Understanding the principles of urban ecology and landscape design is essential for designing and maintaining sustainable communities,” she has said. “I am very excited about joining forward-thinking design peers in enabling future designers to address the issues of building environmentally sustainable cities.”

Crandon Gustafson has been named Head of the BAC’s Interior Design program. He previously headed the Interior Design program at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, where he initiated their masters program. Trained as an architect at the University of Colorado, he worked for a number of years at the Chicago offices of Gensler, and Perkins + Will, and was managing architect for Chicago Public Schools. He is an ASID member, and was elected President of the Illinois chapter of the International Interior Design Association. He holds NCIDQ certification, and is LEED accredited. “Interior Designers have special expertise in space planning, lighting, ergonomics, health and wellness planning, addressing issues of aging, and evidence-based design. These skills contribute to our understanding of sustainability, and to the human factors engineering that is increasingly shaping our design decisions. It will be very stimulating to bring these specific perspectives to the education of architects and Landscape Architecture professionals, as well as to our emerging professional interior designers.”

Karen Nelson has been named Acting Head of the BAC’s Architecture program. Educated at M.I.T. and Columbia, she has taught at RISD and at the BAC for over a decade where she has directed advanced studio education. A much revered teacher and mentor, she oversaw the College’s Solar Decathlon studios, is managing the BAC’s spring 2012 architecture re-accreditation process, and continues to recruit and manage adjunct architecture faculty. She has brought to the BAC many noted outside speakers including Snohetta, Steven Benisch, Hollwich Kushner, and Howeler Yoon to assist students in understanding the work of the most innovative designers working today. “We have enjoyed working across our disciplines in the past,” she reports, “and the need for interdisciplinary research and practice is greater than ever before. Our graduates will create career paths unthought-of just a few years ago. As educators we will need to be increasingly creative in preparing students to enter fields that require open-mindedness and professional agility.”

“These accomplished educators bring a wealth of experience to the BAC’s programs of practice-based design education,” according to President Ted Landsmark. “As we diversify our programs to better anticipate the requirements of professional design practice, the need has grown for program leaders who collaborate across the disciplines of architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture. Integrated design practice, virtual modeling of work over great distances, increased management expectations, and new career opportunities are transforming the design professions toward greater collaboration among clearly defined bodies of knowledge. These new program Heads have demonstrated leadership in their respective fields, and have shown the ability to grow student expertise through multidisciplinary work. They bring professional skills and foresight to the BAC and to the design professions globally.”

BAC Provost Julia Halevy adds, “We’re thrilled to have assembled this group of thoughtful and collaborative designers. We are developing a new Foundation curriculum with their input, and we anticipate that our graduates will not only understand their responsibilities within the traditional design disciplines, but will also be highly innovative in shaping design practices into the future.”  

For further information contact Janet Oberto, Director of External and Government Relations, at 617-585-0266, or Janet.oberto@the-bac.edu.

University of Oklahoma

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A dream course team of Architecture and Interior Design students from the College of Architecture and Visual Communications students from the School of Art and History presented their ideas for a new development in Norman. The semester long project focused on creating easier movement between the University of Oklahoma campus and the city of Norman, which the campus calls home. The dream course was led by Associate Professor of Architecture Hans Butzer, Assistant Professor of Interior Design Janet Biddick, and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs at the School of Art and Art History Karen Hayes-Thumann. Read more. 

Meagan Vandecar, a student in OU’s Urban Design studio in Tulsa, is working with the Institute for Quality Communities and Urban Design Studio Director Shawn Schaefer to improve rural communities in Oklahoma. Learn more on her student blog.

A student team in the Division of Landscape Architecture, led by Associate Professor Dr. Reid Coffman, was recognized as a finalist in the International Waterworks Parkitecture Design Competition. See their project.

Inspired by Oklahoma’s own scissor tail, the SkyDance Bridge designed by a collaborative team co-directed by Associate Professor of Architecture Hans Butzer is beginning to take shape in downtown Oklahoma City. See photo below.

University of Kentucky

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Professor Richard S. Levine has recently retired from teaching after 46 years at the School of Architecture at the University of Kentucky. From early in his architectural career, Prof. Levine has been a pioneer and advocate for sustainability-oriented architecture. He has over 200 publications on solar energy and sustainable cities and has done sustainable city research and projects in Italy, Austria, China, the Middle East as well as in Kentucky.

He is now devoting his energies to his architectural and urban design practice at the Center for Sustainable Cities Design Studio (CSC Design Studio). Dick Levine’s practice in design has encompassed such areas as structural systems, hospitals, design process, solar oriented architecture and sustainable cities. In the mid ‘70’s his widely published Raven Run Solar Home was the first to incorporate active and passive solar, super insulation, earth tubes, composting toilets, attached greenhouse, and many other integrated features in a single project. The patented active air collectors developed in that project are part of one of the most efficient and least expensive solar collection and storage systems ever devised.

The Hooker Building in Niagara Falls, NY (1978) for which Levine was energy and design consultant, was projected to consume 88% less energy than that of a conventional office building and received the Owens-Corning Energy Conservation Award. Thirteen years later, Norman Foster reproduced Hooker’s double glass wall with its computer operated aluminum louvers in an office building in Duisburg, Germany, sparking a transformation in Europe of energy efficient commercial buildings whose design strategies are now being emulated in the US.

In the mid 1980’s, Prof. Levine, along with his colleague Ernest J. Yanarella, started the Center for Sustainable Cities (CSC) at the University of Kentucky, to advance the theory and practice of sustainability. In 1994 Levine became the principal author of the European Charter of Cities and Towns Towards Sustainability (the Aalborg Charter), the main vehicle in Europe for carrying out the Local Agenda 21 provisions of the Rio Earth Charter (1992). He also gave the keynote address at the Charter ratification conference.

Partnering with Dr. Heidi Dumreicher, director of Oikodrom: the Vienna Institute for Urban Sustainability, the CSC focused on the city-region as the appropriate scale at which homeostatic relationships between social, environmental and economic issues could be realistically pursued to become the exemplar for the proliferation of sustainability throughout the globe. This was a pivotal determination that would lead to the formulation of the first Operational Definition of Sustainability. In the early 1990’s, the CSC and Oikodrom partnered to work on a series of three commissioned designs for a Sustainable City-as-a-Hill to be built over the Westbahnhof rail-yard in Vienna, Austria. Using Levine’s patented Coupled-Pan Space-Frame (CPSF) structural system as the city’s underlying structural framework a rich, diverse and sustainability driven urban fabric was developed.  Late in his life Lou Kahn had visited an early test of the CPSF and commented, “You should build a museum around it.” The City-as-a-Hill urban form, the Sustainable Urban Implantation, the Partnerland Principle, the Sustainable Area Budget, the Operational Definition of Sustainability, the Multiple, Participatory, Alternative Scenario-Building Process and other sustainable urban design principles were elaborated and integrated in the Westbahnhof project and continue to be studied and expanded upon today.

From 2002-2005, Prof. Levine worked on the European Commission sponsored SUCCESS project which developed sustainable future scenarios for rural villages in six Chinese provinces. This was followed by two successive EC projects focused on the renewal of the Islamic bath house (Hammam) tradition in six Mediterranean countries with the intention of developing and enhancing empowered, sustainable, civil society processes. In 2005, the CSC Design Studio (CSCDS) was formed as an extension of the CSC and Prof. Levine’s private architectural practice. In 2007, the CSCDS, headed by Prof. Levine, organized a system-dynamics modeling seminar in Fez, Morocco. This was part of the ongoing development of the “Sustainable City Game™”, the Sustainability Engine™, and the SCIM (Sustainable City Information Modeling) process.

As a recognition of his leadership and lifetime of work, in 2010 the American Solar Energy Society awarded Dick Levine its “Passive Solar Pioneer” award.  Levine is currently engaged in the design and construction of a number of low cost, zero net energy houses using the passive house standard.  His research and publications continue including his just published book with Ernest J. Yanarella titled, “The City as Fulcrum of Global Sustainability,” (Anthem Press, 2011). His web site is: www.centerforsustainablecities.com.

 

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