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University of Texas at Arlington

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Landscape Architecture students from the University of Texas at Arlington were among the winners of the recently announced Texas ASLA Student Awards for 2011.  The award winners were officially announced at the Texas Chapter of ASLA 2011 State Conference in Galveston, April 27-29, 2011.  Winning entries were also displayed during the conference.

The award winners from UT Arlington were:

  • Overall Winner (Highest Recognition) in Analysis & Planning Category.  Environmental Planning Studio IV Group Project: “Alliance, Texas: Environmental Inventory, Analysis, Planning, Vision”  Recipient Team: Susan Alford, Alexandra Leister, Cuiyan Mei, Yao Lin, Nakjune Seong, Chia-Yin Wu, Sara Kuehn, Yunhui Zhou, with contributions by graduated team member Rhonda Fields.
  • Honor Award Winner (Second Highest Recognition) in Design Category. Urban Landscape/Design Studio V Individual Project: “Re-inventing Junius Heights”.  Recipient: Nakjune Seong.

Both of the projects receiving awards were undertaken by landscape architecture studios at UT Arlington taught by Dr. Taner R. Ozdil as community partnership projects.  The Overall Winner in the Analysis & Planning Category, the Alliance Group Project, was developed in Studio 4 Environmental Planning, in partnership with the Hillwood Development Company. The Re-inventing Junius Heights Project, selected as the Honor Award Winner in the Design Category, was developed in Studio 5 Urban Design and Landscape Studio in partnership with Junius Heights Neighborhood Association.

The mission of the American Society of Landscape Architects is to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.

University of Texas at Austin

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Hal Box [B.Arch. ’50], former dean of the School of Architecture and professor emeritus, received dual honors from The University of Texas at Austin on April 8.

While attending a reception in the newly named “Eden & Hal Box Courtyard” at Goldsmith Hall, the influential scholar was informed he had been named dean emeritus, a title held by only a handful of individuals at the university.

Dean Fritz Steiner’s latest book, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, was released this month by University of Texas Press.

On April 1, 2011, Dr. Nancy Kwallek, director of the UTSOA Interior Design Program and the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Interior Design, was honored by her alma mater, Kent State University, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her career of interior design teaching, research, and service. The event took place at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative during a Senior Interior Design Exhibition and Awards Ceremony under the auspices of Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Assistant Professor in Architecture Michael Leighton Beaman and former materials lab curator Zaneta Hong’s non-profit design firm <http://gacollaborative.org/>General Architecture Collaborative (GAC) is sponsoring and curating Art = Relief, an exhibit and benefit for Japanese relief efforts. The exhibit is being held at Columbia University’s Studio X in New York. Over thirty acclaimed and emerging artists and designers have generously donated their work to contribute to the relief effort in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the country on March 11, 2011.

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture, presented a lecture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, on April 17, 2011, on the subject of “Judging Architecture.”

Larry Speck, W. L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor in Architecture, is featured on the university’s KNOW website as part of the series of features about the humanities written by professors from across campus. <http://www.utexas.edu/know/2011/04/11/humanities_speck/>Speck writes on “Confessions of a Biography Junkie.”

University of Arkansas

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Community Design Center Receives National Award 

A plan that uses modern techniques to revitalize a historic neighborhood in Benton earned the University of Arkansas Community Design Center a 2011 Residential Architect Design Award. 

The Community Design Center received a Merit Award in the On the Boards category for the Ralph Bunche Neighborhood Vision Plan. 

Forty projects were selected out of 824 entries for recognition in the magazine’s 12th annual design awards competition. This is the most comprehensive housing design awards program in the country, according to the magazine’s website. 

Across 15 categories, this year’s jury selected one Project of the Year award, 10 Grand awards and 29 Merit awards. Full coverage of the winning projects will appear in the March/April issue of Residential Architect and at www.residentialarchitect.com. 

This Merit Award is the second Residential Architect design award earned by the Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture. 

The Community Design Center worked for the first time with the Central Arkansas Development Council, whose main goal is to “build prosperity in low-income communities,” said Steve Luoni, center director. The plan focused on a 100-plus-year-old black neighborhood in Benton, a town of about 29,000 people located about 25 miles southwest of Little Rock. Just south of downtown Benton, the neighborhood occupies a prominent hill with views of downtown. 

“The neighborhood has an internal coherence and is in a beautiful geography, but it suffers from disinvestment. New generations have not recharged the neighborhood,” Luoni said. The longtime residents want their children and grandchildren to move back into the neighborhood. The center attempts to provide a guide for such revitalization, with a redevelopment plan that could spark reinvestment and home ownership. 

The plan uses concepts presented in the Community Design Center’s Low Impact Development design manual, published in 2010, to address infrastructure issues. Based on an already active street culture, the plan intensifies places for assembly and congregation, both formal and informal. “People here know one another. They’ve known one another for a long, long time,” Luoni said. 

The neighborhood is named for Ralph Bunche, a diplomat and educator from Detroit. In 1950, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in Palestine – becoming the first person of color to be honored with the prize. He was later involved in the formation of the United Nations and was awarded the Medal of Freedom from President John F. Kennedy in 1963. 

Though social connectors such as churches and a park remain, small businesses gradually disappeared. In part, this plan aims to revitalize the community with that neighborhood feel. The Residential Architect design awards program recognizes different market grades of houses, with designs that solve for different social issues, Luoni said. This conceptual neighborhood plan could win an award in the same contest that rewards an elaborate built project. 

“I appreciate the fact that the awards celebrate the different ways that housing solves for different social issues and accommodates different markets,” he said. “It’s not simply rewarding the preciousness of a design. It’s about the robustness of solutions.” 

Faculty News 

Steve Luoni, Director of the UA Community Design Center, has been promoted to Distinguished Professor effective July 1, 2011. Luoni currently holds the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies. His design and research have won more than 50 design awards, including Progressive Architecture Awards, American Institute of Architects Honors Awards, a Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism, and American Society of Landscape Architecture Awards, all for planning and urban design. 

His work at UACDC specializes in interdisciplinary public works projects combining landscape, urban and architectural design. 

Places Magazine recently published an in-depth profile of UACDC, which kicks off their year-long series profiling community design centers. The article and project images can be accessed at http://places.designobserver.com/ 

Luoni’s work has also been published in Oz, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Architect, Places, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’ hui, Progressive Planning and Public Art Review. 

Mark Boyer, Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture, has been promoted to Professor effective July 1, 2011. Boyer joined the School of Architecture faculty in 1998 

and teaches courses on landscape architecture construction materials and technologies, ecological design studios, and an interdisciplinary course related to alternative stormwater management techniques. His research focuses on green roofs and other sustainable stormwater management technologies. 

His students have designed and constructed a wetlands observation deck, and an Environmental Center boat dock in Fayetteville and assisted in the installation of two green roofs on the University of Arkansas campus. 

Boyer was part of the interdisciplinary University of Arkansas team that designed Habitat Trails, a sustainable neighborhood for the Benton County chapter of Habitat for Humanity. The project has won seven major awards, including a national Honor Award in Analysis and Planning from the ASLA. 

Marlon Blackwell, Head of the Architecture department (and of Marlon Blackwell Architect served as a juror for two architectural competitions this spring. He was one of five Fellows of the American Institute of Architecture who participated in the 2011 Residential Architect design awards program. Blackwell was the Chair of a six person panel, made up of three librarians and three architects, who juried the 2011 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards. 

Tulane University

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Tulane School of Architecture is pleased to announce the appointment of John H. Stubbs as Senior Professor of Architectural Preservation Practice and Director of the Master of Preservation Studies program in the Tulane School of Architecture.

Stubbs served as Vice President for Field Projects at the World Monuments Fund in New York where he directed scores of projects across the world and was instrumental in the establishing WMF’s famed Watch List of endangered sites program. He holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Science in Construction Technology from LSU, and attained post-graduate training as a UNESCO Fellow at the International Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome.

John Stubbs began his career as a Historical Architect for the Technical Preservation Services Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. 1978. He later served as Assistant Director of Historic Preservation Projects at Beyer Blinder Belle in New York, and as a Trustee of the Archaeological Institute of America. He is a founding board member of the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation to which he was also named its chairman in 2008. He has lectured widely throughout his career and published Time Honored; A Global View of Architectural Conservation; Parameters, Theory and Evolution of an Ethos in 2009. It was followed in 2011 by a sequel (co-authored by Emily G. MakaÅ¡) entitled Architectural Conservation in Europe and the Americas; National Experiences and Practice. A final volume documenting best practices in architectural conservation in the remaining continents of the world is planned for 2014. A native of Louisiana, John Stubbs’ field experiences began in the 1970’s working as a surveyor on archaeological excavations in Italy and Egypt.

Nathan Petty and Sheena A. Garcia have been appointed Lecturers at the Tulane University School of Architecture starting in Fall 2011. Petty will be joining the faculty from the office of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Garcia will be joining the faculty from the office of Bernard Tschumi Architects. Petty and Garcia collaborate on design projects under the name NPSAG, co-founded in 2008 after receiving their Master of Architecture degrees with distinction from Princeton University. NPSAG actively seeks new design opportunities in the integration of radical architectural form and program with emerging technology and cultural speculation.

The Tulane School of Architecture is proud to announce the successful launch of a new Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development Program. It has been in session with the first class of 18 enthusiastic students since July 2011. The program emphasizes “regenerative” real estate development.  It is built on a foundation rooted in the value of design excellence and the ethic of preserving cultural resources, while empowering students to participate in the development and design fields with the skills needed to address contemporary challenges and opportunities in cities.

Professor Ellen Weiss, Ph.D. delivered a lecture on Robert R. Taylor, the first academically trained African American architect at a symposium honoring the new Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science at Tuskegee University. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s senior advisor and Taylor’s great granddaughter, was the keynote speaker. Professor Weiss’ book, Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee, An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington, will be published by New South Press in fall 2011.

NewSchool of Architecture and Design

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NewSchool of Architecture and Design (NSAD) has named Linda Sellheim, an educator with vast experience in creating game art and design curricula, as the new chair of its Digital Media Arts program, effective July 1, 2013. Sellheim will lead the development of NSAD’s global digital design opportunities through its collaboration with the award-winning Media Design School (MDS) in Auckland, New Zealand, starting with an enhanced curriculum in interactive design and graphic design.

MDS is New Zealand’s most-honored higher-education institute for its digital and creative technology qualifications and is recognized around the world for its outstanding digital arts programs, particularly in the areas of animation, interactive media, game development and design. Students in NSAD’s Digital Media Arts program will have the chance to study in New Zealand and obtain a certificate through MDS, specializing in either graphic design or interactive design, beginning in the 2013–2014 academic year.

“We are thrilled to have Linda Sellheim join NewSchool as we develop exciting new programs for students interested in digital media arts,” said NSAD President Steve Altman. “Her extensive knowledge of game art and design curricula and professional practice will be a huge asset to the campus community as we expand our offerings in global design education.”

NSAD’s Digital Media Arts program, which started in 2008, will benefit from Sellheim’s leadership and the university’s continued collaboration with MDS, whose students and faculty members have collected more than 250 awards over the past decade. NSAD is exploring additional new program possibilities in collaboration with MDS with the goal of helping students develop in-demand skills in specialties such as game art, game programming and animation. 

Sellheim has broad experience in the digital arts industry as well as academia. She worked in Autodesk’s Entertainment division as a curriculum development manager and later as an education product manager. Her academic experience includes serving as academic director at The Art Institute of California’s San Diego and Orange County campuses. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego; California State University, Fullerton; University of California, Irvine; the Fashion Institute of Design & Manufacturing and the Academy of Art University. She earned an MFA in Visual Arts/Games and New Media from California State University, Fullerton, and a BFA in Illustration from the Art Center College of Design. She is a member of the International Game Developers Association, the Association for Computing Machinery and Women in Games International.

NSAD’s Digital Media Arts program is currently offering scholarships for the 2013–2014 school year through the “Cut It Out” collage design competition.  

 

Washington University in St. Louis

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The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis honored eight outstanding architecture and art alumni at its fourth annual Awards for Distinction dinner April 28. 

The awards recognize graduates who have demonstrated creativity, innovation, leadership and vision through their contributions to the practices of art, architecture and design, as well as to Washington University and the Sam Fox School.

Distinguished alumni for 2011 are Marshall Brown (BA’95) of Chicago; Richard Brown (MFA ’75) of Norwell, Mass.; Rodney Henmi, FAIA, NOMA (MAUD ’83) of Emeryville, Calif.; and Meg Fish Saligman (BFA ’87) of Philadelphia.

In addition, Susan T. Morgan, AIA, LEED AP (BS ’01) of Cambridge, Mass., and Ebony G. Patterson(MFA ’06) of Lexington, Ky., and Kingston, Jamaica, will receive the 2011 Young Alumni Award.

Raymond Nadaskay, AIA (BArch ’62) of Mendham, N.J., will receive the Distinguished Service Award. Cynthia Weese, FAIA (BS ‘62/BArch ’65) of Chicago will receive the Dean’s Medal.

University of Houston

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Another Win for UHGBC (Green Building Components)
Joe Meppelink, Adjunct Assistant Professor + Director of Applied Research
Andrew Vrana, Visiting Assistant Professor + Research Assistant Professor

UHGBC’s SPACE team has won another competition sponsored by the ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) – the Second Responderscompetition!  See link:
http://www.archive100.org/users/m45/project/554?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4dcd6468ae59fcd8,0

Architecture of the Object 2011, Design Entrepreneurialism
Cord Bowen, Adjunct Assistant Professor

This semester the students designed container-like objects that support the design process. In short, the objective of the class was to create a business plan around the production and sale of  product. The students had a $200 budget with the requirement to complete a run of 10 objects or more. Peel Gallery (Steven Hempel) is a sponsor for the project and will be hosting an opening on May 26th from 6-8pm, 4411 Montrose Blvd.  The products will remain at Peel for a few weeks. 

Please enjoy the flickr gallery link below. 
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjuPj5A9

 2011 Michael G. Meyers Student Design & Scholarship Competition

April 29, 2011 Awards Celebration
AIA Houston and The Architecture Center Foundation announced winning students and student teams of the 2011 Michael G. Meyers Student Design & Scholarship Competition at the awards ceremony. Among the awards was $7500 in scholarships for the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture’s Summer Discovery Program. Details of the program description and competition guidelines, jurors, awards, sponsors and more can be found on the AIA Houston website at http://www.aiahouston.org/mgmc. To learn more about the Summer Discovery Program visit http://www.arch.uh.edu/special/summerdiscovery/index.php .

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

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Associate Professor Markus Breitschmid, Ph.D., S.I.A., Chair of the Core Professional Bachelor of Architecture Program, has edited the text for the book publication “Olgiati”. The volume is published by Birkhäuser Publishers in Basel in 2012. Besides the English edition, there are editions in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese. Breitschmid was also invited to moderate the event “Architettare: Tradition & I”, a discussion on architecture among internationally active architects, by the Organizzazione Studenti Accademia of the Accademia di Architecttura at the Universita della Svizzera Italiana, held on May 31, 2012.

Assistant Professor Aki Ishida has been awarded Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership Education Grant to design an interactive installation reinterpreting Japanese lantern festivals for the AIA Blue Ridge chapter’s design award exhibit on September 14, 2012. The project is designed in collaboration with the Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology at Virginia Tech. 

Kansas State University

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Esteemed Professor Peter Magyar has stepped down as Department Head at Kansas State University’s College of Architecture, Planning & Design after four years of service. He will dedicate his efforts towards his life-long passions of teaching and design research as a member of the architecture faculty. Magyar has been elected as a full member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He has also published the book THINKINK, by Kendall Hunt Publishers. Magyar also was appointed as advisor in the graduate program of the Dessau Institute of Architecture, at the Bauhaus, Germany. At the 11th International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organizations, in Madrid, Spain, Magyar presented a workshop “SPACEPRINTS — An Ontological and Pragmatic Investigation of the Shape of Infinity — Towards a New Paradigm in the Management of Spatial Perception.” Magyar also gave the opening presentation at Borderline Architecture in the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He published two editorials in the e-architect international newsletter, and in April this year he received the first Pro Architectura Hungarica medal from the Association of Hungarian Architects.

Associate Professor Mathew Knox will be serving as Interim Head of the APDesign Department of Architecture while a department head search is underway. 

Assistant Professor Michael McGlynn presented a paper entitled “Blurring Boundaries: Integrated Design, Architectural Technology, and the Beginning Design Student” at the 27th National Conference on the Beginning Design Student held at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, April 1-2, 2011. The paper was also published in the conference proceedings. McGlynn also conducted a teaching workshop at the Society of Building Science Educators Retreat held at Los Poblanos Inn in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 16-17, 2011. The intent of the workshop, “The Horse Before the Cart: Creating Significant Learning Experiences to Deliver Course Content,” was for participants to actively engage in the creation of a variety of significant learning experiences related to teaching architectural technology. The primary outcome of this workshop was the collaborative development of significant learning experiences in support of teaching architectural technology in an integrated manner.

Professor David Seamon published the article, “Gaston Bachelard’s Topoanalysis in the 21st Century: The Lived Reciprocity between Houses and Inhabitants as Portrayed by American Writer Louis Bromfield,” in  Phenomenology 2010, a volume of current phenomenological research edited by philosopher Lester Embree. Seamon presented a paper and co-organized two symposia for the annual meeting of the Environmental Design Research Association, held in Chicago, May 24-28. The first symposium focused on “Phenomenologies of Schools, Cities, and Historic Environments;” Seamon presented the paper, “Jane Jacobs as Phenomenologist: The Lasting Significance of her Understanding of the Urban Lifeworld Fifty Years after Death and Life of Great American Cities.” The second symposium looked at the built work of Kubala Washatko Architects, a Milwaukee design firm that draws on architect Christopher Alexander’s “pattern language” approach to programming and designing. Principal Tom Kubala presented the firm’s 2008 building addition designed for Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1951 First Unitarian Church in Madison, Wisconsin.

Assistant Professor Nathan Howe wrote and presented a paper. “Algorithmic Modeling: Teaching Architecture in Digital Age” at the ACADIA Regional 2011: Parametricism: (SPC) in Lincoln, Nebraska. He also provided a “grasshopper” workshop at the conference for those beginners into the fascinating world of algorithmic modeling. Howe is also finishing an article to be published in the OZ journal titled, “Augmenting Architecture through Algorithmic Modeling.” This summer he will be traveling to Sydney, Australia, to be a part of the opening of the Love:Lace exhibit in the Powerhouse Museum in which Howe’s piece SpiderLACE will be showcased.

This year’s issue of Oz (vol. 33), a student-edited journal, is titled “augment” and examines how the tools designers use affect the objects they make. Oz is working with Monica Ponce de Leon of Office dA, Alan Dunlop, Patrick Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects, and Frank Barkow of Barkow Leibinger Architects. This volume of the journal will feature 10 articles and two interviews, with representation from architects, landscape architects, and interior architects from Kansas City to San Francisco, Berlin, Stockholm and Scotland. 

University of Texas at Austin

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The Latitude 3  conference was held at the UTSOA  March 31-April 1, 2011. The conference organized by Assistant Professor Fernando Lara, included  presentations by Daniel Bonilla, Maurico Rocha, Charles Renfro, Pat Hanson, Patricia Patkau, M auricio Pezo, Sofia Von Ellrichshausen, Monica Bertolino, Carla Juacaba and Carlos Jimnez.
Elizabeth A. Danze, associate professor, School of Architecture; Christopher A. Long, professor, School of Architecture; were named to the University of Texas at Austin Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
The School of Architecture’s Undergraduate Program Prospectus received a CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Gold Award in the category of brochures/flyers/booklets.

Under the guidance of Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Nichole Wiedemann, and with input from Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs Jeanne Crawford and Associate Academic Advisor Garrett Loontjer, the Prospectus was designed by former students Natalia Zieman [B.Arch. ’10], Everett Hollander [B.Arch. ’10], and Danny Saenz [B.Arch. ’09].

On March 9, together with landscape architect and Aga Khan Award winner George Stockton, Hoidn will present a talk addressing the theme “Reclaiming The Land: The Designer as Eco-Regenerator.” The speaker series explores a range of architectural and design practices that are transforming our understanding of “sustainability” within the built environment.

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