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2015 ACSA Board Candidates

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Online Voting
Below is information on the 2015 ACSA election, including candidate information. Official ballots were emailed to all full-member ACSA schools’ Faculty Councilors, who are the the voting representatives. Faculty Councilors must complete the online ballot by close of business, February 10, 2015.

2015 ACSA PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
The President-Elect will serve on the Board for a three-year term, beginning on July 1, 2015, with the first year served as Vice President, the second year served as President, and the third year served as Past President. The links below include campaign statements written by each candidate and short curriculum vitae.


Bruce Lindsey, AIA, Washington University in St. Louis


Kate Schwennsen, FAIA, Clemson University

 


2015 ACSA TREASURER CANDIDATES
The Treasurer serves for a two-year term, beginning on July 1, 2015. The links below include campaign statements written by each candidate and short curriculum vitae.


Christopher Jarrett, University of North Carolina at Charlotte


Rashida Ng, Temple University

 


2015 ACSA Regional Director Candidates
The Regional Director will serve on the Board for a three-year term, beginning on July 1, 2015. Regional Directors serve as leaders of their regional constituent associations and chair meetings of their respective regional councils. They maintain regional records and have responsibility for the fiscal affairs of the constituent associations, and are accountable to their regional council for these funds. They provide assistance to regional schools and organizations applying for institutional membership. They prepare annual reports of regional activities for publication in the Association’s Annual Report. They participate in the nomination and election of their respective succeeding regional directors; and perform such other duties as may be assigned by the board, Regional Directors also sit on the ACSA board and are required to attend up to three board meetings a year. The links below include campaign statements written by each candidate and short curriculum vitae.

 

2015 GULF DIRECTOR CANDIDATES


Elizabeth Martin-Malikian, Southern Polytechnic State University


Scott L. Ruff, Tulane University


2015 WEST CENTRAL DIRECTOR CANDIDATES


Nadia M. Anderson, Iowa State University


Daniel Butko, University of Oklahoma

 


ACSA Election Process
ACSA Bylaws, Article IX, Section 3: Election Process: “Elections shall be held in accordance with the Rules of the Board of Directors. Faculty Councilors of member schools shall be responsible for encouraging colleagues to express their views regarding candidates for Association elections, and shall submit the vote of the member school they represent on behalf of all members of the faculty. The Association shall announce the results of elections and appointments as soon as feasible, consistent with the Rules of the Board of Directors”.

The Faculty Councilor from each ACSA full-member school is the voting representative. Faculty Councilors must complete the online ballot by close of business, February 10, 2015.

 

2015 ACSA Board Election Timeline

January 9, 2015
Ballots emailed to all Full-member Schools, Faculty Councilors
February 10, 2015
Deadline for receipt of ballots in ACSA office
March 2015
Winners announced at ACSA Annual Business Meeting in Toronto

 

The Faculty Councilor from each ACSA full-member school is the voting representative and must completed the online ballot by close of business, February 10, 2015.


Contact
Eric Ellis, ACSA Director of Operations and Programs
phone: 202.785.2324
email: eellis@acsa-arch.org

 

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

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The Department of Architecture welcomes Robert Alexander to join the faculty as an Assistant Professor Design and Digital Instruction. Robert Alexander, principal of BobCat Studio received his bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Cal Poly Pomona in 2001. In 2005 he received his Masters in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. In addition to his professional experience on a wide variety of projects with the architecture firms Rafael Vinoly Architects, Behnisch Architekten, and Daly Genik. In 2008, Mr. Alexander won the Cavin Fellowship and received the Boston Society of Architect’s Rotch Scholarship in 2013, which started his current research on the urban effects of large-scale incomplete building projects in Europe.

Associate Professor and Chair, Sarah Lorenzen recently co-curated the widely acclaimed Competing Utopias exhibit at the Neutra VDL House

Professors Lauren Weiss Bricker and Luis Hoyos have contributed articles to the forthcoming catalog Barton Myers: Works of Architecture and Urbanism, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name on view at the Art, Architecture & Design Museum, UCSB from September 12-December 12, 2014. Professor Bricker has also written “Civic and Educational ‘Architecture As Environmental Expression,’” which will be included in the catalog accompanying the exhibition An Eloquent Modernist: E. Stewart Williams, Architect, the inaugural exhibition of the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion; the exhibition November 9, 2014-February 22, 2015.

Professor Hofu Wu, recently presented  “Outside Forces – Academic Perspective” to showcase the status of the Cal Poly Pomona Healthcare Initiative from the students innovative researches and designs at the American College of Healthcare Architects (ACHA) California Health facility Forum in Oakland, CA.

Associate Professor Pablo La Roche recently published an article in the journal Energy and Buildings entitled Comfort and Energy in Smart Green Roofs.  He also presented papers at three recent conferences including the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference, and two papers the World Sustainable Building Conference SB14.  He has presented eight recent lectures including, the American Solar Energy Society National Conference ASES 2014, the Society of Building Science Educators Annual Retreat, the Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja, Madrid, the Practica y Enseñanza de la Arquitectura en California International Workshop Sustainability in the Built Environment, Seville, Spain, and the Façade Tectonics Conference at the University of Southern California.  He is the current President of SBSE, the Society of Building Science Educators.

Associate Professor Michael Fox recently presented a paper at the 2014 ACADIA, (Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture) conference on the Eco-29 project which is a fully interactive kinetic event Hall in Israel. He also wrote the preface to the conference proceedings and is the current president of the Organization.   He recently authored a chapter in the book  “Building Dynamics”, by Routledge Press, edited by Branko Kolarevic and Vera Parlac.  He also contributed to the book, “Space Architecture: The New Frontier for Design Research” edited by Neil Leach,by AD. He authored a chapter in the journal PAJ 109 on Performance and Architecture, edited by Chris Perry and Catheryn Dwyre.

Associate Professor Juintow Lin recently led an attempt to revitalize the California State Parks system, where 12 Cal Poly Pomona graduate architecture students took on the challenge of redesigning a modern cabin and succeeded. The California Parks Forward Commission is making an effort to reach out to students for creative and innovative ideas, as younger generations are not visiting state parks. The students began their project in spring 2014. The timing was just right for the project because of available funding. The Resources Legacy Fund, a consortium of major foundations in California, funded the project. The 150-square-foot cabin is made from recycled and prefabricated elements. It includes a full-sized bed, a bunk bed, and a bench that can accommodate four people.  High triangular windows, French doors, and a sloped roof allows for maximum light to enter the cabin.  The first prototype was constructed in 4 days in a factory in Phoenix AZ, by CAVCO.

Lecturer Barry Milofsky was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to the  Cultural Heritage Commission of the City of Los Angeles,  the five-member commission that considers nominations of sites as City Historic-Cultural Monuments (designated City landmarks) and reviews proposed project work affecting more than 1000 existing Historic-Cultural Monuments. The Commission also serves as the city’s primary forum for the discussion of historic preservation policy. Recommendations of the Cultural Heritage Commission are forwarded to the City Council for their final action. The Cultural Heritage Ordinance also gives the Commission the authority to temporarily delay alteration or demolition of historically significant structures until a proper review can be completed.

Lecturer Katrin Terstegen is a Designer and Project Manager with Johnston Marklee & Associates in Los Angeles, where she recently completed “Various Small Fires”, an art gallery in Hollywood, as well as the “Vault House” in Oxnard.

Lecturer Jose Herrasti’s firm MUTUO is currently working on a 5 acre park in the Coachella Valley in collaboration with KDI, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of low cost, high impact environments that improve the physical, economic, and social quality of life of under-served communities. MUTUO has also been working with a developer in El Paso, TX to transform an area of dilapidated buildings into a thriving community. They are also beginning construction of a three single family development in the Hollywood Hills and a residence in Cordoba, Mexico.

 

University of Southern California

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Dr. David Gerber, Alvin Huang and Jose Sanchez, all Assistant Professors of Architecture at the USC School of Architecture recently co-chaired ACADIA 2014 | Design Agency, ACADIA’s annual conference at USC. 

Dr. Gerber published and co-edited a book Titled “Paradigms in Computing | Making Machines and Models for Design Agency in Architecture” with eVolo and ACTAR-D. He was also the first multiple recipient of Autodesk’s competitive IDEA studio research grant. Dr. Gerber is a current editor of two leading design and computing research journals Simulation and the International Journal of Architecture and Computing. Dr. Gerber was the chair of this years’ Simulation in Architecture and Urban design Symposium. Dr. Gerber has published his research this year in eCAADe, CAADRIA, ACADIA, SimAUD and numerous journals including Energy and Buildings, Automation and Construction, and Design Studies as well as been the editor of the proceedings for SimAUD and ACADIA. Dr. Gerber’s Parametric Design course at USC has won research and teaching support from Dassault Systems (3DS).

AIA Los Angeles (AIA|LA) announced the 2014 Design Awards winners on Wednesday evening, October 29, 2014.  The annual AIA Los Angeles Design Awards honor excellence in work built by Los Angeles architects (Design Awards) as well as work by Los Angeles designers as yet unbuilt (Next LA Awards). In both the Design and Next LA categories.  among the USC Architecture faculty winning awards for built work were Lawrence Scarpa, Lorcan O’Herlihy, Warren Techentin and Alvin Huang:  

Lawrence Scarpa (Brooks+Scarpa) for PICO PLACE, a 36-unit affordable housing project in Santa Monica for very low income tenants. The jury appreciated the idea of a certain responsiveness of the overall mass. “The project is cohesive but it has a lot of complexity. There’s an impression of openness from the street-side. Trade of tightness to achieve spaciousness within the public was a challenge.”

Lorcan O’Herlihy for the Edison Language Academy.  “The moves of this project are the right moves – said the jury. It’s a simple diagram, it could have been boring, but it adhered to its own principals and articulated in those pieces. It’s hard to do. The designers have created value within limited resources. Very clear ideas organize the whole and make it really easy to understand.” 

Warren Techentin for his project “La Cage aux Folles.” Located in the Materials & Applications courtyard exhibition gallery La Cage aux Folles explored the craft of pipe bending and joined form, computational procedures, and fabrication processes in the making of a 17 foot high structure which encouraged informal use and programming throughout its exhibition. This project is in collaboration with USC professor and structural engineer, Anders Carlson.  “It’s very original, sophisticated, and elegant project,” said the jury. “It’s very clever. It’s a wonderful folly. It’s magic.”

Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design+ Architecture won an award for unbuilt work for theDaegu Gosan Pulic Library. “The jury applauded this design for challenging the conventions of library typology. It is a very comprehensive and  resolute idea, both formally and spatially. The plasticity of the project allows it to reconfigure itself into a terrain for books. The projects articulates a library in the 21st century to accommodate books, data and a variety of elements – and figures out a way to make it seamless and useful.” 

In October, the Italian state television network RAI’s documentary on Lucrezia Borgia was televised, for which Prof. Diane Ghirardo was the historian of record. The documentary in part based upon  Prof. Ghirardo’s research, addresses Borgia’s entrepreneurial and reclamation activities in 16th century Italy, among other topics.  The Portuguese architectural publication, Arqa, published an article by Prof. Ghirardo on the restoration of Modern Movement architecture in the June 2014 issue, and also in 2014, the Polish architectural journal RecyklingIdee. Pismo spotecznie zaangazowane translated and published her essay on Manfredo Tafuri, which originally appeared in Perspecta in 2001. Her edited volume, Aldo Rossi’s Municipio a Borgoricco was published in November 2014 by the town of Borgoricco. 

Professors Goetz Schierle, Karen Kensek and Douglas Noble are preparing a book on tensile fabric structures co-edited with other USC faculty.

Hraztan Zeitlian received the  AIA California Council Presidential Citation Award on 10/23/2014, for having helped “ . . . confirm the architects’ role and responsibility to society on a larger scale. Your dedication on behalf of the architectural profession, and the future of design is deeply appreciated and recognized.”

Lecturer Andy Ku and his Los Angeles-based firm, OCDC have recently been commissioned to design a 3D printed housing prototype for a Hong Kong-based, consumer goods design and development company. In August, OCDC opened its first satellite office in Hong Kong. 

Lecturer Geoffrey von Oeyen is organizing a major event titled “Performative Composites: Sailing Architecture” at the USC School of Architecture on November 3 + 4. Through workshops, panel discussions, and an exhibition that includes the design of Greg Lynn’s new trimaran and the hydrofoil from an America’s Cup catamaran, this event explores how new materials and techniques in sailing, particularly carbon fiber composites, allow for designers to reconsider the multiplicity of spatial, formal, and environmental forces in architecture in important new ways. Presenters and panelists include Greg Lynn, Bill Kreysler, Bill Pearson, Kurt Jordan, Fred Courouble, Lynn Bowser, Bruno Belmont, Neil Smith, and Rick Pauer.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang and his firm Synthesis Design + Architecture were awarded an AIA|LA NextLA Design Award for their Daegu Public Library Proposal at the annual AIA Los Angles Design Awards on October 29, 2014. Additionally, a 1/2 scale prototype of their Durotaxis Chair, a multi-material 3D printed chair that gradiates from soft to rigid was exhibited at the recent ACADIA Design Agency Conference at USC and has been featured in numerous publications including Dezeen, 3D Printing Industry, Inside 3D Printing, TCT Magazine, and others. Three additional projects (Chelsea Workspace, Daegu Public Library, and Pure Tension Pavilion) were also included in the peer-reviewed ACADIA exhibition, as well as the publication and presentation of a peer-reviewed paper entitled “Nearly Minimal: Intuition, Analysis, and Information.”

Eric Haas, Adjunct Associate Professor, presented his paper “Do We Have to Stick to the Script? : Cities, Surveying and Descripting” at the Mediated City Conference held at Woodbury University in October. Haas’s firm DSH was recently named a finalist in the Spark > Spaces 2014 Design Awards for the Larchmont Charter Lafayette Park school. The firm is beginning work on renovating a 1953 Neutra & Alexander building for use as a preschool.

Jose Sanchez has recently co-chaired Acadia 2014 Conference ‘Design Agency’, with speakers including Zaha Hadid, Will Wright and Casey Reas. In the event, he exhibited ‘Polyomino’, a 3d printed piece sponsored by Stratasys as part of the ‘From gaming to making’ research, connecting gaming technology with the maker movement.  Jose will be speaking in Autodesk University in Vegas in a panel dedicated to the future of technology and the integration of gaming in the world of design.

Christopher Warren, and his office, WORD, received an AIA|LA 2014 Design Merit Award for A.P.C. Melrose Place, an adaptive re-use project built for the French fashion label’s Los Angeles flagship store – in collaboration with A.P.C. New York and Laurent Deroo Architecte, Paris.

Douglas Noble and Karen Kensek received the AEP Educator Award from the California Council of the AIA. 

Assistant Professor Alison Hirsch will be lecturing on her recent book, City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America (University of Minnesota, 2014), at the Graham Foundation in Chicago on December 4th (6pm). The event will also serve as a book launch and signing.  

Ken Breisch has been named as Co-chair of a Task Force to Develop Guidelines for Evaluating Digital Art and Architectural History Scholarship for Promotion and Tenure.  This study is co-sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians and the College Art Association and has been funded with a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

University of Southern California

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The USC School of Architecture faculty Alvin Huang, Jose Sanchez, and David Gerber hosted and chaired this years’ ACADIA annual conference entitled Design Agency. The event was the most widely attended in history with 545 participants including, students, professionals, and academics from every continent. The conference peer review accepted 74 papers and 50 projects from a very competitive pool. The event had keynote and awardee lectures including Zaha Hadid, Casey Reas (UCLA), Will Wright (of SimCity fame), Neil Gershenfeld (MIT) Nancy Cheng (UofO), Jenny Sabin (Cornell), and Marc Fornes. During the week of events 10 workshops were supported by NBBJ, SOM, Zaha Hadid Architects, Woods Baggot, Autodesk, Formlabs, Marc Fornes, Roland Snooks,and Robots in Architecture. The conference included an exhibition in part sponsored by Stratasys with an amazing collection of 3D prints on display including works from Alvin Huang, Jose Sanchez, and David Gerber. The event culminated with a day long Hackathon lead by Jose Sanchez.

University of Southern California

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Aroussiak Gabrielian presented her research, Mediated Visions: The City Re-Imag(in)ed, at the Mediated City Conference which took place in Los Angeles in early October.  Her paper from the conference was selected for publication in the peer reviewed Journal of Architecture, Media, Politics and Society.  Student work from Aroussiak’s Spring semester landscape studio, Transient Topographies, was exhibited at the Writers Bootcamp Gallery at Bergamont Station in Santa Monica in mid-October.  Aroussiak also served as a facilitator at the 5D Worldbuilding Institute’s, Spaces of Fiction Conference, which took place at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she is currently an Annenberg Fellow and Ph.D candidate. 

Jennifer Siegal, Adjunct Associate Professor, gave a GoogleTechTalk and exhibited the AERO-Mobile (a moveable retail environment made of up-cycled parts discarded by the aerospace industry) at Google Los Angeles. Commissioned by the Kaneko museum in Omaha, NE as part of the Truck-A-Tecture exhibition, the project was exhibited at Theatrum Mundi “Designing for Free Speech” in NYC and “To Be Destroyed” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto.

Vittoria Di Palma has been invited to give a talk on the subject of her new book, Wasteland, A History (Yale: 2014) at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, as part of the Cambridge Talks IX conference, “Inscriptions of Power: Spaces, Institutions, and Crisis,” which will be held from April 2-3, 2015.  http://cambridgetalks2015.wordpress.com/ 

Drawings and models by Lorcan O’Herlihy have been added to the Carnegie Museum of Art’s permanent collection.  They will be exhibited in early 2015 as part of Sketch to Structure.  This exhibit unfolds the architectural design process to show how buildings take shape. With sketches, plans, blueprints, renderings, and models from the Heinz Architectural Center collection, this exhibition reveals that architectural design, from initial concept to client presentation, isn’t straightforward. Beautiful hand-drawn sketches by Lorcan O’Herlihy show an architect quickly capturing ideas about shapes and color. Pencil drawings of the Los Angeles County Hall of Records by Richard Neutra show a master draftsman at work. And watercolors by Steven Holl of a client’s home render in beautiful detail, on a single sheet of paper, the planned building’s exterior, floor plan, and elevation.

Erik Mar has been designing the new 15,000 sf South Whittier Library since April; it’s targeting LEED Platinum and is now in Plan Check. He will start on the new 7,000 sf Los Nietos Library in November. Both are for the LA County Public Library, and are 2 out of the 3 all new libraries funded by Supervisor Knabe’s $45 million project: Operation Libraries. http://knabe.com/issues/operation-libraries/#.VE0heoeBndk 

On October 9, Ted Bosley moderated a workshop entitled “Authenticity in the Age of Sustainability” at the annual international historic house museum conference (DEMHIST), held this year in Compiegne, France. Attending were colleagues from the National Trust (UK), the European Association of Royal Residences (ARRE), and numerous historic sites around the world.

Neil Leach has recently published an issue of Architectural Design on Space Architecture, together with two papers for the 2014 Acadia conference. He is currently on leave from USC as a Visiting Professor at Harvard GSD.

Texas A&M University

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Professors Xuemei Zhu, Kevin Glowacki, Gabriel Esquival, and Sarah Deyong, have been promoted to Associate Professors with Tenure at A&M University.

Dr. Xuemei Zhu teaches in the Department of Architecture. She is a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M University. Her scholarship investigates the impacts of built environment on public health, environmental sustainability, and social equity, with a specific focus on healthy community and healthcare design. She received 13 competitive research grants ($1,006,285 in total) as a PI or Co-PI, from organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She also produced 19 journal articles, two book chapters, six conference papers, and 25 conference presentations. Her teaching centers on the theme of environment-behavior relationships, and strengthens the link between environment-behavior research and design practice.

Dr. Kevin Glowacki teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in art and architectural history. He received his Ph.D in Classical and Near Eastern archaeology from Bryn Mawr College in 1991. His research investigates domestic architecture, household activities, and urban development on the island of Crete. His publications include STEGA: The Archaeology of Houses and Households in Ancient Crete (American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Princeton 2011) and Kavousi IIB: The Late Minoan IIIC Settlement at Vronda. The Buildings on the Periphery (INSTAP Academic Press: Philadelphia 2012). He is currently a member of an international team excavating the ancient Minoan city of Gournia in eastern Crete.  At Texas A&M, Dr. Glowacki is also a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Heritage Conservation. He is the recipient of the Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Archaeological Institute of America.

Professor Esquivel Gabriel joined Texas A&M University in 2008. He investigates the benefits and vehicles of a heterogeneous model that integrates both design technology and architecture’s proprietary devices. Specifically, Professor Esquivel examines digital geometry and the emergence of new material logics. He also examines the integration of digital techniques and analogue conventions to exchange architectural information. His research oscillates between fabrication techniques, performance and parametric investigations directly linked to the fabricated pieces, as well as the theoretical background behind these fabricated objects. These projects have been discussed on papers from SMI and Acadia from the parametric point of view as well as theory-based publications like Thresholds from MIT. He is a promoter of new ideas in architecture. has produced and organized conferences in Mexico City, such as Azul Rey, Elegantech, Ab Intra and Blurring Limits.

Dr. Sarah Deyong joined Texas A&M University in 2007 and received her doctorate at Princeton University in 2008.  She teaches history & theory and design studio, and her research focuses on postwar and contemporary theories and practices. Her papers on topics such as Sigfried Giedion, Team X, High Tech, Colin Rowe and Urban Think-Tank have been published in the JAE, the JSAH, Praxis, Flip Your Field (ACSA), Theory By Design (University of Antwerp), the Journal of Architecture, A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture and The Changing of the Avant-Garde (MoMA). She was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation and a fellowship from the Glasscock Center of Humanities Research. Her current book project is titled The Reinvention of Modern Architecture at Mid-Century.

Texas A&M University

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Dr. Valerian Miranda, head of the College of Architecture’s CRS Center for Leadership & Management in the Design & Construction Industry, architecture and environmental design students conducted a programming effort for the design of the new Veterinary Medicine Education Complex at Texas A&M University. The project’s architectural program includes the general direction the design of a building should take by first learning what the client’s goals and needs are. The new Veterinary Medicine Education Complex will be of 300,000 square-feet and cost $120 million USD. “Now we will have a building that truly matches the excellence of our faculty and students,” said Eleanor Green, dean of veterinary medicine, during the April 29, 2014 groundbreaking at the site of the Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Education Complex, which is scheduled for completion in 2016.

University of Arizona

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Associate Dean Mary Hardin received two awards from AIA Southern Arizona in a December, 2013 awards ceremony. She received an Honor Award for the “Split House”, a low-cost residence designed and constructed in Tucson with her design-build studio in 2011-12. The residence is a hybrid of rammed earth and frame construction, designed to conserve energy by the strategic placement of thermal mass walls, framed walls with apertures, and roof overhangs. The residence also employs a roof water collection system to reduce water use for the landscaping around it. It was purchased by a low-income family in June, 2012. She also received a Merit Award for the “Barrio Rowhouse”, her own courtyard residence built on an infill lot near downtown Tucson. For both projects, Hardin served as architect and contractor.

Lecturer Luis Ibarra and Adjunct Lecturer Teresa Rosano, AIA LEED AP, of Ibarra Rosano Design Architects have won Best of Houzz 2014 for design. They designed three of the “12 Desert Buildings Raising Arizona’s Architectural Profile” on Architizer’s blog: http://architizer.com/blog/desert-homes/  The Levin Residence, one of the three projects, was featured on ArchDaily and HGTV’s Extreme Homes.

Design Intelligence has named Lecturer Michael Kothke one of 30 most admired educators for 2014. 

Adjunct Lecturer Teresa Rosano was a speaker at the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit in October 2013.

Sustainable City Project director and Architecture department faculty member Dr. Linda C. Samuels has been awarded a $60,000 grant from the University of Arizona’s Renewable Energy Network. These funds support her interdisciplinary urban design studio and ongoing research focused on the I-11 SuperCorridor connecting Las Vegas to Nogales. This studio is working collaboratively with studios on the same topic at UNLV (under Ken Mccown, Director of UNLV’s downtown design center) and ASU (under Jason Boyer of Gensler Architects, Phoenix). An additional $70,000 has been awarded to the i11 SuperCorridor studio and research work by the Walton Sustainable Solutions initiative at the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU. 

Assistant professor Chris Trumble’s paper, titled “An Introductory Pedagogy of Sustainable Structures for Architecture Students” has been accepted for publication and presentation at the 2014 Sustainable Structures Symposium at Portland State University, April 17-18. His paper titled “Bus Shelter Prototypes in the Sonoran Desert” has been accepted for publication in the July 2014 Special Issue of the Journal of Architecture and Planning (JAP) of King Saud University on “Sustainability in Hot Arid Regions”. 

Chris Trumble has been awarded a $24,000 public art commission for the City of Tempe, Arizona. He was initially selected as the Public Artist for the University Drive Streetscape Project. The commission has since been transferred to the El Paso Gas Line Multi-use Path Project. 

Four of Chris Trumble’s projects have been accepted for presentation and exhibition at the 2014 ACSA Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, April 10-12: “Research + Application | Bus Shelter Prototypes for the Sonoran Desert” (Design Research in the Studio Context),  “What’s in a Bus Shelter?” (Urbanism), “Interstitial Installation | Site Specific Furniture as an Architectural Microcosm”  (Architecture in an Expanded Field), and “Wood Cantilevers” (Materials). 

Chris Trumble has been named an executive board member on the “Thinking While Doing” grant, a $2.48m endeavor led by Ted Cavanagh of Dalhousie University, sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; other board members include Ted Cavanagh and Arlene Oak (University of Alberta). The grant is dedicated to studying best practices in educational design build. Chris has also been named director of the design build Exchange (dbX), an initiative to facilitate the exchange of information, knowledge, and practices critical to educational design build endeavors in North America.  Members of dbX include Ted Cavanagh, Geoff Gjertson (University of Louisiana Lafayette), Patrick Harrop (University of Manitoba), Greg Snyder (University of North Carolina Charlotte), and Stephen Verderber (University of Toronto).  The dbX will be holding a working session at the ACSA Annual Meeting.

In collaboration with Coastal Studio led by Ted Cavanagh of Dalhousie University, Chris Trumble is directing a design build studio delivering a 4000sf gridshell dining hall for the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, near Canning, Nova Scotia.

Beth Weinstein, Associate Professor, has been appointed the new Master of Architecture Program Chair.  In relation to her research on Theater and Performance Design, Prof. Weinstein will participate in the July 2014 Performance Studies International Conference, at the Shanghai Theater Academy. With Dr Dorita Hannah (Aalto University, Finland) she will be spearheading PSi’s new Performance+Design working group and holding that group’s first panel session and workshop. In addition she will present a paper, “UN|DISCIPLINED,” on her research into interdisciplinary collaborations that push the boundaries of and critique disciplinary border, and in late July she will participate in the 2014 World Congress of the International Federation for Theater Research (IFTR-FIRT), held at the University of Warwick (July 28-August 1). Her presentation will address “Bringing Performativity into Architectural Pedagogy.”

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.

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