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University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Instructors Emily Andersen and Geoff DeOld of DeOld Andersen Architecture are among five design teams selected from more than 50 applicants to develop a conceptual design for an urban community space for the “Green in the City” competition. DAA is partnered with Project for Public Spaces of New York City.

Professor Rumiko Handa’s article “Sen no Rikyu and the Japanese Way of Tea: Ethics and Aesthetics of the Everyday,” appeared in Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture 4, no. 3 (November 2013), out from Bloomsbury Journals. Dr. Handa gave a lecture, “Architecture as Nature: Japanese Ways of Understanding Artifacts,” at the University of Manitoba in November, drawing from the research she conducted in Japan and at the University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies.

This past spring Professor Mark Hoistad was named an adjunct faculty member at both Chongqing University and Xi’An Jiaotong University in China where he taught seminars on urban theory. This fall, he was invited to deliver keynote addresses at three conferences at Chinese Universities. The first at the Third International Symposium on Architectural Heritage Preservation and Sustainable Development at Tianjin University, “Balancing Continuity and Change: Preservation and Sustainability at the Macro Scale.” This talk situated a conceptual master plan Professor Hoistad recently completed with his Chinese research partner, Professor Chen Yang, in the contemporary circumstance of Xi’An at the site of a former Han Dynasty palace. The second address, “Changing Focus: Teaching Architectural History in a time of Rapid Change and Complexity,” was delivered at the 2013 International Symposium on Teaching and Research of Architectural History at Chongqing University. The third presentation, “Resilience follows the Rule of More than One,” was delivered at a joint workshop, Resilience in Human Settlements sponsored by Chongqing University, University of Sheffield (UK), Cardiff University (UK), Kobe University (Japan) and Kyushu University (Japan). In addition this fall, Professor Hoistad with his Chinese partner, developed a conceptual master plan for a heritage park at the archeological site of Qin Dynasty palace at the Qinghan new town.

Assistant Professor Brian M. Kelly has two projects selected as finalists for a national design award through the Interior Design Educators Council and is invited to present the work at the annual conference in New Orleans, LA.

Professor Jeffrey L. Day served as design awards jury chair for AIA Northern Colorado and presented a lecture at the chapter’s November, 2013 conference in Boulder. Day’s firm Min | Day won 2 awards in the 2013 AIA Nebraska design awards program: a Merit Award for Unbuilt work for the Community CROPS Food Center and Merit Award for the Stones Table in the Details category. The Stones Table also won a Citation Award in September 2013 in the AIA San Francisco chapter’s Constructed Realities design awards program, In November Professor Day served as a juror in phase one of the “Green In The City” design competition and in December, he served as a visiting critic at The Design School at Arizona State University.

University of Minnesota

Associate Professor, Ozayr Saloojee (in collaboration with Vincent DeBritto, Jamuna Golden and Cynthia Lapp in Landscape Architecture) received $31,250 in grants from three separate agencies (The Institute on the Environment, The Imagine Fund and the Institute for Advanced Study) at the University of Minnesota for their interdisciplinary multi-year M.Arch/MLA graduate research design studio and community initiative titled “Design Duluth.” The project investigates the design and engagement of complex systems at large and small scales using the port city of Duluth, Minnesota as a local laboratory to test global issues. The initiative is a collaboration of the School of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, the City of Duluth, private and public stakeholders and several NGOs. In addition, the project was designated a Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study, and will develop transdisciplinary coursework, reading seminars, faculty and student masterclasses through a series of public lectures and academic and curricular programming.

Professor Saloojee (with visiting faculty Brad Agee, Landscape Architecture) lead the College of Design’s inaugural semester abroad program to Rome and Istanbul and participated in the opening of the University of Minnesota’s and College of Design’s Istanbul Center, located in the vibrant Beyo_lu district of Istanbul. The program hosted 12 undergraduate students from Architecture and Landscape Architecture from January through May and will be offered again in the Spring of 2014.

Thomas Fishser, Dean and Professor of Architecture, appeared in the PBS show, 10 Buildings that Changed America. He also wrote several pieces about design and education in the Huffington Post and several articles on past P/A Award winning projects for Architect magazine, as well as a peer-reviewed essay on “Creating Public Value” for the Public Administration Review. He gave a talk, as well, at the U.S. Department of Transportation on fracture-critical infrastructure, based on his new book Designing to Avoid Disaster (Routledge, 2012).

Professor Ignacio San Martin, Dayton Hudson Chair of Urban Design programs and Director of the Metropolitan Design Center, was awarded with the prestigious University of Minnesota President’s Community Research Scholar Award for his work in the Twin Cities metropolitan region.

John Comazzi, Associate Professor and Director of the BS Degree Program (Architecture), recently spoke on the subject of his book Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography, at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), during an event co-sponsored by the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Knoll Furniture, a2modern, and the AIA. He also delivered a paper at a recent symposium organized by the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. The symposium was organized around the theme of “Visual Culture and the Archive” and was held in honor of Francis X. Blouin’s 32 years as Library Director. Professor Comazzi’s paper, “Balthazar Korab: Anticipating the Archive” focused on his extensive research on the Balthazar Korab archive, prior to its acquisition by the Library of Congress in 2011. Comazzi was also recently awarded a grant through the Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry & Scholarship Program administered through the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Minnesota. His grant, entitled, “The Miller House: A Model for Collaborative Design” will fund archival research in preparation of a manuscript on the unique collaborations formed around the design and construction of the Miller House in Columbus, IN.

In May and June of 2013, Professor Comazzi will lead a group of 10 undergraduate students (8 architecture, 1 landscape architecture, and 1 interiors), on a program abroad in Florence, Italy. The program will explore the development of the city’s urban morphology, building typologies, and landscapes, in a hands-on active learning experience.

Clemson University

March 17, 2014/in School News Conferences, Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

Clemson School of Architecture Celebrates Centennial with Symposium on “The Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization”

CLEMSON, SC— Clemson University’s School of Architecture will celebrate its 100^th year of architectural education with a symposium on the timely subject of “The Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization” on Friday, October 18, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Lee Hall.

Speakers include noted architectural historian-theorists Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, and award-winning, Southeast-based practitioners and educators Marlon Blackwell, Merrill Elam, and Frank Harmon.

Since its founding in 1913, architectural education at Clemson has sought a balance between service to the state of South Carolina and connections to the wider world. Exemplifying this tradition, founder Rudolph “Pop” Lee (1874-1959)—namesake of Clemson’s award-winning Lee Hall—studied engineering at Clemson Agricultural College, a land grant school, but was trained in architecture at Cornell and University of Pennsylvania.

Since then, Clemson’s architecture program has been mindful of the connections between the local and the global, creating a “Fluid Campus” including full-time study centers in the cities of Charleston, SC, Genoa, Italy, and Barcelona, Spain. This geographical approach defined the centennial theme, “Southern Roots + Global Reach.”

The subject of regionalism in architecture has a long history, yet remains timely. Recently, “critical regionalism”—a term coined by symposium keynote speakers Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in 1981—was the theme of the August edition of the American Institute of Architects’ magazine Architect.

As Tzonis and Lefaivre noted in their recent book, Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization: Peaks and Valleys in the Flat World (2012), regionalism is a “never ending challenge” that has become increasingly significant for architects and regional cultures in an increasingly “flat” and interconnected world.

In the symposium, Tzonis and Lefaivre’s global and historical perspective will be complimented by talks from award-winning architects and educators Marlon Blackwell, Merrill Elam, and Frank Harmon. All based in the Southeast, their experiences have been influenced by familiar engagements with local and global cultures, and uniquely fluid geographies and careers.

The symposium, to be followed by a Beaux Arts Ball, marks the fourth and final major event of the school’s centennial year. In March, Clemson celebrated the 40^th anniversary of the Charles E. Daniel Center for Building Research and Urban Studies in Genoa. In May, the school celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston. And in August, the school celebrated the 45^th anniversary of its Architecture + Health Program.

The symposium webpage can be found at http://www.clemson.edu/caah/architecture/celebration/symposium.html.

The event is free, but registration is requested at https://secure.touchnet.net/C20569_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=30&SINGLESTORE=true.

Contacts:

Kate Schwennsen, FAIA
Chair of the Clemson University School of Architecture
Email: kschwen@clemson.edu
Phone: 864-656-3895

Peter L. Laurence, PhD, Director of Graduate Studies
Email: plauren@clemson.edu
Phone: 864-656-1499

Media Contact:
Jeannie Davis
Email: eugenia@clemson.edu
Phone: 864-656-1821

University of Arkansas

March 17, 2014/in School News Southwest Region /by Matrix Admin

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center (UACDC), in partnership with the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corporation (DLRDC), received a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to prepare a Neighborhood Revitalization Plan for the Pettaway Neighborhood in downtown Little Rock. The grant is one of approximately 20 to 25 grants typically scheduled in the NEA’s annual Access to Artistic Excellence program emphasizing preservation of cultural and historic districts. Planning work will take approximately 10 months and begin this summer.

In the spirit of the Obama administration’s livable communities initiative, the Pettaway revitalization plan will combine urban redevelopment with affordable housing and public transit planning. The plan will incorporate “low impact development” watershed management featuring green streets that link underutilized parks with new pocket parks, drainage corridors, community gardens, recreation, and pedestrian plazas. A Regulating Street Plan will address transit development patterns in anticipation of a streetcar transit line connecting Pettaway with the downtown business district. A land-use plan will feature pocket neighborhoods with diverse, affordable housing types and mixed uses. The revitalization plan will use townscaping principles with public art to link existing and new neighborhood fabrics that create imagable places within the Pettaway neighborhood.

For the second year, the school partnered with a Little Rock group to design and build an affordable, sustainable home for the historic Pettaway neighborhood. The result is a two-story, 1,000-square-foot, cantilevered home.

Students started the fall semester creating designs in pairs, under the direction of Mark Wise, Visiting Professor. They narrowed those six down to three options – the core, the curtain, and the cantilever designs – that they presented to the community. The cantilever concept won them over, with its two rectangles, stacked and perpendicularly rotated. “It was probably the most exciting and the most kind of conceptually clear design,” Wise said. With four students returning from last year’s project, this house was also a departure from that design. Students built the two modules in a warehouse in south Fayetteville and, in May, shipped them to Little Rock, to finish working on the house.

The house will go on the market for purchase through a continued collaboration with the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp. This collaboration on design build homes, expected to continue for the next several years, is intended to help revitalize this neighborhood, which was struck by a 1999 tornado.

The size of the lot — about 40 by 100 — required a compact design to fit the house and onsite parking. The house has two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, with an open living, dining and kitchen area downstairs, with a half-bath. Over time, the yellow hue of the cypress rainscreen will weather into a subtle silver, resembling an old barn. To carry the weight of the cantilever — 18 1/2 feet on the front and 11 feet on the back — the long, north and south walls of the top level are big steel trusses. Porches are created in the front and back, expanding the amount of livable space from the small interior footprint. The north wall on the top level is made of Polygal, a translucent polycarbonate material. They wanted this for its insulation value, cost and look. The translucent wall exposes the truss required for the cantilever.

This optional studio is a uniquely holistic educational experience for students, Wise said. “They have a better understanding of the whole process — from design to doing drawings to building it. And the more they know about how things go together, the better they can put things together.” In this program, students also interact with and learn to have empathy for professionals connected to architecture. They realize the importance of clear drawings, as well as timelines, budgets, and being able to adapt when issues arise during the construction process.

Washington State University

March 17, 2014/in School News West Region /by Matrix Admin

An interdisciplinary student team from Washington State University won first place in the Design-Build division of the 24^th annual Associated Schools of Construction Regional Student Competition, held in Sparks, Nevada on February 19, 2011. The team, which competed against nine other universities, was coached by Associate Professor David Gunderson and included Construction Management students Adam Heffner, Taylor DeGrande, Michaela Ripley, Jason Nanni and Jordan Meehan; and architecture students Shane Fagan and Stephanie Severance. In sixteen hours the team developed a design-build proposal for a Behavioral and Social Sciences Building on a university campus. The problem sponsor and judge, Swinerton Construction, has built the 88,000 square foot facility at Humbolt State University in California.

Associate professor Ayad Rahmani chaired a panel on “Art and Architecture” in the conference “Civility and Democracy” held at Washington State University Spokane, March 3-5, 2011. Other panels addressed history, religion, philosophy and communication. Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the conference hosted distinguished scholars including Ed Feiner (Perkins and Will and former GSA chief architect), Joan Ockman (University of Pennsylvania), Alan Plattus (Yale University), and Witold Rybczynski (University of Pennsylvania).

Associate Professor Matthew A Cohen co-organized the international conference “Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture” at Leiden University, March 17-19, 2011. Presenters included Howard Burns (keynote), Jean-Louis Cohen and Marvin Trachtenberg. The conference marked the 60th anniversary of a conference on proportional systems organized by Le Corbusier and Rudolf Wittkower in Milan in 1951. In the opening lecture Cohen argued for a new understanding of proportional systems as narrative structures unrelated to architectural aesthetics. His conference interview with architectural historian James S. Ackerman, who participated in the 1951 conference, is available at:

http://www.hum.leiden.edu/icd/proportion-conference.

Professors Paul Hirzel and Gregory Kessler, and Associate Professor Matthew A. Cohen, led a study tour to Portugal in March 2011 for the upper-level graduate studios from Pullman and Spokane. The tour focused on modern architecture and urbanism in Lisbon, Sintra and Porto, including works by Alvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura.

Professor Bashir A. Kazimee completed his edited book Heritage and Sustainability in the Islamic Built Environment, forthcoming by the WIT Press. The book explores heritage and sustainability in the Islamic built environment.

Debora Ascher Barnstone has been promoted to Professor of Architecture. Dr. Ascher-Barnstone has contributed the chapter “Transparency in Divided Berlin: The Palace of the Republic,” to Berlin Divided City 1945-1989, edited by Sabine Hake and Philip Broadbent, published by Berghahn, 2010. She also contributed the chapter “Tales from the East: Food, Drink and Art Patronage in Inter-war Breslau,” to Ezelsoren, Winter 2011.

Second-year undergraduate students of Associate Professor Robert Barnstone have launched a website envisioning an “Electric Highway” across the United States. Developed in collaboration with the Green IT Alliance, it includes designs for highway facilities and power generation for cities. The project is inspired by a current Department of Transportation initiative to make the I-5 corridor the nation’s first electric highway. See: http://electrichighwaywsu.blogspot.com/.

Catholic University of America

March 17, 2014/in School News Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

The School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America will be presenting the lecture: “NY MASJID: THE MOSQUES OF NEW YORK AND THE PROBLEM OF SPIRITUAL SPACE” by Dr. Jerrilynn D. Dodds.

There are over 100 mosques in New York City, spaces that range from converted storefronts to high profile free standing buildings designed by name architects. They offer us a chance to understand the ambivalent relationship between design, prayer space and our notion of sacred space in the construction of the mosque, and to chart the interaction between culture, religion and identity in New York City.

Dr. Jerrilynn Dodds is a Professor and Dean of the College at Sarah Lawrence College, where she works on issues of artistic interchange -in particular among Christians, Jews, and Muslims- and how groups form identities through art and architecture. She has a special interest in the arts of Spain and the history of architecture. Dr. Dodds is the author of Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, and NY Masjid: The Mosques of New York. She is also the co-author of Arts of Intimacy: Christians Jews and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture and many other publications. Dr. Dodds completed a BA at Barnard College and a MA and PhD at Harvard University.

The lecture will be at the Koubek Auditorium, Crough Center for Architectural Studies, The Catholic University of America, 620 Michigan Ave. N.E. Washington D.C. All are welcome.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

March 17, 2014/in School News Mid Atlantic Region /by Matrix Admin

The College of Architecture and Urban Studies has appointed Associate Professor William Galloway to be the new Director of the School of Architecture + Design beginning with the academic year 2011/12. The director of the School of Architecture + Design is the chief executive administrator and oversees the academic programs of architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture. The School of Architecture + Design enrolls approximately 1200 students who are guided in their inquiries by about 80 faculty members. The school offers eight different professional and post-professional bachelor, master, and doctorate programs. Galloway, a graduate of the University of Florida and Virginia Tech, has been teaching at Virginia Tech since 1988. From 1998 to 2003, Galloway was the chair of the graduate architecture program.

University at Buffalo

March 17, 2014/in School News Northeast Region /by Matrix Admin

University at Buffalo Professor of Architecture and director of UB’s Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDeA Center), Edward Steinfeld, co-chaired The International Conference on Best Practices in Universal Design with his son, Aaron Steinfeld, a systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, and Peter Blanck, chair of Syracuse University’s Burton Blatt Institute. This was one of six conferences that took place in Toronto between June 5 and June 8 as part of the 2011 Festival of International Conferences on Caregiving, Disability, Aging and Technology (FICCDAT). The three-day universal design conference covered subjects including housing and home modifications, along with public building, community environments and public transportation. Steinfeld and Kate Seelman of the University of Pittsburgh gave the opening keynote based on “Enabling Environments”, their chapter in the recently released World Health Organization’s World Report on Disability. Beth Tauke, Associate Professor of Architecture at the University at Buffalo, presented “Bridging the Gap: Using Architecture & Social Justice to Increase Access to UD” and the “Universal Design Identity Program”, as well as two poster sessions including “The LIFEhouse™: A Sense-ible Home for ALL of Life” and Finding a New Lockwood: Multi-sensory wayfinding in a university library”.

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis participated in the International Architecture Festival Eme 3 in Barcelona from July 1 to July 3. They exhibited their project “Selective Insulation,” gave a lecture and took part in a debate about “sustainability vs. greenwashing.” For more information:
http://eme3.org/index.php?/program-eme320/program/
http://eme3.org/index.php?/eme32011/participants2011/. “Selective Insulation was also published in “ARCHITECTURE LOW COST, LOW TECH,” Actes Sud, 2011, and in “Inventario” 02.

Prof. Rafailidis also published “Cafe Culture in an Era of Precarious Employment,” by Tonya Davidson and Georg Rafailidis in Canadian Dimension Volume 45, Issue 2 May/June 2011. And Stephanie Davidson is also participating in the 63rd Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY from July 24 to September 25.

Dr. Jean La Marche conducted a graduate studio in the Material Culture Group in the spring term. Students designed and constructed four towers at Griffis Sculpture Park in western New York. The 1^st year students also designed and built their final semester project, the “Living Wall,” at Griffis Park: http://www.griffispark.org.

Dennis Maher completed a new installation at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts as part of the Pittsburgh Biennial. The Biennial is a collaboration between the PCA, the Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum, and the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon: http://biennial.pittsburgharts.org/. Prof. Maher has also been selected to be the next Artist-in-Residence at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. His forthcoming project, “The Real and the Unreal House,” will open at the Albright Knox in 2013.

Robert Garlow, a graduate student in the Material Culture Group, was one of seven finalists in Art Park, New York sculpture competition.

MJ Carroll, a graduate student in the Inclusive Design Group, won the 2011 AIA New York State Student Award.

Southern California Institute of Architecture

March 17, 2014/in School News West Region /by Matrix Admin

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) today announced it has elected two new members to join its Board of Trustees: Ted Tanner, Executive Vice President, Real Estate Development for AEG Worldwide, and Russell Goings, a veteran LA-based investment banker and Senior Vice President at Hutchinson Shockey Erley & Co. The 22-member SCI-Arc Board is chaired by land-use attorney Jerry Neuman, who stated that “as our school has grown into and is recognized as a world class institution, it is vital that our Board reflect that prominence and both Tanner and Goings bring that level of sophistication to a growing stellar Board.” The SCI-Arc Board includes noted individuals such as Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne and Kevin Ratner. The trustees unanimously elected the two new members during their quarterly meeting held June 15 on the school’s recently acquired campus in downtown Los Angeles.

“Ted is re-imagining downtown and Russ is re-making the central city—two perfect fits that confirm SCI-Arc’s commitment to the future of Los Angeles as the city of the future,” said SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss.

A noted developer and registered architect, Ted Tanner oversees AEG’s real estate development activities worldwide, including major projects in Los Angeles, London, Berlin and most recently in Asia and Brazil. He has attained more than 30 years of development experience in downtown Los Angeles, as well as 10 prior years working as an architect and a Philadelphia city planner. With AEG, Tanner was responsible for acquiring, entitling and master planning the 40 acres surrounding Staples Center, and for the past 3 years, he has been leading the development of the L.A. Live—a 4-million square foot sports, residential and entertainment development project in downtown Los Angeles valued at more than $2.5 billion—which includes the world-class Nokia Theatre, more than 600,000-square-foot of office space, broadcast studios, restaurants, the Grammy Museum, and the 14-screen Regal Cinema flagship. His team has recently completed the $1 billion 54-story, 1,001-room hotel operated by JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, as well as 224 luxury Ritz-Carlton Residences. Tanner also managed development of AEG’s Home Depot Center at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, California, the Nokia Theatre Times Square in New York City and formulated plans for soccer stadiums in Bridgeview, Chicago and Harrison, New Jersey. Internationally, he led the development of the O2 Arena and Entertainment District in London—and is now undertaking plans for Phase 2 of the O2, as well as the master planning of a new entertainment destination adjacent to the O2 World Arena in Berlin.

Russell L. Goings, III is a veteran of the securities industry, with more than 25 years spent in California public finance. He has transaction experience with a wide range of financing vehicles, including taxable general obligation bonds, benefit assessment bonds, special tax obligations, certificates of participation, industrial development bonds, tax allocation bonds and tax-exempt commercial paper. His investment banking clients have included: the State of California; the cities of Los Angeles, Stockton, Fresno, Compton, Oakland, Richmond, Long Beach, Inglewood and Carson; the counties of Sacramento, San Diego, Contra Costa and Los Angeles; and political subdivisions such as the San Diego Unified Port District, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and World Port of Los Angeles. He is the former president of I.C. Rideau Securities, as well as of LP Charles & Goings, Inc. In addition, he also worked as an investment banker for Lazard Freres & Co., First Southwest Company, First Albany Capital and Cabrera Capital Markets. Goings served on the Mayor’s World Port of Los Angeles Futures Commercial Task Force and is the former Chairman of the Public Finance Subcommittee for Rebuild L.A. He presently serves as a Board Member for the Inner City Education Foundation which operates several charter schools in the City of Los Angeles and is the former Board President of the Watts-Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club.

Texas A&M University

March 17, 2014/in School News Southwest Region /by Matrix Admin

A new book featuring 100 of the world’s most outstanding examples of environmentally-friendly architecture opens with an introduction from sustainability expert Pliny Fisk, a professor at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture. Fisk is also co-director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin, a nonprofit education, research and demonstration organization specializing in life cycle planning and design.

During a session at the west coast’s biggest annual design event at the Los Angeles Convention Center June 24-26, participants heard Peter Lang, associate professor of architecture at Texas A&M, discussed his students’ efforts to improve a Texas border community through a partnership with its residents as well as their development of survival objects for people who find themselves in a situation with very limited resources. Lang spoke at the Dwell on Design conference, curated by the editors of Dwell Magazine, which featured more than 70 presentations and 300 exhibitors from around the world; it included Lang’s session, at which six presenters were chosen from a bevy of applicants to showcase projects that, organizers said, were “provocative takes on what design can do to better the world.”

Lang’s students developed durable shoes out of duct tape, a method to start a fire using a soda can, a 9-volt battery and a brillo pad, a sanitizer made from a pizza box, foil and a black tray, a wheelchair made of pieces of a shopping cart, chair, a bicycle or other devices, and more. He spoke at a conference session sponsored by Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit design services firm looking to build a more sustainable future through professional design.

For outstanding teaching and research-based contributions to their respective disciplines, 10 Texas A&M College of Architecture faculty members have earned promotions. Charles Culp and Kirk Hamilton earned promotions to professors of architecture. New associate professors with tenure are Cecilia Giusti in urban planning, Weiling He in architecture, Sarel Lavy in construction science, Shannon van Zandt in urban planning and Wei Yan in architecture. Anne Nichols was promoted to associate professor of the practice in architecture; new senior lecturers are Kimberly Carlson in construction science and Shelley Holliday in architecture.

Charles Culp’s interests include technology education, involving students in research, combining architecture with affordable technology to achieve high performance residential and commercial buildings, measurement and verification technology, airflow technology and human comfort in building spaces.

Kirk Hamilton is interested in evidence-based design for healthcare and the relationship of facility design to organizational performance. He co-authored his latest book, “Design for Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Approach,” with Mardelle Shepley, professor and architecture and director of the university’s Center for Health Systems & Design, where he is a faculty Fellow.

Weiling He, a faculty member since 2005, researches design theory with particular focuses on translations across different forms of art, formal descriptions of space, metaphors of making, diagramming and visual thinking.

Sarel Lavy is interested in facilities management in the health care and education sectors, construction engineering, maintenance, performance, life cycle costs techniques, and quantitative methods in facilities management. He’s been a member of the Department of Construction Science faculty since 2005.

Shannon van Zandt’s areas of interest include housing policy, sustainable community development and social vulnerability following disasters. Her research examines ways to improve neighborhood stability and produce positive outcomes for households, particularly those with lower incomes. She joined the landscape architecture and urban planning faculty in 2005.

Wei Yan, a architecture faculty member since 2005, is interested in design computing, visualization, building technologies, building information modeling and applications of computer graphics and computer vision in design.

Anne Nichols’ scholarly interests include masonry and concrete materials, computer modeling and fracture mechanics. She joined the construction science faculty in 2002.

Kimberly Carlson, a member of the construction science faculty since 2002, is interested in energy efficiency in residential construction, mechanical systems and materials and methods.

Shelley Holliday’s areas of interest include structural steel, bridging the architecture/engineering gap, and interdisciplinary design. She’s taught architecture at Texas A&M since 2000.

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