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University of Southern California

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Adjunct Associate Professor, Gerdo Aquino, is President of SWA, and Principal at the Los Angeles studio.   Aquino was recently recognized as a Fellow with the American Society of Landscape Architects and was recently awarded the Southern California Chapter ASLA Merit Award for the Anning River project in Panzhihua, China and an ASLA National Honor Award for the book Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA which he co-authored.   He is currently working on one of the largest mixed used projects in Cairo, Egypt, and the Samsung Headquarters in San Jose, California.

Diane Ghirardo‘s new book, Italy. Modern Architectures in Context, has just been published by Reaktion Press in London and Chicago.

With the addition of a high resolution laser and camera scanner Alexander Robinson continues to expand and develop the technological capabilities of his Landscape Morphologies Lab. This technology will allow for the real time analysis and projection of forms generated with the lab’s robotic modeling of landscapes with sand and other mediums. 

Peter Simmonds was in Shenzhen, China with Thom Mayne of Morphosis presenting the Morphosis design for the Hanking Tower Competition which they won, beating some serious competition for this 360m high tower. Simmonds also presented at the faculty Pecca Kucha offering an Engineering perspective of Architecture. He also gave a seminar on designing comfortable spaces at the Southern California ASHRAE technical seminar in Downey.

Ed Woll (Tomko Woll Group Architects Inc) has attended openings for three recently-completed residential developments in the past two months:  Young Burlington apartments near Koreaown, Joveness Houses in East LA and Jill’s Place (permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless women in downtown LA.)  These projects were done in collaboration with USCArch alumna Ena Dubnoff.  In the works are renovation of an existing pool and parking garage for a condominium complex in West LA’s “Million Dollar Mile” and a new housing development for seniors and homeless veterans in Eagle Rock.

Adjunct Professor Veronica G. Galen successfully passed the Lighting Certificate exam and was the lighting designer for various projects that received awards from the AIA/California Council. She has also accepted a position as Secretary of the Illuminating Engineering Society, Los Angeles Chapter (IESLA). 

Lecturer Ying-Yu Hung is Managing Principal of SWA Los Angeles, and co-founder of the Infrastructure Research Initiative (I.R.I.S.).  Hung was recently awarded an ASLA National Honor Award and a Southern California Chapter ASLA Honor Award for the book Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA which she co-authored.  She also received a Southern California Chapter ASLA Award of Excellence for Gubei Pedestrian Promenade.  This project is coincidently featured in the December 2012 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.  She recently won the Pudong Waterfront competition in Shanghai, China, a development of mixed use, open space and  a sculpture park along the Huangpu River.   Hung is currently working on international and local projects which include the Fuyang Urban River Design, a mixed use development project along a riverfront in Fuyang, China and the recently awarded Highland Park Streetscape in Los Angeles, California.    

David Lawrence Gray architects has completed design work for a 92 unit adaptive reuse building at 1111 sunset blvd in downtown Los Angeles.  The 50 year old building was designed by William Pereira. The architects have added two stories to the existing top floor. Construction began on December 1 2012.

Adjunct Professor of Architecture Lorcan O’Herlihy has received several accolades in 2012, including a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award nomination, 5 AIA awards, and Interior Design’s Best of Year Award. Lorcan’s design work will be on view Spring 2013 at the MOCA exhibition, A New Sculpturalism, as well as A+D Museum’s Never Built: Los Angeles.

Erik Mar recently completed the 7200 sf East Rancho Dominguez Library, in Compton, CA. It is the first LEED Platinum rated building owned and operated by the County of Los Angeles. 

John V. Mutlow, FAIA, Professor of Architecture, was honored  by the AIA California Council with a ‘Presidential Citation’ for his service to the profession as Chairman of the AIA Los Angeles Chapter’s Fellows Committee. Professor Mutlow has also won the 2012 Professional Builder magazine Platinum Award for Stovall Villa. He received the Los Angeles Architectural Award for “Housing, Multi-Family” from the Los Angeles Business council for Stovall Villa, a 32 unit affordable senior housing complex in Los Angeles.  Professor Mutlow, in partnership with Tighe Architecture, Inc., received a 2012 Westside Prize from the Westside Urban Forum for The Courtyard at La Brea, a mixed-use affordable housing community for seniors, emancipated youths, and persons with special needs in West Hollywood, CA. Professor Mutlow’s firm, John V. Mutlow Architects, Inc., focuses on affordable housing for the elderly, families and persons with special needs. 

Warren Techentin was recently awarded two AIA, NEXT/LA awards for his work.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Mario Cipresso AIA has been named one of the “Top 20 Under 40” for 2013 by Engineering News Record California.  The award celebrates the excellence of young design and construction professionals who have made significant contributions to the profession at an early stage in their careers.  A feature will be published in the February issue of ENR California.

Lecturer Brian Tichenor has written the introduction for, and contributed to ‘California Casa’ (Rizzoli 2012). His work is featured in the January 2013 edition of Architectural Digest, and in ‘Kelly Wearstler: Rhapsody’ (Rizzoli 2012). His firm, Tichenor and Thorp Architects, is currently bringing to completion a six acre Creative Technology Campus in Culver City, integrating three buildings, interiors, and Landscape Architecture.

“Professors Kyle Konis, Karen Kensek, Joon-ho Choi and Anders Carlson, recently received an award of $15,000 from NCARB to implement their proposal “Performance as a Design Driver: Creating a Framework to Integrate Practitioner Knowledge in the Design Studio.”

Emily Gabel-Luddy, FASLA, instructor for ARCH 536, was elected Vice Mayor of the City of Burbank for 2012-13. This year she presented at the California State Trails Conference, addressing the development and implementation of urban trails, tracing their history in Los Angeles’ neighborhoods.

Professor Schierle’s book Structure and Design is posted on more than 30 websites.  Examples:

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/author/g-g-schierle/

http://www.bookrenter.com/g-g-schierle/textbooks-by

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3310564.G_G_Schierle

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/structure-and-design-g-g-schierle/1015116000

http://www.curee.org/publications/book-1934269379.html

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/search?author=G%20G%20Schierle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books-uk&field-author=G.%20G.%20Schierle

http://www.thenile.com.au/books/GG-Schierle/Structure-and-Design/9781934269374/

http://www.bizrate.com/architecture-books/978868081.html

 

 

University of Southern California

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Michael Hricak, FAIA, has been appointed a Regional Director for the AIA College of Fellows, using his strong ties with the profession and education to promote licensing and participation in the Intern Development Program (IDP).

Heritage conservation program director Trudi Sandmeier curated a tour of ‘70s and ‘80s architecture in Venice, CA as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. programming.  She also recently helped to establish the new docomomo_US/Southern California chapter.

New appointments in Landscape Architecture include Alexander Robinson and Alison Hirsch as tenure track Assistant Professors and Charles Anderson and Aroussiak Gabrielian as visiting faculty.

Landscape Architecture Graduate Student Tina Chee has been named one of four 2013 National Olmsted Scholarship finalists. She earned this honor in 2012 as well and thus has the distinction for both years of her MLA degree program.

DSH // architecture, the firm of Adjunct Associate Professor Eric Haas, received 1st Place for small educational facilities in the Modular Building Institute’s 2013 Awards of Distinction for the St. James’ Preschool.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Valery Augustin, AIA, was a panelist at a symposium titled “Does Architecture Matter?” at the Getty Center. A series of Valery’s drawings were selected for the d3:Sketch exhibition at The Lincoln Center Center Gallery in New York.                                        

Assistant professor Alvin Huang was awarded the 2013 AIA Comittee on Design Scholarship to attend the AIA Regional Modernism Conference in Palm Springs, and the 2013 Dale Taylor Visiting Lectureship at the University of Calgary Faculty of Environmental Design which included an exhibition, a lecture, and a 1 week design/build/fabricate student workshop focused on emergent design technologies.  

Alexander Robinson was recently appointed a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture Program at the University of Southern California. Also, as part of his on-going research on landscape infrastructures, he led a team proposing summer parks in the LA River that is currently a finalist in a $100k grant and ideas competition. 

Tom Marble’s work has appeared in The Architect’s Newspaper, MONU Magazine, LA Times Magazine, and Metropolis; his After the city, this (is how we live) was published by the LA Forum for Architecture & Urban Design in 2008; he led an urban design studio Urban Successionism in Colorado Springs, at Colorado College Spring 2012; and he is at work on The Expediter, a multi-media urban noir to be completed in late 2013.

Adjunct professor Lorcan O’Herlihy’s firm, LOHA, is currently designing housing projects that will serve UCLA and UC Santa Barbara students and faculty. Lorcan has been honored with nominations for the 2013 Marcus Prize in Architecture and the 2013 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, and his past work will feature in spring exhibitions at the A+D Museum and MOCA. In addition to his teaching, Lorcan will lecture this fall at the Otis College of Art and Design, the AIA Arizona State Conference, and the AIA Colorado Design Conference.

Lecturer Scott Uriu‘s work is in the Exhibitions: Never Built, Architecture and Design Museum (A+D Museum), opening July 2013.  Baumgartner + Uriu, (B+U) exhibition, INCITE, Bangalore India, Opening June 8th 2013.  Archilab 2013, FRAC center, Orleans, France, opening September 2013.  Uriu’s work is also included in the Publications: Equalbooks-B+U Frank and Kim residence Peakpack, April 2013, DE Architect– B+U animated Apertures, April 2013, Concept magazine- B+U rethinking the window DNA, April 2013, FUTURE magazine- B+U Keelung harbor Cruise ship terminal competition, April 2013 and B1 magazine– B+U animated Apertures, April 2013.  Uriu’s office has received an Architizer A+ Award February 14th, 2013 for “Animated Apertures” Special Mention in the Architecture +Sustainability category.

Professor G. Goetz Schierle was invited to design fabric structures and teach a seminar at Xian University of Architecture and Technology.

Karen M. Kensek has won the USC Mellon Mentoring Award.  The award is given annually to honor individual faculty for helping build a supportive academic environment at USC through faculty-to-student and faculty-to-faculty mentoring.

Joon-Ho Choi is an Assistant Professor of Building Science. Prior to taking the position, he worked as an assistant professor in the Dept. of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Building Performance and Diagnostics at Carnegie Mellon University.   Dr. Choi’s primary research interests are in the areas of advanced controls for high performance buildings, bio-sensing controls in the built environment, smart building enclosure, passive building strategies, and human-centered building environmental control.  Six research papers have been published in prestigious journals, such as Building and Environment, and Energy and Buildings, based on his work for recent three years. As an interdisciplinary researcher, he has participated in multiple research projects sponsored by governmental agencies, industry partners and research grant programs including General Services Administration (GSA), Boston Society of Architects/AIA, Green Building Alliance (GBA), ALCOA, SIEMENS, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and UNEP. His research outcomes have been published on prestigious international journals including “Building and Environment”, and “Energy and Buildings”. He is currently a technical committee member of American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and is an active member of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality (ISIAQ), and Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA). 

University of Southern California

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The School of Architecture is developing a travel and a public space-public life survey workshop with Oliver Schulze of Gehl Architects for Summer 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and northern Germany, and a fall studio in Los Angeles connected with the workshop.

In early May, Mario Cipresso AIA will be a juror for “Re-Thinking Shanghai 2012: An International Design Competition for a Sustainable Intervention on the Suzhou Creek”.  The announcement of the winners and awards ceremony will take place in Shanghai on May 10, 2012.

Professor Schierle’s book Structure and Design is required reading at six major schools, including Carnegie Mellon University.

Stovall Villa is a 32 unit affordable housing project designed by John Mutlow for low income seniors and completed in July 2011, which has just been selected as a winner in the  ‘Design Housing, Multi-family’ category of the 42nd annual Los Angeles Architectural Awards. The project is designed to reinforce the contextual scale and material conditions of adjacent buildings, to expand and more clearly define an existing courtyard, and to provide a series of social spaces that encourage social interaction by either physically or visually interconnecting the spaces. Sustainability/low energy strategies include building over an existing Parking lot, optimal East/West solar orientation, incorporating metal shading screen on the south elevation with a more dense Trex screen on the West elevation and a connection for the future installation of solar Photovoltaic panels. A very short time schedule was established by the two major funding agencies, HUD and LA City which required the Design, Construction Documents and Building Permit to be completed in one year. 

Dana Bauer, in collaboration with Elysian Landscapes, has been commissioned to design the landscape and public urban spaces for a new mixed use development in Hollywood.  Other current projects include an Elementary School Master Plan, also in Hollywood, and a collection of ‘urban product’ prototypes scheduled to begin production this summer.

John Dutton will give an invited public lecture entitled: “Intersections of Architecture and Urbanism: Fin de Siecle City-Building by Wagner, Berlage, and Saarinen” at the School of Architecture of Notre Dame in April. 

Eui-Sung Yi, Adjunct Associate Professor, is Director of Docomomo Korea and the Director of the Bidding Committee to host the next International Conference in Asia. He is excited to address emerging issues of physical versus heritage conservation and the changing definition of modernism in Asia.

Eric Haas, AIA, Adjunct Assistant Professor, curated “Top Fuel: Funnels,” USC’s design-build workshop, in which Achim Menges of Stuttgart University led students investigating performative pneumatic architecture. “Self Preservation,” an article on Haas’ restoration of R.M. Schindler’s Bubeshko Apartments, was published in Dwell (Feb. 2012).

Gail Peter Borden, Director of the Master of Architecture Programs, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He recently curated and participated in “Material Matters,” a six month installation at the Pacific Design Center and MOCA’s “Design Loves Art program” that had five architects each create five iterative pieces based upon a material logic. Participants included: Gail Peter Borden, Predock/Frane, Jason Payne, Victor Jones and Andrew Atwood. The exhibit is up through the end of summer. In April Borden was named one of Building Design and Construction’s 40 under 40. His third book – Principia: Architectural Principles of Material Form, co-authored with Brian Andrews and published by Pearson is due out in the fall.

Kristine Mun and David Gerber received a USC FIUT Award to implement research on interactive architecture to undergraduate students.   Mun and Gerber will commence a collaborative design project with USC’s School of Cinema and School of Engineering to develop an IA prototype this summer.

Professor Ghirardo has published an article on Lucrezia Borgia’s religion and her entrepreneurial activities in Quaderni Estensi in February 2012, and a chapter entitled “Vicende e calamità delle cose create” in a book on the reclamation of the lands in the Po Valley, edited by Prof. Chiara Visentin.

Chelsea Workspace, a recently completed CNC-milled home-office fit-out in London designed by Alvin Huang, AIA (Assistant Professor at USC School of Architecture, Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture), will be featured in the July/August issue of Dwell Magazine.

Victor Jones had an exhibit entitled “Material Matters: Flat Shapes Justice” at the Pacific design Center for Westweek, March 20-22, 2012.  Jones has an article titled “The Medium of Big: The Culture Now Project Midsize America” in a book by Thom Mayne and Karen Lohman due out in April. 

Chuck Lagreco reports that “The Riverside Group,” the developer of a new destination resort community in the Jinhai lake area outside of Beijing, announced that his team was one of finalists of six architectural firms to proceed into design development phase on luxury residential projects for the new community.  

Esther Margulies, part time Lecturer has joined AECOM’s Los Angeles office as a principal in the Planning Design and Economics business line.  With fellow principal Vaughan Davies and the Urban Design and Landscape Architecture groups they are leading projects in southern California and China in a highly integrated process bringing together design, planning, economics and environmental practices.  AECOM’s landscape architects are currently working on multiple projects that will significantly change Los Angeles’ mobility including the downtown Regional Connector rail stations and improvements to the Central Terminal area at LAX that will dramatically change the image of LAX. Ms. Margulies is also a member of the recently formed  ULI Women’s Initiative and is working with Gail Goldberg and other ULI members to expand the leadership role of women in the Urban Land Institute. 

Visiting Assistant Professor Ying-Yu Hung is Managing Principal of SWA Los Angeles, and co-founder of the Infrastructure Research Initiative (I.R.I.S.).  Hung is an active lecturer and recently presented at the GSD Harvard for a two day symposium on the topic of landscape infrastructure.  SWA Los Angeles is currently one of the shortlisted teams for the Union Station Master Plan with Metro.  Other projects that she is working on include Emaar Square Landscape Plan in Egypt and the Historic San Jacinto Plaza in El Paso, Texas.

Prof. Graeme M. Morland.  Architect / USC, has recently been appointed to the Los Angeles, Metropolitan Transportatiom Authority, Committee on 21st century planning,  as part of the forthcoming “RAIL-VOLUTION” 2012 conference to be hosted in LA, dedicated to the challenge of “building liveable communities with transit”.    This appointment is concurrent with his School of Architecture, topic studio design studies proposing station site development opportunities for 13 of 42 new station sites currently proposed in LA . These studies are at the request of the LA, Mayor’s office of transportation and are financially supported by the Architectural Guild of the USC School of Architecture.   Following the previous success and joint USC/ MTA publication of a similar study to review the future station site options for the Prairie/Crenshaw corridor, conducted by G. Morland in 1997, It is now anticipated that this renewed interest will be on-going and the results published accordingly. The driving force for these design investigations is predicated on providing incentives to enhance private investment  and economic development at station sites in a dynamic embrace with MTA stations locations, creating exciting new community “places/centres” in hitherto mundane locations. 

Equalbooks has published Volume 12 in the Design Peak series; a comprehensive monograph on B+U’s oeuvre and features a complete overview of the innovative architecture of design duo Herwig Baumgartner and USC Lecturer Scott Uriu over the past 10 years.  Previous monographs within the DesignPeak series include architects such as Morphosis, Delugan Meissl, and Fuksas, among others. The monograph on B+U includes an introduction by architecture critic Stephen Phillips and articles about the firm.  B+U’s work ranges from conceptual projects utilizing sound as a generator for geometry and space, urban utopias imagining what our cities will look like in the future, up to build work and projects that are currently in development. Among the designs featured here, are the Firestone Boulevard office building in Downey, California; the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan; the Tall Emblem Structure for Dubai, UAE; Villas for the Royal family in Al Ain, UAE; the Frank/Kim residence and the Cohen residence in Pasadena, California; Sound cloud and Sound City_ urban intervention projects based on sound study’s, Los Angeles, California ; Sunset Junction_ a permanent installation in Silver Lake, California; Performing Arts Center in Iserlohn, Germany; NTCArt Museum for contemporary Art in New Taipei City, Taiwan; the Ott Winery in Feuersbrunn, Austria; and City Futura_ a utopian urban proposal for the city of Milan, Italy that was featured at the 12th Venice Biennale in 2010.

University of Southern California

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Mark Gangi, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB is speaking at the AIACC Academy of Emerging Professionals annual conference titled ‘the state of (re)imagining our future’ on September 22. http://aiacc.org/2012/08/15/top-ten-reasons-to-attend-progression-conference/ . Mark serves on the AIA National Center for Civic Leadership Committee.

Ken Breisch was elected First Vice President of the Society of Architectural Historians in April.  His article “Hollywood” was published in American Tourism: Constructing a National Tradition (Columbia College Chicago Press), and in June he delivered the paper, “Adobe or Concrete?” at the annual conference of the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

Jennifer Siegal will serve as a juror for the Solar Decathlon Europe 2012 in Madrid, Spain. Additionally, she served as a juror for the 2012 AIA Pasadena & Foothill design awards.

David Lawrence Gray Architects  have purchased a 100 year old building near the corner of 4th and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. They are in the process of restoring and adding a 6th floor to be occupied by architects, engineers and post production facilities.

Post-graduate architecture faculty Christophe Cornubert was invited to participate in the opening event of the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice,  joining Winy Maas (MVRDV), Clement Blanchet (OMA), Bjarke Ingels (BIG), and Ole Scheeren in discussion about the future of cities and new models of architecture practice.

Professor John Mutlow recently won two awards for his projects.  He received the Los Angeles Business Council “42nd Annual Los Angeles Architectural Awards” for STOVALL VILLA, a four story, 32 unit affordable senior housing project with senior amenities and a subterranean garage, just south of Exposition Park and USC. The project is designed around a central social courtyard. Financed by HUD (the federal government) and LAHD (the City of Los Angeles). Construction completed 2011.  Multow also received the West Side Urban Forum “Westside Prize 2012: for THE COURTYARD AT LA BREA, a four story, 32 unit mixed use and mixed occupancy affordable housing project in West Hollywood, for emancipated youths, AIDS and senior residents. The project is designed to edge the sidewalk and contextually connect to the exuberance of several Art Deco buildings along La Brea, with a major architectural celebration at the entrance. 

Eric Nulman presented a paper at the ACSA International Conference in Barcelona, Spain titled “An Alternative Model For Undergraduate Thesis Instruction: Using Collaborative Full-Scale Design Exercises To Supplement Individual Research Projects”

Douglas Noble and Karen Kensek have hosted more than a dozen architectural licensing study hall sessions in the past year.  These free study hall sessions have been attended by hundredson interns from the Los Angeles region.

University of Southern California

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Lecturer Vinayak Bharne has released a new book titled The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities & Urbanisms (Routledge), a 24-chapter edited anthology on the phenomemon of urban Asia. His other book Rediscovering the Hindu Temple: The Sacred Architecture & Urbanism of India (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) is also due for release early January 2013. In his practice as Director of Design at Moule & Polyzoides, the boulevard transformation in the City of Lancaster’s (CA) downtown was recognized with the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement – Overall Excellence, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s highest honor.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang, AIA and his firm Synthesis Design + Architecture are amongst 1 of 5 teams shortlisted out of 166 submissions for a public art installation at Space Port America in New Mexico.  SDA was also recently named to the Rami George Holland Year End Review 2012: 30 Cultural Pioneers by the year 2030, and placed 5th in the Chengdu Wuzhou International Plaza design competition.  Additionally, Alvin has also been named the 2013 Taylor Seminar Visiting Scholar at the University of Calgary Faculty of Environmental Design.  In February 2013, Alvin will lead a 1 week design/build workshop focused on form-finding, material performance and digital fabrication which will culminate in a full-scale installation, lecture, and exhibition of recent work. 

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, was a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design in the Fall 2012 Semester.  His firm Brooks + Scarpa received a NextLA AIA Honor Award, the firm’s 68th AIA Award. They were also shortlisted for the new $390 million, 550,000 sq. ft. Los Angeles Federal Courthouse and the $80 million Federal Courthouse located in Mobile, Alabama.

In December Assistant Professor Kenneth Breisch presented the paper, “Rediscovering the Fachwerk House in America: Preservation, the Bechers and Modernism” at the symposium “Typologie und Kontext” at the University of Siegen, Germany.  He gave a keynote lecture in November at the symposium, “Glessner House at 125,” in Chicago.  Breisch is also serving as the General Chair for the Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians to be held in Buffalo in April 2013.

Jennifer Siegal will be featured in the upcoming Swedish documentary Off the Grid. Her work will be published in the revised edition of Robert Kronenburg ‘s Architecture in Motion: The History and Development of the Portable Building by Routledge, Oxford and Salvage Secrets published by W.W. Norton and Co.

Lecturer Scott Uriu‘s work has been published in the book Panel Layout – Competition a 3 volume book featuring 267 competition projects from 72 designers from around the world.   Scott Uriu’s firm B+U’s NTCArt museum in Taiwan and Performing Arts Center for Iserlohn Germany are featured in the book.  In March Form Magazine features the Performing Arts Center in Iserlohn, Germany. 

With the addition of a high resolution laser and camera scanner Alexander Robinson continues to expand and develop the technological capabilities of his Landscape Morphologies Lab This technology will allow for the realtime analysis and projection of forms generated with the lab’s robotic modeling of landscapes with sand and other mediums. 

Peter Simmonds was in Shenzhen, China with Thom Mayne of Morphosis presenting the Morphosis design for the Hanking Tower Competition which they won, beating some serious competition for this 360m high tower. Simmonds also presented at the faculty Pecca Kucha offering an Engineering perspective of Architecture. He also gave a seminar on designing comfortable spaces at the Southern California ASHRAE technical seminar in Downey.

Adjunct Professor Veronica G. Galen successfully passed the Lighting Certificate exam and was the lighting designer for various projects that received awards from the AIA/California Council. She has also accepted a position as Secretary of the Illuminating Engineering Society, Los Angeles Chapter (IESLA).

Ed Woll (Tomko Woll Group Architects Inc) has attended openings for three recently-completed residential developments in the past two months:  Young Burlington apartments near Koreaown, Joveness Houses in East LA and Jill’s Place (permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless women in downtown LA.)  These projects were done in collaboration with USCArch alumna Ena Dubnoff.  In the works are renovation of an existing pool and parking garage for a condominium complex in West LA’s “Million Dollar Mile” and a new housing development for seniors and homeless veterans in Eagle Rock.

Diane Ghirardo‘s new book, Italy. Modern Architectures in Context, has just been published by Reaktion Press in London and Chicago.

Erik Mar recently completed the 7200 sf East Rancho Dominguez Library, in Compton, CA. It is the first LEED Platinum rated building owned and operated by the County of Los Angeles.

John Frane, partner in the firm Predock_Frane, was in Washington DC in December to jury the 2013 Progressive Architecture Awards which will be announced after the first of the year. Earlier this year he was a juror for the Tampa chapter of the AIA 2012 Design Awards with fellow USC faculty Alice Kimm and Larry Scarpa. Earlier this year Predock_Frane participated in the ‘100 YC’ Exhibition at the 2012 Venice Biennale in Venice Italy. Their project, titled ‘Faces of Maribor’ re-conceptualized the historic core of the city of Maribor  Slovenia, speculating on the issues of urban evolution and challenging traditional notions of history and memory as definers of our collective urban fabric. In the spring they collaborated with the contemporary dance duo Casebolt & Smith to design the sets for their world renowned performance piece O(h)! 2012 also marked the start of two significant new cultural project, an expansion of a buddhist monastery in New Mexico and a new art exhibition space in the Hollywood arts district.

Tom Marble’s work has appeared in The Architect’s Newspaper, MONU Magazine, LA Times Magazine, and Metropolis; his After the city, this (is how we live) was published by the LA Forum for Architecture & Urban Design in 2008; he led an urban design studio Urban Successionism in Colorado Springs, at Colorado College Spring 2012; and he is at work on The Expediter, a noir tale of urban love and betrayal soon to be completed.

Steven Ehrlich, FAIA, RIBA was named #35 in Middle East Architect Magazines’ 50 most influential people on regional architecture. The list recognizes principals, figureheads, association heads and academics, in addition to designers of landmark buildings, known throughout the globe.

University of Southern California

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Visiting Professor Jennifer Siegal was awarded a Visions and Voices grant to produce the symposium Motopia: A New Age for Modular Construction to be held at USC on November, 2, 2011. Find out more at http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/113/event/893725. 

Emily Gabel-Luddy, FASLA, instructor in the USC Master of Landscape Architecture program, was elected in April  to a 4-year term as the newest member of the Burbank City Council. She will be serving as liaison to the Cultural Arts Commission and the Sustainable Commission in the City.

Paul Danna, AIA, has won the commission to design the new California State Superior Courthouse in Long Beach, with design partner Jose Palacios, AIA. He is also serving on the Executive Committee of AIA/Los Angeles, as Past President of the Chapter.

Christoph Kapeller will be presenting his research project “Chengdu Sp[eculative Mapping” at the Chengdu Biennale 2011 from September 29th until October 30th.

Kris Mun, designer and exhibitor for AAC’s Digital Futures exhibition in Shanghai August 2011, showed her work amongst other prominent practices, including Zaha Hadid Architects, Greg Lynn, UNStudio, that are engaging in computational and digital fabrication strategies in architecture.

M. Brian Tichenor, AIA, ASLA , is contributing  a chapter  for the upcoming Rizzolli  publication ‘The California Casa’, and his work has been featured in the books  ‘ Classic Homes of California’ and ‘At Home’, both published this year.

Linda C. Samuels, USC lecturer since the fall of 2010, has received a grant from UCLA’s Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies in support of her research on failed projects for the 101 ‘trench’ site, a quarter mile stretch in downtown Los Angeles where the freeway descends below grade. This research is part of her dissertation focusing on urban infrastructure redevelopment projects.

Mark Gangi, AIA, NCARB, LEED-AP was featured on AIA National Podcast as the Citizen Architect on the Move for September 2011 http://idimultimedia.net/clients/aia_podcast/07152011/Mark_Gangi_711.mp3

Adjunct Professor Regula Campbell AIA authored a presentation in June at the International Federation of Landscape Architecture World Congress: “Scales of Nature”, Zurich, Switzerland on the topic:  Biodiversity in the City: Enrichment for Urban Life and Work – “Making It Personal, Making It Real”.

Joe Sturges, Lecturer has completed WIldwood School campus as senior designer with Nancy Power & Associate in conjuction with Koning Eizenberg Architects. Other projects completed this year include Children’s Institute with KEA and Indian Paintbrush Productions with Barton Myers Associates Inc.

Victoria Turkel Behner, PhD, is designing the upcoming exhibition “In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, opening January 2012.

Adjunct Professor Doug Campbell ASLA will be recognized by the Government of Hangzhou, China this October for his contribution to the region’s “Quality of Life” through his design of  a recently completed sustainable new town re-visioning a former  industrial site in the City’s northern district.

Dr. Ken Breisch has stepped down after twelve years as Director of Graduate Programs in Historic Preservation, a program which he founded in 1999.  He will resume teaching and writing full-time in the School of Architecture.


Gary Paige’s architecture project, “Type Variant Houses” and artwork, “Ruled Surfaces” is the subject of an exhibition entitled “Other Works” at the School of Architecture at UC Berkeley, along with architects Wes Jones and IDEA Office partners Eric Kahn and Russell Thomsen.

Assistant Professor, Victor Jones and the Watts House Project were awarded a 2011 Graham Grant to complete work for the Watts House Project’s Platform fence, pocket park, and façade improvement.

Alvin Huang was appointed as a Tenure-Track Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, Los Angeles. He will be teaching graduate and thesis design studios focused on advanced digital design techniques, material performance, and digital fabrication.  His office, Synthesis Design + Architecture, has also moved to Los Angeles from London.

Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Hricak, FAIA, and his Venice based design firm recently received city approval for an innovative hotel and conference center to be built in Redondo Beach, California which promises to set new standards for design and sustainability in this beachside community.

Scott Uriu, lecturer at USC, partner in the firm BplusU, was chosen as one of the finalists in the Silver Lake Sunset Junction Competition in June by the City of Silver Lake, also in June BplusU were chosen for the 2011 AIA Emerging Professional exhibit in Washington DC, BplusU’s work has been recently published in the book “Futuristic-Vision of future living”, and in August was featured in the LA Times LA Home section.

Assistant Professor Rachel Berney is presenting the paper “A New Spatial Fix: The Promise of Public Space in a Fragmented Buenos Aires” at the ACSP Conference in Salt Lake City, October 13-16, 2011.  Students from USC’s MLA Program in the School of Architecture have work represented in the forthcoming book, “Representing Landscapes: A Visual Collection of Landscape Architectural Drawings” (Editor, Nadia Amoroso). Contributor for USC MLA, Rachel Berney.

USC Emeritus Professor Robert S. Harris, FAIA, ACSA Distinguished Professor and former ACSA President, concluded a 5-year appointment as Director of the USC Master of Landscape Architecture program. He was recognized as CELA Outstanding Educator for 2011, and will be awarded Honorary ASLA. membership at the ASLA Annual Meeting in October 2011.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Anna Neimark’s installation of an enormous extrusion of the Soviet hydraulic network in foam will open at the WUHO gallery in Hollywood on December 8th, accompanied by the publication, “The Infrastructural Monument: Stalin’s Water Works under Construction and in Representation,” in the forthcoming issue of Future Anterior. Research for this project has been supported by the USC Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences (ASHSS) and the Harvard GSD Appleton Traveling Fellowship.

Erik Mar is working on two Los Angeles County Public Libraries, of 7200 sf and 16,000 sf. He also delivered a lecture on sustainability and environmental imperatives to the Public Library staff on their 2011 Staff Training Day.
Lecturer Mina M. Chow, AIA, NCARB, is shooting a pilot episode for web series on innovative architecture in Los Angeles with the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, and the Getty Research Institute Wim de Witt and USC School of Architecture Professor Jim Steele as humanities advisors.

Christine Lampert whose firm is Lampert Dias Architect’s Inc. along with PDS West is working on a master plan to redesign a large portion of the Laguna Woods Village in Laguna Woods California. Laguna Woods is a community with a population of over 15,000 senior citizens in South Orange County. The project includes bringing the 1960’s designed community into the 21st century.

Professor Marc Schiler presented a new definition for Performative Facades at the Facade Tectonics Conference, July 30, and at a public lecture at USC on Wednesday, August 24, based on research done during his sabbatical on reflective facades from Odeillo, France to Berlin.

Adjunct Associate Professor Warren Techentin and his firm Warren Techentin Architecture (WTARCH) won First Prize in the STREET 2020  Vision Competition in conjunction with the inaugural Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) for 2011. The international competition invited architects, landscape architects, and planners to focus on the hybrid issue of ‘Landscape Urbanism’ as applied to making a new street in Estonia’s capitol city. The competition sought design solutions to offset traffic concerns while improving the quality of urban life for pedestrians and cyclists.

Assistant Professor Karen M. Kensek organized the Fifth Annual Symposium on “Building Information Modeling:  Extreme BIM” last July.  Plans are already underway for the sixth conference to be held in Los Angeles in summer 2012.

Travis Longcore, Ph.D., of the USC Spatial Sciences Institute has become a guest critic and instructor in the Landscape Architecture program, bringing his expertise on urban ecology, restoration, conservation planning, and GIS to the curriculum.

Victor Regnier FAIA, Professor of Architecture and Gerontology will present a paper at the LeadingAge Conference in Washington DC on Dutch Service-hybrid Housing Models, as well as jury a competition for the Aging Means Business: Design for a New Age conference in Boston–both in the Fall.

“Structure and Design,” a book by Professor G. Goetz Schierle, is posted on over 30 international web sites.

Lauren Matchison, NCARB, is currently designing a sustainable beach bungalow in Orange County.

Rob Ley was recently won two separate competitions to design permanent installations in both Seattle, WA & Kansas City, MO and is recently included in Madeline Schwartzman’s new book ‘See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception’ and Rashida Ng’s upcoming book ‘INPUT_OUTPUT: Performative Materials in Architecture and Design’.

Eric Haas, AIA, Adjunct Assistant Professor, and his firm DSH had their project 2636 Residence featured in the exhibit “Tokyo/LA Houses” at July’s Little Tokyo Design Week in Los Angeles.

USC faculty Behrokh Khoshnevis (Engineering), Neil Leach (Architecture), Anders Carlson (Architecture) and Madhu Thangavelu (Astronautics) have won a NASA grant to explore the use of the robotic fabrication technology, Contour Crafting, for building structures on the Moon. The grant was one of 30 awarded to over 700 applicants by the NASA Innovation Advanced Concepts Program (NIAC). For further details see: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/08/7306644-out-of-this-world-ideas-funded
Ric. Abramson (2nd year Studio Critic)/Workplays studio recently completed its latest project, Demitasse Coffee Bar Lounge, downtown Los Angeles in Little Tokyo.

JFAK Architects, the firm of Associate Professor and UG Chair Alice Kimm, FAIA, was awarded two AIA California Council Design Awards for projects completed at Caltech and in Santa Monica. JFAK’s downtown parking structure for the LAPD was featured in Architectural Record and named one of the “5 most beautiful parking garages in Los Angeles” by LA Weekly.

Assistant Prof. Dr. David Gerber will present design computation research ‘Building Skin Intelligence’ at the ACADIA 2011 conference, he will keynote the largest and leading Brazilian AEC venue on ‘Building Industry Innovation: An Evolution of Building Information Modeling and Computing in the AEC.’

Assistant Professor Gail Peter Borden was named Director of the Master of Architecture Program. His recently opened installation at the USC-URC, entitled Density Frames consists of a variably triangulated structure interlaced with a multistory pneumatic and coincided with the release of his 2nd book Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production from Routledge.

Vinayak Bharne has authored a chapter titled “Saving the Qanat: The Dilemmas of Sustainability & Strategic Conservation in Yazd, Iran” in the forthcoming book “Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture” (010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2011)

Esther Margulies principal at ValleyCrest Design Group in Los Angeles has been working on the 2014 World Horticultural Exposition Exposition in Qingdao, China along with design build projects in Santa Monica and Malibu California.

Contact Associate Professor Douglas Noble, FAIA, Ph.D.,  (dnoble@usc.edu) for details on how to submit paper and session proposals on the subject of building envelopes for the 8th FACADE TECTONICS CONFERENCE scheduled for June, 2012, in Los Angeles.

Peter Simmonds has designed two LEED Platinum buildings so far and is working on number three.

Todd Gish, PhD, AIA, is contributing a chapter to an upcoming anthology on urban planning in Los Angeles; the essay joins a revisionist literature demonstrating a long history of plans for LA, created by prominent national planners who utilized the best professional practices of their day.

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David Jason Gerber, D.Des, Assistant Professor USC School of Architecture and USC Viterbi School of Engineering was invited to chair the Simulation in Architecture and Urban Design Symposium in 2014 (SimAUD 2014), he was also invited to be chair of the ACADIA 2014 “Design Agency” conference to be held at USC. Dr. Gerber presented research and held workshops at Tsinghua University Beijing China on the topics of building performance through design computation. He is a keynote at Istanbul Technical University, Middle East Technical University and at Ozyegin Unviersity  where he will hold a workshop titled “Design Agency | Informed Surface Tectonics”. Dr. Gerber is the first repeat recipient of the competitively awarded IDEA studio research grant from Autodesk Inc. Dr. Gerber has been invited to be an editor for the International Journal of Architecture and Computing and for a special edition of the Journal of Simulation.

Diane Ghirardo‘s book chapter, La “Terza” Repubblica Italiana: Spettacolo e spreco dell’architettura e dell’ambiente,” just appeared in the book edited by G. Bonini and C. Visentin, Geografie, storie, paesaggi per un’Italia da cambiare (Arachne, Rome, 2013). She presented a lecture on architecture and the environment at Palazzo Capponi in Florence in October 2013. and another on Aldo Rossi at the University of Ferrara (November 2013).

Andy Ku, Lecturer, and Partner of OCDC will be featured as one among three up and coming artists from Los Angeles and Japan in a contemporary exhibition at the JACCC. The exhibit features diverse media including painting, drawing, installation, and architecture. Opening Reception is on November 23 at 2pm, showing at the George Doizaki Gallery through December 22.

Emily Gabel-Luddy, FASLA, Mayor of Burbank lead a panel at the October 2013 Cal APA Conference. The panel, “Lost and Found: Creating Public Places in Overlooked Spaces,” critically evaluated three case studies that resulted in repurposing the public rights-of-way. The innovative approaches were discussed by Steve Rasmussen Cancian, Shared Spaces Landscape Architecture; Veronica Hahni, Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative; and Tori Kjer, Trust for Public Land.

Visiting Professor Charles Anderson, FASLA, will be a speaker at The American Society of Landscape Architects National Convention in Boston on November 15th. The presentation is titled “Seattle’s  Olympic Sculpture Park Turns 5” and will highlight a design practice called “Urbanature.”

Mario Cipresso, AIA, adjunct assistant professor of architecture received first prize in the “Re-Envisioning 7th Street” competition in Long Beach, California.  His entry also received the People’s Choice Award.  The East 7th Street Collaboration asked artists & architects to envision the street as an urban boulevard that supports and reflects the culture of the neighborhoods it intersects.

Lecturer Vinayak Bharne in his capacity as Director of Design at Moule & Polyzoides recently completed a 200-acre master plan for a marina resort in Panama City. His project for the downtown transformation of the city of Lancaster, California was also recognized with the International Downtown Association’s (IDA) Pinnacle Award at the World Congress in New York City. He was also recently invited by the Business Goa magazine to opine on the ongoing plan for the future of Panaji, the capital of the state of Goa, India.

Aaron Neubert, Adjunct Assistant Professor, and his firm ANX’s Sycamore House was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times. In addition, his Busan Opera House was included in the Ifengspace monograph “To Enjoy To Listen”.

Assistant Professor Kyle Konis, Ph.D, AIA was recently selected as a 2013-2015 Upjohn Scholar. His proposal Daylighting Design Performance Criteria for Alzheimer Care Facilities, Towards Evidence-based Best Practices for Improved Health has been awarded a $25,000.00 matching funds grant.

Assistant Professors Kyle Konis and Karen Kensek have been awarded a $25,000 grant by the Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas) to conduct research on Passive and Low Energy Strategies to assist the non-residential commercial market in achieving Sustainability, Zero Net Energy (ZNE), and Thermal Comfort as part of the SoCal Gas Commercial Sustainable Development Program (CSDP). 

Alexander Robinson, Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture program, has been consulting and providing strategic advice and materials to a local effort to influence a decision by the United States Army Corps of Engineers on an up to 1 billion dollar restoration of an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River.

Amy Murphy, Associate Professor, will be partnering with Michael Maltzan Architecture to design an upcoming exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on German Expressionist Cinema (expected to open in Fall 2014).

Gail Peter Borden, Discipline Head of Architecture and Director of Graduate Architecture Programs will have several featured commissioned pieces at Art Basel Miami Beach in December. Additionally his installation Light Frames will be included in a museum exhibition in the spring the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach. His fourth book: Process: Material and Representation in Architecture with Routledge will be on shelves in spring along with his introductory framing essay to Material ConneXtion’s Material Innovation: Innovations in Architecture by Thames and Hudson. This fall professor Borden was appointed Faculty Master of the USC Parkside Arts and Humanities Residential College.

Tom Kundig, FAIA of Olson Kundig Architects—2013-2014 visiting professor and Jon Adams Jerde, FAIA Chair in Architecture at USC—designed one of the venues that will be used for Project Los Altos, the off-site exhibition program for SFMOMA. The 242 State Street building will host SFMOMA from November 9, 2013 through March 2, 2014

Neil Leach has been appointed Professor of Digital Design at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. He has also published 2 books, Digital Workshop in China (Tongji UP, 2013) and Design Intelligence: Advanced Computational Research (CABP, 2013), curated 2 exhibitions, Interactive Shanghai in Shanghai and the 2013 DADA Student Exhibition in Beijing, and organised 2 conferences, Interactive Shanghai in Shanghai with Philip Beesley as keynote speaker, and 3-D Printing in Concrete in Dessau with Behrokh Khoshnevis and Enrico Dini as keynote speakers.

Patrick Tighe, FAIA, Adjunct Professor, won a 2013 AIA award from the AIA, California Chapter for the Sierra Bonita Affordable Housing. 

The project was also awarded the IDEAS2 Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction for excellence & innovative design in steel frame buildings. 

Rob Ley, Principle of Urbana, completes ‘May/Septmber’, a 14,000 sq. ft. interactive facade at the new Wishard Hospital, Indianapolis IN this month.  A grand opening is schedule for February, 2014.  Ley’s firm also recently completed a permanent outdoor installation ‘Floating Point’ as part of a new high density residential development outside of San Francisco, CA.  Ley also has past projects included in the recent Acadia conference, and included in recent publications Performative Materials in Architecture and Design by Sneha Patel and Installation Art II edited by Annie Lai.

 

 

 

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Neil Leach has published Digital Workshop in China (Tongji UP, 2013), curated an exhibition on interactive architecture and organised a conference, ‘Interactive Shanghai’, with Philip Beesley as keynote speaker. He also organised a conference, ‘3-D Printing in Concrete’, with Behrokh Khoshnevis and Enrico Dini as keynote speakers.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang‘s “Pure Tension Pavilion”, a portable solar-powered tensioned membrane charging station, has won the Volvo “Switch to Pure Volvo” Design Competition. The project opens in September 2013. Additionally, his “[C]Space Pavilion”, constructed in 2008, has won a 2013 AIA|CC Design Award for Small Projects.   

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA and his firm Brooks + Scarpa received six 2013 design awards from the AIA California Council. Their recently completed American Tropical Museum on historic Olvera Street received the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Presidential Award as well as several other local and national historic preservation awards.  Mr. Scarpa has also been named the 2014 Barber McMurry Visiting Professor at the University of Tennessee.

Travis Longcore, Associate Professor (Research) of Spatial Sciences and instructor in the Landscape Architecture program, will be speaking at the Illuminating Engineering Society’s national Street and Area Lighting Conference in Phoenix in September. His invited presentation is “Beyond Turtles and Towers: Outdoor Lighting, Wildlife, and the Environment.” 

Peter Simmonds presented two papers at the Sustainable Energy Technologies conference held at Hong Kong Polytechnic University on August 27th and 28th titled “Designing an intelligent building skin to improve occupant comfort “  and “Designing an energy efficient and comfortable building.” Peter also presented a paper at the ASHRAE annual meeting in Denver titled “Designing radiant floors back to basics.”  Together with Pavel Getov, Peter will be giving a workshop on high performance façade design at the forthcoming AIA Design Conference in Monterrey in September.

Professor Victor Regnier has just completed a 60-page monograph entitled USC Apartments for Life: Emeriti Center + Civic Engagement Center that chronicles the work of his Spring 605a students in designing a mixed-use, 60-unit elderly housing project for a 2.5 acre site on the USC campus–free pdf available on request (regnier@usc.edu). 

Assistant Professor Anders Carlson will present structural behavior tools for architectural education that he co-developed with Master of Building Science students he advised at national and international conferences this academic year. He will present “Informing Design through Parametric Integrated Structural Simulation: Iterative Structural Feedback for Design Decision Support of Complex Trusses,” by Michael Makris, David Gerber, Anders Carlson and Doug Noble at the Association for Education and research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) 2013 conference on computation and performance and “A Low Cost Shake Table and Models for Seismic Education” accepted for the 10th US National Conference on Earthquake Engineering. 

Victor Jones, assistant professor of architecture has been published in Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design,  edited by Rodolphe El-Khoury and Edward Robbins.  His essay entitled, ‘New Orleans – Ecological Urbanism,’ contemplates new forms of infrastructure for building sustainable communities.

Tom Kundig, visiting professor and 2013-2014 Jon Jerde Chair, is a principal/owner of Olson Kundig Architects. Kundig is the subject of two monographs, Tom Kundig Houses and Tom Kundig Houses 2, both published by Princeton Architectural Press. In 2011, Wallpaper* listed Kundig as one of 150 people who have most influenced, inspired and improved the way we live, work and travel over the last 15 years. He has been recognized with the National Design Award in Architecture from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, an Academy Award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and 50 AIA awards including 14 National AIA Awards.

Lecturer Rick Gooding is a principal of the award winning firm Chu+Gooding Architects, focusing on projects for arts-related and higher education clients, including MoCA, Hammer Museum, J.Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Southern California Public Radio, Autry National Center and La Plaza de Culturas y Artes. Rick received a M.S.Bldg Design from Columbia University in 1985 and B.Arch from SCI_Arc in 1984 along with the AIA Student Gold Medal. He trained for 14 years as Project Architect or Associate with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in New York City, Morphosis, Franklin D. Israel, Richard Meier Partners & Johnson Fain Partners in Los Angeles before forming Chu+Gooding Architects with wife Annie Chu in 1998. Rick had a solo exhibit in 2012 at Woodbury University’s Wedge Gallery for his Subterranea series of pencil and graphite drawings and will have a second solo show at Kansas State University’s Chang Gallery in March.

Assistant Professor Karen Kensek hosted the sixth annual BIM symposium, BIM Futures, at USC in July.  Two days of talks featured other professors from around the country and innovative professionals speaking on building information modeling.

Sophia Gruzdys (Lecturer) appeared recently on HGTV: Living Abroad a program about Barcelona. The program featured an interview and a walk-through of her recently constructed house in Begur, Spain.  Additionally, she has written two articles, “Moscow Nights:  Moscow’s International Business Center” and “A New Performance: Amsterdam’s Master Plan for the Eastern Docklands”, published in Outstanding Magazine, which targets different regions in Europe.

Assistant Professor Rachel Berney has just completed an edited volume of forty peer-reviewed papers from the 2011 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Conference in Los Angeles, CA, titled “Urban Nature”. Her introductory essay, “Challenging City Design Through Urban Nature,” examines ways in which urban nature can inform city design through moves such as “wedging”, “piggybacking”, and “educating” to help us better connect urban nature with city living. Key terms and actions for ecologically focused city design emerge from marrying this desire for legible and beautiful everyday landscapes to the realities of urban development and redevelopment. As well, select work from her Fall 2012 design studio, ARCH 642 “The Mobile City Studio: People, Transport, and Public Life”, co-taught by Oliver Schulze of Schulze+Grassov, Copenhagen, Denmark, is currently on display at Los Angeles City Hall as part of the Landscape Architecture Design Research exhibition presented by the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture and the Master of Landscape Architecture Program.

Alexander Robinson, recently promoted to assistant professor in the USC Landscape Architecture Program, exhibited his research on the Los Angeles River in the Los Angeles City Hall. The work is focused on honing the methodologies of integrating landscape architecture design with hydraulic performance. The research, conducted with a group of graduate landscape architecture students, utilized a large physical hydraulic model and advanced analysis techniques to carefully integrate multiple performance into the design process. The reception, hosted my LA city councilman O’ Farrell was attended by members of the LA City Council, Bureau of Engineering, and other notable and influential members of the city government.

Associate Professor, Discipline Head of Architecture and Director of Graduate Architecture Programs Gail Peter Borden was appointed to the Board of Directors of both the LA Forum and the AIA LA. His fourth book Process: Material and Representation in Architecture is at press with Routledge and will be on shelves in January 2014.

Lecturer Scott Uriu‘s firm Baumgartner+Uriu (B+U), will be shown at the 9th ArchiLab Exhibition at the FRAC Center in Orleans France in the exhibit “Naturalizing Architecture”.   The project exhibited is the housing tower “Animated Apertures” and includes a large scale physical model, drawings, and an animation.   The exhibit opens September 4th and is on show until 2nd of February 2014.    “Animated Architecture” has also been featured in the magazine Green Buildings in the article “House with Cilia” in July of 2013.  In Los Angeles, Uriu’s work can be seen in the current exhibit at the Architecture + Design museum Never Built exhibit in Los Angeles, for the Firestone Office Building; the exhibit includes a physical model, drawings, and an animation of the project.    Other recent publications include B1-  “Cruise ship terminal- the transportation hub design” 4 page article in B1 magazine featuring B+U’s competition entry for the Cruise ship terminal in Keelung, Taiwan, A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture in Southern California Exhibition Catalogue, B+U is featured in this exhibition catalog titled- A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture in Southern California. B1 magazine- Issue 67, “Breaking the Rules- B+U condo tower,” Breaking the Rules- is an 4 page article featuring B+U’s award winning Condo Tower for Lima, Peru., De Architect, “Housing Tower,”  B+U’s award winning design for a housing tower in Lima Peru is featured in this Article by the Dutch Magazine DeArchitect and an article by Marieke de Vries., Concept magazine, “B+U – Condo Tower,” Peru B+U’s award winning housing tower in Peru is featured in this 8 page article., and the book DesignPeakPack Residence space, B+U’s Frank and Kim residence Design is featured in this 3 volume Book set by Equalbooks.

Alison Hirsch joined the USC faculty as Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture. Her book, City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin and Public Performance in Urban Renewal America (University of Minnesota, March 2014) received a Graham Foundation grant. Princeton Architectural Press will be publishing her co-edited book, The Landscape Imagination (Spring 2014). 

Trudi Sandmeier recently helped to establish the new Docomomo-US/Southern California Chapter, an organization dedicated to the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the modern movement.

Aroussiak Gabrielian joined the Landscape Architecture faculty at USC. This summer, she traveled to Germany to presented her research, “Mediated Visions,” at the Thinking the Contemporary Landscape conference, organized by ETH Zurich.  A recent project by her research practice, foreground design agency, was featured in a special issue of the Journal of Architectural Education, “Architecture and Utopia.”

David Lawrence Gray architects have been honored with a Trends top 50 American homes award for their beach house design in Malibu California.  The house is situated on a 30’ x 150 ‘lot on the ocean.  It consists of two floors of poured in place concrete with caissons drilled into bedrock.

Lecturer Vinayak Bharne was recently an panelist at the Los Angeles Region Planning History Group colloquium “The Use and Abuse of the Urban Block.” His article “Designing the Urban Block: Best Practices in Los Angeles” was also translated and re-published in the latest issue of the China Architectural Heritage journal. 

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 Jose Sanchez, assistant professor of architecture has just joined USC coming from The Bartlett, UCL in London where he formerly taught. He will be exhibiting the ‘Bloom’ project, designed and developed for the 2012 London Olympics the 5th of September at the new Frac building for the Archilab opening in Orleans, France. Later in the year he will be presenting his paper ‘Gamescapes’ in Acadia 2013 in Waterloo, where he develops a framework for using game mechanics as a design heuristics. Additionally, he will be presenting his paper ‘Hacklikes’ in the TxA conference in Texas taking place the 7-9 of November of 2013. His paper connects ideas of gaming, design and object oriented ontology. Jose, director of the Plethora-Project (www.plethora-project.com), is currently working with the support of Soomeen Hahm on the translation the over 120 videos of online teaching, his current public repository, into Chinese language, attempting to open the field of computational architectural design via online teaching to China

DSH // architecture, the firm of Adjunct Associate Professor Eric Haas, was named a finalist in the 2013 Spark > Spaces Design Competition for the Para Los Niños Family Center in downtown Los Angeles. The firm also recently completed the renovation of Welton Becket’s 1955 New York Life building to house a 500-student charter middle & high school. 

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA and his firm Brooks + Scarpa received six 2013 American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) Design Awards. He also chaired the 2013 Monterey Design Conference held  at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA. His building, Metalsa Center for Manufacturing Innovation was published in The Plan, Architect Magazine, Architectural Review and several other books and journals.

Principals of Ehrlich Architect Steven Ehrlich, FAIA and Takashi Yanai, AIA were speakers at the 10th annual Reinvention Symposium produced by Residential Architect Magazine. The symposium, held in San Francisco October 9-11th, was focused on Resilience and how architects can lead the way as change agents for near- and long-term shifts in the environment, demographics, economics, technology, and much more.

Victor Regnier FAIA, Professor of Architecture and Gerontology is continuing his exploration of the hybrid housing/service model “Apartments for Life” (A4LIFE); that uses universal design principles, adaptable physical adjustments and technology to maintain older frail people in normal purpose-built independent housing. He has just completed a 56 page monograph that chronicles the work of his Spring graduate studio–a 60 unit project on the northwest corner of the USC campus.  The project integrates an emeriti center, USC civic engagement, 14 classrooms, an auditorium, café and coffee house in a moderate-density mixed-use setting.  Copies of the publication entitled USC Apartment for Life are available from Blurb, Inc. for $80. http://www.blurb.com/search/site_search?search=USC+Apartment+for+Life&filter=bookstore&commit=Search(ISBN#978-0-578-12743-9) OR you can request a FREE PDF by emailing him directly at regnier@usc.edu. 

Professor Regnier has made presentations in the last year to the University of Iowa Medical School, the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, and carried out discussion sessions at the Hammar Museum and Westside Urban Forum (LA) on this topic.  He will continue to present A4LIFE ideas at a symposium at the University of Kansas in November, a Healthcare Forum in Michigan in the Spring and a soon to be scheduled seminar at Clemson University in their healthcare Architecture program.  An article reviewing the history and future trajectory of this concept will appear in the ASA (American Society for Aging) journal in the Spring.  A Q+A on the studio can be downloaded at  http://asaging.org/blog/life-way-we-want-it-conversation-gero-architect-victor-regnier-faia

Jennifer Siegal, Adjunct Associate Professor and Principal of Office of Mobile Design, was recently featured by international Swedish filmmaker, Jesper Wachtmeister, in his documentary film Microtopia — an examination of modern alternative dwellings and mobile lifestyles. The film profiles Siegal’s first prototype for prefab dwelling: “Joshua Tree PreFab”, a fully functional mobile dwelling that also embodies responsible, sustainable, and aesthetically beautiful design. The film has received international attention and acclaim, drawing attention to current trends in dwellings and use of space, as well as looking to the future for the  impact and influence design will have on lifestyles and resources. Siegal will be lecturing this Fall at RTKL’s Corporate Officer’s Meeting and at Texas Tech College of Architecture El Paso, in partnership with the El Paso Museum of Art and the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.

Professor Schierle added iconic structures to his web site http://www.usc.edu/structures  (click the tent icon) OR the direct link: http://www-classes.usc.edu/architecture/structures/Projects/Iconic%20Projects.htm.

Todd Gish, PhD, Adjunct Assistant Professor, is part of the local committee working to bring the national conference of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History to Los Angeles in 2015.

Ken Breisch is the General Chair for the Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians to held in Austin, Texas, in April 2014, and recently served as the Moderator for a Panel Discussion Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the re-opening of the Los Angeles Public Library Central Building. 

Emily Gabel-Luddy, FASLA, lecturer, elected Mayor of Burbank for FY13-14, addressed the State of the L.A. River Watershed Symposium along with Mayor Eric Garcetti held October 10 in Downtown Los Angeles. Several landscape Architects attend the conference including Esther Margulies of AECOM also a lecturer. In September Mayor Gabel-Luddy lead a Burbank Delegation to Incheon, Korea for a Sustainable Cities Conference. 

Joon-Ho Choi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Building Science at USC was invited by the Philips Research Center, located in Briarcliff Manor, New York in August to talk about one of his recent research work, entitled “Human-Building Interaction: Potential Use of Human Bio-Signals for Building Environmental System Controls”, and part of the work will be presented at the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers – Indoor Air Quality (ASHRAE-IAQ) Conference held in Vancouver, Canada on October 15 through 18, titled “Human-Environment Interaction: Potential Use of Pupil Size for Visual Environmental Controls.”

Peter Simmonds and Pavel Getov presented a workshop titled “EPIDERMIS/HYPOTHALAMUS: BUILDING ENVELOPE AS A FACTOR CONTROLLING OCCUPANT THERMAL COMFORT” at the AIA Monterey Design Conference. There were more than 150 attendees.

Lecturer Scott Uriu‘s work will be exhibited in two upcoming Architecture and Design events in Santa Fe; Design Santa Fe – DesignLAB Next Nest at the SITE Gallery sponsored by Metropolis Magazine, and the Life Support: Art<->Design Sustenance exhibition to be held at the David Richard Gallery, both opening November 1st. Uriu’s Lima Project has been featured in the September issue of Green Buildings Magazine, Mark magazine #40, and the August issue of Urbanista.   Uriu’s Firestone Project  has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Architecture Record, and The Architects Newspaper regarding its inclusion in the Neverbuilt exhibition.  Uriu’s Keelung Project has been featured in the July B1 Magazine, and Future magazine #39/40, and his firm (Baumgartner+Uriu) has been featured in the Hindu Newspaper June 15th.   In April 2014 Baumgartner+Uriu will be exhibited in the SciArc Main Gallery in Los Angeles.  In October, Baumgartner+Uriu has been chosen by the Santa Cruz Metro Transit Authority as the Architect for the Watsonville Transit Center.

Kyle Konis, Ph.D, AIA, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Southern California, was invited by the City of Los Angeles Department of Urban Planning and the Office of Science and Technology at the Embassy of Austria to speak at a conference entitled “The Urbanization Challenge –Smart City Solutions from Austria and California,” at LA City Hall on October 11. He will speak on the topics of high performance buildings and resource efficient development.

Travis Longcore, Associate Professor (Research) of Spatial Sciences and Lecturer in Landscape Architecture was guest editor of a special issue on human-caused mortality of birds in Canada, published in the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology.  His guest editorial noted the need to adopt best management practices to reduce mortality such as bird-safe building design to reduce collisions with windows.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang has been awarded a 2013 AIA|LA NextLA Design Award for the Pure Tension pavilion, a portable tensile membrane solar-powered charging station for the new Volvo V60 plug-in hybrid, which launches on October 10, 2013 in Rome, Italy.  He will be giving a lecture of his recent work on October 7, at the Aura Magna Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy.  Additionally, professor Huang has been appointed Program Director for the newly launched Architectural Association Globabl Visiting School Los Angeles, taking place in Summer 2014.

Laurel Consuelo Broughton and her studio WELCOMEPROJECTS’ installation, Black Holes opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art as part of their Wall Works Series and runs through January 12, 2014. A play on words, in Black Holes over five hundred kindergarden through twelfth grade students interpret ideas about abstract space through drawing inside of blank Tetra Pak milk cartons. Installed all together, the group produces a part to whole simultaneity. On November 1,2013 Laurel will lecture on her work at Cal Poly Pomona as part of their Fall lecture series. 

University of Southern California

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Gail Peter Borden, Discipline Head of Architecture and Director of Graduate Architecture Programs was awarded a 2014 ACSA Faculty Research and Design Award honorable mention for his project “fur-lined”. His installation Light Frames will be included in the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach museum exhibition on Materials & Application entitled Build Something Beautiful opening January 25th and running through mid-April. His fourth book: Process: Material and Representation in Architecture [Routledge] will be on shelves in March along with his introductory framing essay to Material ConneXtion’s Material Innovation: Innovations in Architecture [Thames and Hudson]. This summer Professor Borden will offer his travel study program that tours the southwestern United States, looking at Land Art, Architecture and Landscape. 

Associate Professor Charles Lagreco in collaboration with Senior Lecturer Gary Paige are offering a new experimental seminar Research + Design + Build this spring term to initiate a new curricular program for support of this type of effort. The effort will seek to build on the great traditions of community activism and former design build efforts at the USC School of Architecture and involve the professional community in the actives. the USC Architectural Guild has already provided a seed grant to assist in the effort.

Michael Hricak, FAIA, has been selected to represent California in the AIA College of Fellows.

Christopher Warren, adjunct assistant professor of architecture, and his office WORD finished in second place in a national competition for K+BB with their Shoreheights Residence project.  Also, their project for French fashion label A.P.C. will begin construction this month.  The store, located on Melrose, will finish construction in early April, 2014.

Karen Kensek and Douglas Noble received an ACSA Creative Achievement award for their work supporting licensure.

Trudi Sandmeier, graduate Director of the USC Heritage Conservation program, was recently appointed to serve as the 1st Vice Chair and Membership Chair of the National Council for Preservation Education, a coalition of educational institutions promoting academic excellence in historic preservation and its allied disciplines

Victor Jones, assistant professor of architecture has published (IN)FORMAL L.A. – The Space of Politics. Released by eVolo Press, the book traces another course to uncover Los Angeles’ primal sources of creation – land and speculation. Within the endless sprawl there resides flurries of uncodified spatial configurations that no high-definition map or satellite image can accurately capture nor present. Composed of essays, photos, projects and interviews, (IN)formal LA explores a range of unique spatial practices and pedagogies through the lens of politics in Los Angeles providing a spatial awareness culturally rooted, socially responsive and vitally connected to the city — embracing the quirky, celebrating the wide and embellishing the close range to expose the complex social organizations within this contemporary urban network.

Adjunct Associate Professor, Warren Techentin, received a California AIA award for the Montrose Residence. Additionally, this winter his firm WTARCH will install La Cage aux Folles at the Materials & Applications gallery. The project received grants from both the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Pasadena Art Alliance.

Tigran Ayrapetyan, Adjunct Assistant Professor established relationship within the years between the undergraduate Building Science program at the USC School of Architecture and Simpson Strong-Tie, who kindly offered to include USC into their scholarship program. For the 1st time, USC will be eligible to participate in the Simpson Strong-Tie Structural Engineering / Architecture Student Scholarship Program, for the 2013-2014 academic year.  

Qingyun Ma, AIA, was named one of the “30 Most Admired Educators for 2014” by DeignIntelligence.  

Lisa Little‘s pavilion Three Horned Beast (designed by Layer, Lisa Little and Emily White) is moving to a new exterior home in Plummer Park, West Hollywood. The pavilion is thirty feet tall and was commissioned by The New Children’s Museum in San Diego. The pavilion is made of over four hundred unique laser cut and folded aluminum elements finished with seven powder coat colors.

Hraztan Zeitlian, AIA, LEED BD+C, NCARB, Visiting Critic at the school this semester is the 2013-2014 Chair of the American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) Design Awards Committee. He is also the 2013 Vice President of the California Architects Board. He was originally appointed to the Board in 2011 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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