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 5^th 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. 

Carlo Aiello received a 2013 GOOD DESIGN Award from the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for his furniture design. 

DSH // architecture, the firm of Eric Haas, Adjunct Associate Professor, has completed block-long signage and graphics for the Para Los Niños preschool and family services facilities in downtown Los Angeles, and is beginning work on their third project for the organization.

Jennifer Siegal will be speaking during Palm Springs Modernism weekend as part of the Unbuilt Palm Springs lecture panel. Her original art work entitled Double Negative, homage to Michael Heizer, was recently presented as a gift to the the Palm Springs Art Museum and will be on view in a special exhibition entitled Into the Future. 

Professor Victor Regnier made presentations in 2013 to the University of Iowa Medical School, the Beckman Research Institute at the University of Illinois, and the Boomer Project at the University of Kansas–College of Architecture. He kicked off the Health Facilities Graduate Program–spring studio at Clemson University in January with two lectures that focused on the “Apartment for Life” building type and innovations in senior housing from northern Europe. He will present his research about boomer preferences at the 46th Annual Health Facilities Forum in Grand Rapids, Michigan in March.  An article reviewing the history and future trajectory of the apartments for life building concept will appear in the ASA (American Society for Aging) journal in the spring.  Copies of the recently produced 50 page, 605b studio book on the USC Apartments for Life–Emeriti Project can be downloaded free of charge (request the pdf from regnier@usc.edu).  A Q+A on the studio can also be downloaded at http://asaging.org/blog/life-way-we-want-it-conversation-gero-architect-victor-regnier-faia

Patrick Tighe presented a lecture of his work in Rome, Italy as part of the Millennium lecture series. The lecture entitled “in the gray”  was presented at the Casa dell’Architettura of the Ordine degli Architetti di Roma. Past participants in the prestigious Millennium lecture series, included, Richard Meier, Enric Miralles, Dominique Perrault, Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Raimund Abraham, Eric Owen Moss, Mario Botta, Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry amongst others. Link: http://www.casadellarchitettura.it/mostre/millennium-patrick-tighe-recent-works/

Part-time/Adjunct Faculty Lauren Dandridge Gaines will be featured in the upcoming February edition of LD+A magazine for the Illuminating Engineering Society. The article will feature her award winning lighting design work for the newly completed Old Town Newhall Library.

Professor James Steele spoke at a Colloquium at Unesco Headquarters in Paris on December 18, 2012 and the Proceedings have just been released as World Heritage Papers 36 Earthen Architecture in Today’s World, World Heritage Paper Series 18/12/2013.  He was just named as architect for the World Heritage Animal Genetic Repository ( WHAGR) the “Ark” project to set up a genome bank of endangered species.  Steele recently completed 5 chapters the cover the entire gamut of Islamic architecture to be included in Architecture: The Whole Story to be published by Thames and Hudson, for release in summer of 2014.

Professor Steele has just been commissioned by Thames and Hudson to contribute three chapters, on Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt to: Vernacular Buildings: A New World Survey.  He just established a new publishing house with his son Casey called Gulf Pacific (because it focuses on those regions of the world). Our first book, on the leading Jordanian architect Jafar Tukan, is ready to go to press and will be released in May.  Working with Professor Gail Borden, he established an Undergraduate Program in São Paulo, Brazil to be based at Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado to run this summer, and set up a Graduate Studio at Universidade de São Paulo, for this current semester as well working on an Ecoport project for the disadvantaged Oliveira Freire neighborhood so they can have access to the river, and community facilities we will design there. A delegation from USP will visit USC to present the parameters in early February, and our Studio will visit USP over Spring break this March. Steele is coming off a Sabbatical spent mostly in Japan working on a new book entitled: Contemporary Architecture in Japan: The Next Generation for Taylor-Francis/ Routledge.

Gary Paige lectured in Japan at Kyoto Seika University this past November on the firm’s recent work and the Team USC Solar Decathlon fluxHome™.

Douglas Noble and Karen Kensek hosted the FACADE TECTONICS 14 conference at USC in January.  More than 70 speakers made 50 presentations over three days.  This was the 14^th FACADE TECTONICS conference, and it attracted 437 registered attendees.

Nefeli Chatzimina, Lecturer of Architecture at the University of Southern California, is a PhD Candidate at the University of Athens and in parallel organizes and teaches International Architectural Workshops in Europe. Founder of X|Atelier Architecture (http://www.xatelier.com/) she currently completed the design and high-end construction of a Flagship store Offices for Orizon Insurance company in Athens, Greece.

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. 

Academy Award-winning Producer Mitchell Block and award-winning author, Huffington Post journalist/filmmaker Michael Rose have joined the team of FACE OF A NATION:  “What Happened at the World’s Fair?” with architect, filmmaker and Lecturer Mina M. Chow, AIA, NCARB as director/producer.  Emmy Award-winning composer Joseph VItarelli of Academy Award-nominated “My Architect” (2003) and multi-Emmy Award-winning HBO mini-series “John Adams” is composing an original score.  A search for national and personal identity, hope and vision for our future—in which a first generation Chinese-American architect asks why we no longer care about World’s Fairs?  FACE OF A NATION is in the final stages of post-production. 

Vinayak Bharne was recently interviewed by World Architecture News on his recent award-winning work and three books The EmergingAsian City: Concomitant Urbanities & Urbanisms, Rediscovering the Hindu Temple: The Sacred Architecture and Urbanism of India, and the soon-to-be-released Zen Spaces and Neon Places: Reflections on Japanese Architecture and Urbanism.

“Structure and Design” by Professor G. Goetz Schierle got positive reviews at http://www.jacquiecliff.com/wp-content/gallery-old/download-Structure-and-Design/p1692702303/

Diane Ghirardo’s essay on contemporary architecture in Italy and environmental degradation appeared in the book, Geografie, Storie, Paesaggi per un’Italia da cambiare, edited by Chiara Visentin; another essay on Aldo Rossi appeared in the Electa Encyclopedia of Time (2013). 

Dr. David Gerber, Assistant professor at USC’s School of Architecture is Co-Chairing this years’ Simulation in Architecture and Urban Design conference SimAUD 2014. He is also the Co-chair of this years’ annual A2014 CADIA conference  “Design Agency” to be hosted at USC’s School of Architecture. in 2013 Dr. Gerber has been awarded a second NSF grant to support research at the intersections of design, computation, engineering, and social science. Dr. Gerber has been elected to the editorial board of the International Journal of Architectural Computing and as an advisory Board Member to Robots in Architecture.

Joon-Ho Choi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Building Science at USC spoke on the topics of indoor environmental impacts on human health and physiological principles  at the Korean Scientists and Engineers Association in America Technical Symposium held in Silicon valley, CA on December 13-14, 2013.

Dr. Travis Longcore (Lecturer in landscape architecture and Associate Professor (Research) of Spatial Sciences) received a $280,000 grant from the Baldwin Hills Conservancy and Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority to undertake mapping and surveys of wildlife and habitats in the Baldwin Hills planning area and to develop an online mapping interface to share these data with the public.  The Baldwin Hills study area includes state and county parks and has one of the most diverse and park-poor service areas of any urban regional park; it also provides habitat for many native species and is the site of extensive environmental education programs serving these communities.

Assistant Professor Alvin Huang has recently received a number of distinctions.  This spring at the 2014 ACSA  Annual Meeting in Miami, Florida, Professor Huang will be presented with the 2014 ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award as well as a 2014 ACSA Faculty Design Award (Honorable Mention) for his Chelsea Workspace Project.  His firm, Synthesis Design + Architecture has also been honored with the 2013 Autodesk Small Business Innovation Award.  Professor Huang’s “Pure Tension Pavilion”, a portable solar-powered tensile membrane charging station for the Volvo V60 electric car was named one of Time Magazine‘s 20 Most Important Inventions of 2013.