Faculty News January 2015

The School of Architecture received news of a $1 million grant from the Still Water Foundation, an Austin-based foundation that supports the arts and other causes.  The award is to support the renovation of the school’s Battle Hall (Cass Gilbert 1910), the West Mall Office Building, and to build the John S. Chase addition to the School of Architecture.

Associate Professor Emeritus Owen Cappleman passed away in Austin, Texas, on September 25, 2014, at the age of 76.

The T3 Parking Structure, designed by Associate Dean Elizabeth Danze and Senior Lecturer John Blood, Danze Blood Architects, has won the American Architecture Award for 2014 from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, together with The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and Metropolitan Arts Press.

Two UTSOA faculty members have received 2014 University Co-op Research Awards.

Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla was awarded a $5,000 Creative Research Award for “Mixtec Stonecutting Artistry: 16th Century Ribbed Vaults in Mixteca, Mexico,” an exhibit that showcases three cathedral vaults using a 3-D laser point scanner and printer. Senior Lecturer Rachael Rawlins was awarded the $5,000 Best Research Paper Award for “Planning for Fracking on the Barnett Shale: Urban Air Pollution, Improving Health Based Regulation, and the Role of Local Governments,” Virginia Environmental Law Journal. The article undertakes the most comprehensive review and analysis of air quality monitoring, regulation, and health effects assessment on the Barnett Shale.

Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe presented the Guadalupe Garage Green Wall project research at the ACADIA 2014 Conference.

The School of Architecture received news of a $1 million grant from the Still Water Foundation, an Austin-based foundation that supports the arts and other causes. The award is to support the renovation of the school’s Battle Hall (Cass Gilbert 1910), the West Mall Office Building, and to build the John S. Chase addition to the School of Architecture. 

Associate Professor Emeritus Owen Cappleman passed away in Austin, Texas, on September 25, 2014, at the age of 76. 

The T3 Parking Structure, designed by Associate Dean Elizabeth Danze and Senior Lecturer John Blood, Danze Blood Architects, has won the American Architecture Award for 2014 from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, together with The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and Metropolitan Arts Press. 

Two UTSOA faculty members have received 2014 University Co-op Research Awards.

Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla was awarded a $5,000 Creative Research Award for “Mixtec Stonecutting Artistry: 16th Century Ribbed Vaults in Mixteca, Mexico,” an exhibit that showcases three cathedral vaults using a 3-D laser point scanner and printer. Senior Lecturer Rachael Rawlins was awarded the $5,000 Best Research Paper Award for “Planning for Fracking on the Barnett Shale: Urban Air Pollution, Improving Health Based Regulation, and the Role of Local Governments,” Virginia Environmental Law Journal. The article undertakes the most comprehensive review and analysis of air quality monitoring, regulation, and health effects assessment on the Barnett Shale. 

Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe will be presenting the Guadalupe Garage Green Wall project research at the ACADIA 2014 Conference, to be held October 23 to 26, in Los Angeles.   

On April 10, 2014, the Trustees of the American Academy in Rome announced the winners of the 118th annual Rome Prize Competition at a prize ceremony in New York City. Associate Professor Vincent Snyder received the James R. Lamantia, Jr. Rome Prize, awarded in the architecture discipline.

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Professor in Architecture, co-organized two discussion sessions at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, on the future of the Kulturforum Berlin.

Stephen Sharpe’s thoughtful article, “Headspace: Psychology and Architecture,” in aia.org’s Practicing Architecture column looks at how design affects the psychological outlook of people experiencing their built environment. The article focuses on the ongoing collaboration between Associate Dean Elizabeth Danze, FAIA, and Professor Stephen Sonnenberg, M.D., who organized the Space+Mind Symposium and co-edited the book Space & Psyche, published in 2013 by the Center for American Architecture and Design.

Associate Professor Allan W. Shearer presented the paper, “Mid-Century Modernism and the Invention of ‘Microclimate'” at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland.

Assistant Professor Benjamin Ibarra Sevilla opened his exhibition, “Mixtec Stonecutting Artistry,” at the Centro Cultural Clavijero in the World Heritage City of Morelia, Mexico. The exhibition is displayed in one of the magnificent rooms of the eighteenth-century Palacio Clavijero, located in the core of the historic center of Morelia.

Assistant Professor Gabriel Díaz Montemayor presented a talk at the “Urban Space and Climate Change” Colloquium organized by the School of Architecture of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Mexico, in Culiacán. Additionally, Díaz Montemayor presented talks on professional and academic works to the Municipal Planning Institute of Culiacán, the Planning Council of Culiacán (composed of representatives of various government levels, universities, developers, and commerce-industry associations), and the staff of Culiacán’s Botanical Garden.

Assistant Professor Clay Odom made two presentations at the 2014 Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conference, held in New Orleans. He was awarded the 2014 IDEC Creative Scholarship Award, Best In Category Design as Interior for his presentation of work titled “Temporary Atmospheres: Installations for the Experience of Sound and Light.”