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University of Arizona

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Associate Professor  Martin Despang´s post-fossil (Passive House standard) kindergarten for the University of Göttingen has been selected for “Day of Architecture” on 26 June 2011, as part of Germany’s national outreach of the “National Architectural Chamber.”

Professor Mary Hardin returns from sabbatical to be promoted to Associate Dean for the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. While on sabbatical, she studied examples of earthen architecture in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico and now has an adobe residence under construction.

University of Washington

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Associate Professor Brian Johnson was awarded the prestigious ACADIA Society Award last fall.  This award recognizes extraordinary contributions and service to the ACADIA community, and was presented at the ACADIA 2010 “Life in:formation” conference at The Cooper Union in New York City (October 21-24, 2010).

Sharon Egretta Sutton was chosen to receive the 2011 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award by the American Institute of Architect’s Board of Directors at its December meeting. One of the Institute’s highest honors, the award recognizes Sutton’s commitment to advancing  minority participation in the design professions and advocating for environmental and social justice.  An ACSA Distinguished Professor and fellow in the American Institute of Architects, Sutton served on the faculties of the University of Michigan, University of Cincinnati, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University before her joining the faculty of the University of Washington in 1998. In addition, Sutton is co-editor of a new book, The Paradox of Urban Space: Inequity and Transformation in Marginalized Communities (Palgrave Macmillan). 

UW Faculty and students won awards this year at the Living City Design Competition juried in Vancouver BC. This was a major international competition focusing on how cities might become communities that reach the goals of the Living Building criteria for sustainability. Second place went to UW students Andy Brown, Rob Potish, Jonathan French and Ryan Heltzel-Drake taught by Affiliate Professor David Strauss, with the name Atelier.  The GU Team made up of Assistant Professor Gundula Proksch, Josh Brevoort, Lisa Chun, Mac Lanphere (recent UW graduate), Lauren McCunney (recent UW graduate), & Cameron Hall, won the “Images that Provoke Award”.  The jury commented on how the submission “makes the viewer feel physically transformed into an imagined reality”. 

Associate Professor Rick Mohler’s firm, Adams Mohler Ghillino, was recently recognized through several awards and publications.  The Wall House was named the Home of the Year by Seattle Homes and Lifestyles magazine and was recognized in the AIA Seattle/Seattle Times Future Shack program.  It was featured in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of SH&L and the 9/12/2010 issue of Pacific Northwest Magazine. The firm’s View Residence was featured on the cover of the Jan/Feb issue of Seattle Homes and Lifestyles. The Flip/Flop House(s) was featured in the July issue of the national trade magazine Builder in an article on housing innovation and was the AIA Seattle/Daily Journal of Commerce Project of the Month for September with a feature in the DJC on 9/15.

Professor Steve Badanes was an invited speaker at the International Forum on New Regionalism in North america at the University of San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador in March 2011. In February, Badanes was  a juror for the Jeff Harnar Award for Contemporary Architecture in Sante Fe NM, and delivered a lecture at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In November he spoke at University of Hawaii, Manoa, and he will be the keynote speaker at the Timber Framers Guild of North America conference in Port Townsend WA in may.

Senior Lecturer Elizabeth Golden presented two papers at ACSA in Montreale this year, “Traditional Translations: the Universal Optimizing the Handcrafted” and “Following the Berlin Wall”.  Assistant Professors Gundula Proschk and Rob Corser also presented in Montreale.

Assistant Professor Kathryn Rogers Merlino presented at the Revitalize Washington Main Street Conference with a paper entitled “Sustainability and Preservation for Washington State: Challenges and Opportunities” and  a paper for ARCC in Detroit entitled “Urban Grain and Neighborhood Vibrancy.”  Merlino and Professor of Architecture / UW College of Built Environments Dean Daniel Friedman were invited participants at the 25th Mayor’s Institute on City Design National Summit in Chicago on April 25-27.

Cal Poly College of Architecture & Environmental Design Appoints Interim Architecture Department Head

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Cal Poly’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design has named James A. Doerfler, AIA, CSI, interim head of its Architecture Department.

Doerfler is a native of Connecticut. He earned a bachelor’s degree in art history with a concentration in architectural history from the University of Hartford and a Master of Architecture degree from Syracuse University. At Syracuse, he studied under distinguished educator Werner Seligman.

A member of the American Institute of Architects and president-elect of the Building Technology Educators Society, Doerfler has more than 25 years of international practice experience. He has maintained his own architecture practice in each of the cities he has lived. His work spans the globe including projects in Australia, China, Spain, Switzerland and the U.S. Doerfler is a registered architect in New York and New South Wales, Australia.

He has taught at Cal Poly since 2005. Doerfler is a leader in developing award-winning interdisciplinary design studios and using software to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration at Cal Poly. His work and research focus on connecting conceptual design to digital fabrication methods using digital tools to supplement the design process. He is the founding director of the college’s Digital Fabrication Laboratory, director of the Architecture Graduate Program, and coordinator of co-op programs that facilitate student placement in professional practices around the world.

“I am greatly honored to be chosen to lead at one of the finest architecture departments in the country,” Doerfler said. “Being a part of the faculty here has given me great insight into how special our program is. I look forward to guiding the program with our excellent faculty to advance our strengths as we prepare students to be architects in the 21st century.”

Doerfler succeeds outgoing department head Henri de Hahn, who accepted a position as provost at New School of Architecture + Design in San Diego. De Hahn’s leadership accomplishments include the development of the architecture core curriculum, advancing interdisciplinary design, and expanding off-campus programs.

University of Arizona

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Associate Professor Martin Despang´s “Marienwerder community grocery center” has been recognized with a 2011/2012 Faculty Design ACSA Award. His typological diverse critical practice case studies: “Jibi community grocery center”, ”Headquarters Krogmann”, “Göttingen University Kindergarten” and “Farmhouse Voges” have been featured in the categories of : commercial, work ,education and dwelling in volume 2 of Braun Publishers bestseller, “1000 x European Architecture”.

Lecturers Christopher Trumble, Michael Kothke and Madeline Gradillas will present “Block_Lofting and Deformation_Reformation”,  “Revealing our Connections to the World”, and “Reflective Reuse: Iterative Material to Reinforce the Iterative Process”, respectively, at the The National Conference on the Beginning Design Student 2012, the End of/in the Beginning: Realizing the Sustainable Imagination.

Adjunct Lecturer Bil Taylor, via his construction company Just Build, LLC, recently won a 2011 award from the Arizona Masonry Guild for Excellence in the Design and Construction of the Harris-Lebel Residence, Tucson, AZ.

University of California, Berkeley

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We are delighted to welcome Stefano Schiavon as a new Assistant Professor in the area of Sustainability, Energy & Environment.  Schiavon received an MS in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Building Science and Energy Engineering from Italy’s Padua University, and has held research appointments at the International Center for Indoor Environment and Energy in Denmark, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and at UC Berkeley.  Schiavon has an impressive record of achievement, focusing on reducing energy consumption while increasing indoor environmental quality and occupant well-being and productivity; he is also enthusiastically finding ways his work can influence design practice and policy. 

The University of California, Berkeley, brings practicing architects to the campus as endowed teaching fellows each year:  The 2011 Esherick Visiting Professor is Jordi Truco, a partner at HYBRIDa, Barcelona and the Director of the Advanced Design and Digital Architecture at the ELISAVA Masters Program. HYBRIDa’s adaptive architecture focuses on architecture using new technologies: parametric-associative software systems, CAD-CAM output and speculative material investigations.

There will be three Friedman Visiting Professors this Fall: Wes Jones, Eric Kahn, Gary Paige. 

Wes Jones is the founder of Jones, Partners: Architecture, a California-based practice founded in 1993. Jones is, in a sense, coming home: he received a AB with Highest Honors from UC Berkeley in 1980. In the Fall of 2007, Princeton Architectural Press published a second monograph of his work, covering the period from 1998 to date, titled El Segundo.

Los Angeles architect Eric Kahn is a partner at IDEA Office (IO). Recent work includes a donor wall in the lobby of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the winning entry in the Dead Malls Competition, a new student services building at Los Angeles Community College, the VPM prototype for the Dwell Home Invitational, and a series of compelling single family houses in Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo. They were finalists in a housing competition for Livable Places, and the recipient of both the Young Architects Award and the Emerging Voices series sponsored by the Architectural League of New York.

Gary Paige is a principal of Gary Paige / Studio [GP/S], a Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary design firm engaged in projects ranging from architecture and urbanism to furniture and graphic design. The studio fuses the pragmatic with the poetic. Work includes an awarding-winning installation for the Venice Biennale; the design and renovation of the Freight Depot for SCI-Arc; Manifold House; and the recent “Variegated Mat-scape,” a finalist in the Los Angeles Forum Dingbat 2.0 Competition.

Assistant Professor Nicholas de Monchaux’s book Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT: 2011) continued to receive enthusiastic press, in The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/if-the-spacesuit-fits-we-have-lift-off/story-e6frg8nf-1226098387880).  He also wrote an op-ed on the subject for the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/opinion/21deMonchaux.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=de%20monchaux&st=cse).  De Monchaux’s most recent design work, meanwhile, was charmingly described as “urban acupuncture” in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/urban-acupuncture-community-localised-renewal-projects).

Galen Cranz was interviewed ON the principles of body-conscious design and research that led to her boo The Chair, in early July, for “Full Circle,” a cultural affairs program at KPFA 94.FM.  (Hear it at: http://chienchinoise.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/back-pain-and-postural-health/)

Miranda Hambro, Environmental Design Archives Assistant Curator and Jason Miller, Visual Resources Librarian are co-curating the exhibit: “Off Hours: Environments for Entertainment” [September 27-December 22, 2011, Environmental Design Library] This exhibit highlights the buildings and landscapes in which we spend leisure time for respite from the stresses of daily life.  Grouped thematically as things to watch, play, eat and buy, the focus is on spaces such as theaters, restaurants, playgrounds, country clubs, stores and sports facilities. 

Environmental Design Archives Curator Waverly Lowell made a presentation on Geraldine Scott and Thomas Church at a SPUR panel discussion: “Modern Landscape Design” in September and led a tour of Greenwood Common as part of the Cultural Landscape Foundation’s “What’s Out There Weekend: San Francisco,” also in September.

Nezar Alsayyad speaks to local TV about the Berkeley grad students still being held in Iran: http://www.ktvu.com/news/28734709/detail.html

An intriguing event held at SF-MOMA: a poetry reading riffing on iwamoto-Scott’s Jellyfish House in early August: http://www.sfmoma.org/view/page.mobile/event/content.event/1910

Nicholas de monchaux’s book Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT: 2011) was also featured on on-line magazines and blogs:

Kyle Steinfeld discussing data in a very brief YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBzvVfKB5sw

Margaret Crawford’s very amusing comment made earlier on a odd utopian plan got picked up in the U.K: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024761/Atlas-Shrugged-Silicon-Valley-billionaire-reveals-plan-launch-floating-start-country-coast-San-Francisco.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Robert Gonzales, who received his PhD from Berkeley in 2002, will be the new director of the Architecture Program at Texas Tech in El Paso.  Gonzales was also a lecturer on our faculty in 1998.

http://today.ttu.edu/2011/06/texas-tech-university-at-el-paso-welcomes-new-director-of-architecture/

More on Robert here: http://elpasoinc.com/readArticle.aspx?issueid=350&xrec=6694

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