A new mobile app developed by SMARTreview, a startup company co-founded by Mark Clayton, professor of architecture at Texas A&M, provides designers and regulators quick access to fire safety codes adopted in the U.S. and many international regions that provide safeguards for people in homes, schools and workplaces.

The iOS and Android app, SMARTreview Fire Safety, provides calculations and tables from the International Code Council’s Quick Reference Guide to Fire Safety to determine whether a building’s specifications are in compliance with ICC codes. A companion desktop app for the Windows operating system is also available.

“The software represents many years of work to develop a powerful and robust algorithm for checking particular requirements in the building code,” said Clayton. “The app should pay for itself in reduced time on its first use on a project by eliminating the tedium of looking up figures and requirements in building code books, but its real value comes in speeding the process of obtaining a permit and ultimately the completion of a building.”

Additional apps are in development, Clayton said, that address other calculations in the ICC code, the International Energy Conservation Code, the International Residential Code, American Disabilities Act compliance, and other regulations.

“As a start-up company, we expect to hire additional staff as revenue is generated,” he said.

The 14th Annual Texas A&M College of Architecture Research Symposium: Natural, Built, Virtual will take place Monday, Oct. 22 at the Langford Architecture Center on the Texas A&M campus.

This year’s symposium includes invited or refereed presentations and papers from the 2011-12 academic year. The symposium will feature approximately 50 presentations divided into diverse categories and delivered in several concurrent sessions throughout the day. This year’s presentations are grouped in broad categories including invention, energy, modeling, management, policy, pedagogy, aging, innovation, perception, history, archaeology, excogitation and well-being.

The college’s annual symposium was established more than a decade ago to underscore the influence of research on teaching and practice. It also serves as a catalyst for research-informed teaching in the College of Architecture’s five undergraduate and nine graduate degree programs. And, because many of the presentations were originally delivered at scholarly venues abroad, the event also showcases the global influence of research conducted by college faculty.

Rituals developed by ancient Greeks to sustain relationships with their gods will be discussed by Kevin Glowacki, assistant professor of architecture at Texas A&M, at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 9 at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Glowacki will focus on a sanctuary and architectural remains of Aphrodite and her son Eros, gods of love, marriage and fertility, on the north slope of the Acropolis in Athens. “The open-air sanctuary is an instructive example of a less formal or ‘popular’ shrine, where the ancient Athenians made dedications of sculpted reliefs, marble statuettes, and terracotta figurines,” said Glowacki. He will present an analysis of the three main types of rituals performed at the sanctuary, intended to create and sustain personal relations between mortals and their gods: prayer, sacrifice and dedication.