ACSA News Digest December 2011

December 2011 Issue 3

ACSANewsDigest A Publication of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

EAST CENTRAL LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY Associate Professor Joongsub Kim, PhD, AIA, AICP, has been named as one of the six recipients of the 2011 NCARB (National Council of Architectural Registration Boards) Grant Award for the Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy.

Prof. Kim received a $13,800 grant award to support his proposal entitled “Public Interest Design Practices and Research Workshop.” This workshop aims to expand the discipline of architecture by challenging the traditional definition and boundaries of the profession of architecture, and by exploring alternative design practices.

CANADA MCGILL UNIVERSITY Two teams from McGill University’s School of Architecture shared first prize in the 17th Canadian Centre for Architecture Inter-university Charrette (November 1013, 2011), Liquid City. Team 78 (Hydro cosm: Lance Moore, Alexandre Hamel, and Maxime Leclerc) and Team 26 (Down with the Linear Functional: Gabrielle Poirier, Gabrielle Marcoux, Philippe Larocque, and Marc-Antoine Chartier-Primeau won first prize (ex aequo) in a competition in which a total of 68 teams took part. Organized by the CCA and the École de design of Université du Québec à Montréal, in collabora-

tion with McGill University and Université de Montréal and with the participation of Université Laval, Carleton University, Ryerson University and the University of Toronto, the competition invited students and interns to posit a new relationship between water and city living.

Martin Bressani and Marc Grignon have just published “De la lumière et de l’ombre : les fantasmagories du gaz d’éclairage à Paris au XIXe siècle,” in Speilraum: Benjamin et l’Architecture, Paris : Éditions de la Villette, 2011. With Nicholas Roquet, Bressani also authored, “Entropy in the Home: Reflections on the Nineteenth-Century Interior,” forthcoming in Architecture and Ideas.

Ricardo Castro presented a paper entitled “Breaking the Limits: The Concept of Infinity in the Contemporary Neo-baroque World at The Neo-Baroque Revisited:An International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Baroque held at the University of Western Ontario on 13-15 October 2011.

Avi Friedman has just published two books: Decision Making for Flexibility in Housing (Urban International Press) and The Nature of Place; A Search for Authenticity (Princeton Architectural Press). Friedman delivered a keynote opening address at the Housing Now conference at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC, and authored a feature article on Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek neighborhood for enRoute Magazine. He also completed a design of a sustainable community for the Municipality of Middlesex Center, Ontario.

ACSANews Digest is published once monthly and is distributed digitally to all fulltime faculty in ACSA member schools via the ACSA Update membership email. These Regional School items were originally published on the ACSA website, which offers extensive coverage of member schools activities updated daily.

Visit www.acsa-arch.org/ACSANews/read for more news. © Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 2011

Nik Luka recently gave a keynote address entitled “Building better neighbourhoods: lessons and ideas from Montréal’s Green, Active, and Healthy Neighbourhood project” at the “Celebrating Sense of Place and Spirit of Community” conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, as part of the city’s year-long Cultural Capital of Canada activities. Among forthcoming pieces is a critical essay on opportunities for urban sustainability in cottage housing across Canada, part of Urban sustainability: reconnecting place and space (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, edited by Ann Dale, Bill Dushenko, & Pamela Robinson).

RYERSON UNIVERSITY The Katebi Medical Clinic and Kindergarten (KMCK), to be built in the village of Katebi, located about 30 km east of Kolwezi, in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, is the result of a unique collaboration between Pamoja Tujenge (a Toronto-based charity), Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science, and the Toronto office of Arup, one of the world’s foremost engineering and design services firms. The Congo design/build initiative employs innovative, appropriate, environmentally sustainable strategies in terms of building materials and methods as well as heating, cooling, and electrical provision. KMCK is a model, off-the-grid facility. Essentially autonomous, it employs solar power to generate light and electricity and to run the project’s autoclave, oven, and disinfection facilities. It collects and stores on site its own clean drinking water, as well as water sufficient to serve the drinking water needs of the village throughout the dry season. KMCK utilizes hygienic, environmentally-sound, compost latrines.

And it is constructed out of indigenous materials - most notably earth, which is harvested from the site itself. It is anticipated construction will commence in 2013.

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WEST CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS CCA Adjunct Professor Matt Hutchinson has been selected to participate in the DesCours 2011 art and architecture event in New Orleans. The project, Bayou-Luminescence fuses material surface, structural volume and lighting effects into an immersive spatial experience. It is a collaborative effort, developed and fabricated with Igor Siddiqui, Assistant Professor at University of Texas at Austin.

CCA Adjunct Professor Katherine Rinne’s book, The Waters of Rome: Aqueducts, Fountains, and the Birth of The Baroque City (Yale University Press) won the 2011 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Award for Landscape History from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. Most recently she has lectured about her Roman water research at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Denver, the University of Washington, Drury University, and at Pratt Institute in Rome. Her web-based cartographic research project, Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome, www3.iath.virginia.edu/waters has been chosen by the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche, as one of five international water research projects to be featured at the “World Heritage and Water Strategy” conference to be held in Rome in March 2012.

Museums of the City, an experimental history project by David Gissen, CCA Associate Professor, and commissioned by Geoff Manaugh, appears in the exhibition Landscape Futures, Center for Art and Environment, Nevada Museum of Art. A catalog of the exhibition is forthcoming from Actar.

David recently spoke about Museums of the City at the Event “What is to be Written: A new generation of scholar/critics speaks out”, held at the Graduate School of Design Harvard.

Dr. Mona El Khafif, Assoc. Prof of Architecture at CCA, gave a lecture at the ART CITY BERLIN 2020 conference, organized

by Heinrich Boell Stiftung, on July 21st.

El Khafif’s presentation introduced a panel

discussion and workshop dedicated to operational strategies, defined as cultural impulses, for public space. The session was attended by the artist Harry Sachs from Kunstrepublik, architect Matthias Rick from Raumlabor, curator Ute Vorkoeper, and Mona El Khafif. Returning to San Francisco, El Khafif participated in a panel discussion, titled WHAT IS LANDSCAPE URBANISM? at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) on July 27th. Her input introduced a range of urban design and research projects developed by students and faculty at the CCA URBANlab that deal with new approaches to ecological urbanism. A selection of this work was also presented on October 15th at the ACSA conference in Houston, titled Local Identities Global Challenges, where El Khafif and CCA colleague Antje Steinmuller presented the paper MADE FOR CHINA: Transcoding Local Patterns into Ecologically High-Performing Urban Prototypes.

CCA Assistant Professor Jason Kelly Johnson and Associate Professor Nataly Gattegno were awarded the 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects. Future Cities Lab, their experimental research practice has also recently won several design awards and commissions including the Trilux Pavilion in San Francisco; Thermaespheres in Athens, Greece; and they were finalists for the Henry Art Gallery Facade project in Seattle. Jason will also serve as co-chair of the upcoming ACADIA 2012 Conference to be hosted at CCA in October 2012. The conference is titled “CRAFTING DIGITAL ECOLOGIES” and is being organized with partners from UC Berkeley and UC Cal Poly.

CCA Lecturer Liz Ogbu was made a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council http:// www.di.net/about/senior_fellows/. She was also selected as part of the inaugural class of “Innovators in Residence” by IDEO.Org http://ideo.org/fellows, a new nonprofit dedicated to reducing poverty through design and innovation.

CCA Adjunct Professor Liz Ranieri and her partner Byron Kuth’s award winning entry for the 2009 Rising Tides competition, Folding Water, is on view now at the Aquarium of the Pacific’s permanent new

exhibit, “Rising Seas.” Their work on eldercare housing was highlighted in a recent interview, “Mixing it up with Elders,” for the online publication ArchNewsNow. In October, Liz and Byron lectured at University of Texas at Austin. The accompanying exhibit “Reflections on Process and Recent Work” is on view at UTSoA’s Membane gallery.

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY Professor John C. Brittingham’s seven years of work with Yellowstone National Park and JLF and Associates from Bozeman, Montana was chronicled in an article titled “A Yellowstone Charrette” in the Fall\Winter issue of Western Arts and Architecture.

The article documents the history of three charrettes that Professor Brittingham has coordinated with the help of his graduate students for the park through the School of Architecture. This partnership has generated some $1.8 million in pro bono work with some of the best architects and architectural illustrators in the country. This work has recently been acknowledged at the highest levels of the Park Service in Washington DC and may well become new model and paradigm for design thinking in National Parks.

Professor Brittingham is currently working with 12 graduate students in Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim. Assistant Professor David Fortin’s book titled Architecture and Science-Fiction Film was recently published by Ashgate.

His book contemplates the home as one of our most enduring human paradoxes and is brought to light tellingly in science-fiction (SF) writing and film. However, while similarities and crossovers between architecture and SF have proliferated throughout the past century, the home is often overshadowed by the spectacle of ‘otherness’.

The study of the familiar (home) within the alien (SF) creates a unique cultural lens through which to reflect on our current architectural condition. SF has always been linked with alienation; however, the conditions of such alienation, and hence notions of home, have evidently changed. There is often a perceived comprehension of the familiar that atrohpies the inquisitive and interpretive processes commonly activated when confronting the unfamiliar. Thus, by utilizing the estranging qualities of SF to look at a concept inherently linked to its

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perceived opposite - the home - a unique critical analysis with particular relevance for contemporary architecture is made possible.

Assistant Professor Fortin has also recently contributed one of thirteen original essays titled “Philip K. Dick’s Disturbanism: Towards Psychospatial Readings of Science Fiction” to Writing the Modern City: Literature, Architecture, and Modernity published by Routledge. The book breaks new ground in its exclusive focus on modern narrative and urban space. The essays examine texts and spaces that have both unsettled traditional definitions of literature and architecture and reflected and shaped modern identities: sexual, domestic, professional and national. It is essential reading for students and researchers of literature, cultural studies, cultural geography, art history and architectural history.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO Rob Pyatt, Instructor and Research Associate, will lead a new trans-disciplinary design program: “Designing for People and Place: Sustainable & Affordable Housing for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” through the Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative (NASHI) at the University of Colorado, an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty and students seeking to improve housing conditions on tribal lands through research, education and outreach activities.

Specifically, this initiative establishes a sustainable, affordable and culturally appropriate housing research, design and demonstration home project on the Oglala Lakota College (OLC) campus as the foundation for an ongoing academic service-learning program between the CU Environmental Design program and the Construction Technology program at OLC. The overall objective of the project will be to develop a comprehensive case study to help inform the future housing choices for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and an “applied research” laboratory to educate OLC and CU students in the design and construction of sustainable, affordable, culturally inclusive and regionally appropriate housing.

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON John Wiley & Sons published the 3rd edition of Fundamentals of Residential Construction by Associate Professor Rob Thallon and Edward Allen, FAIA. Professor G.Z. “Charlie” Brown won a $25,000 research grant, with matching funds from the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee, and John Wiley & Sons. Associate Professor Ihab Elzeyadi won a $25,000 grant in addition to matching funds from the Van Evera Bailey Foundation, Oregon BEST, and Glumac Engineering. The UO projects are expected to provide funding for graduate and undergraduate student researchers and expand ongoing work in labs.

Brown’s project, “New Knowledge Structure for Designing Net-Zero Energy Buildings,” aims to provide more sophisticated tools for energy-efficient architecture “by organizing much of the knowledge of netzero energy building design.” He and co-investigator Mark DeKay of the University of Tennessee hypothesize “that we can generate, test and publish an integrated knowledge structure for net zero energy design that will help designers choose families of design strategies and, thereby, broaden the number of net-zero designers, improving the sophistication of their designs.”

Elzeyadi’s longtime pursuit of energy-efficient classroom retrofitting technology was the focus of his proposal. His submission, “Green Classroom Toolbox: Evidence-Based Integrated Design Tools to Guide Architects in Retrofitting K-12 School Facilities for Climate Change,” outlined his research objective of “developing evidence-based design guidelines for retrofitting existing educational spaces through the Green Classroom Toolbox (GCT) project in five US Climate Zones.”

Associate Professor Mark L. Gillem, PhD, AIA, AICP lectured at the North China University of Technology in Beijing on the topic of sustainable urbanism in October.

Using case studies from across the U.S., Dr. Gillem discussed the role of walkable streets, downtown parks, and public transit in making density livable and sustainable. On November 4, he lectured at Ho

Chi Minh City University of Architecture in Vietnam. In his lecture, “Urban Design: Sustainable Principles and Practices,” Dr. Gillem discussed ways in which urban design could address key challenges facing Ho Chi Minh City including integrating land use patterns and public transportation, adding parks and open spaces to the heart or urban areas, and regulating sustainable development through the use of form-based codes. On November 9 and 10, he chaired the first-ever Regional Workshop hosted by the American Planning Association’s Federal Planning Division. The event, held in downtown Denver, brought together over 200 planners from a variety of federal agencies including the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Transit Authority, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Participants addressed the conference theme, “Interagency Collaboration for Sustainable Landscapes,” in paper presentations, panel sessions, and roundtable discussions.

The University of Oregon hosted the Fall 2011 International PUARL Conference in Portland, October 28-31: “Generative Process, Patterns, and the Urban Challenge.”

The keynote address was delivered by Professor Donald Corner.

WEST CENTRAL ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY IIT College of Architecture faculty have been recognized in AIA Chicago’s 2011 Design Excellence Awards. At the October 28th event, five faculty members’ firms received awards.

The College of Architecture faculty honorees are listed below by award. For complete coverage of the 2011 awards, including photos of each winning design, visit AIA Chicago’s web site.

Distinguished Building Honor Award Carol Ross Barney, Ross Barney Architects.

James I Swenson Civil Engineering Building.

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Distinguished Building Citation of Merit John Ronan, John Ronan Architects. Gary Comer College Prep. Carol Ross Barney, Ross Barney Architects. Fullerton and Belmont Stations Reconstruction.

Interior Architecture Citation of Merit Andrew Metter, Epstein | Metter Studio.

Serta International.

Regional & Urban Design Honor Award Martin Felsen, UrbanLab. Farming the Chicago Stock Yards.

Regional & Urban Design Citation of Merit Thomas Hoepf, Teng + Associates. Moraine Valley Community College Entrance Gateway + Quadrangle.

IIT College of Architecture’s Paris Program students recently conducted a collaborative workshop with IE University in Segovia, Spain. Segovian “esgrafiado,” a traditional facade surface technique, was used as a point of departure. Under the guidance of renowned Segovian artisan Julio Barbero Artesanos, the session began as an active seminar with students working in traditional techniques, tools, materials, and processes. A technical architect, Anna Marasuela, presented a contemporary perspective on variations in system performance and its inherent efficiency with respect to embodied energy and material reuse.

After this initial training, students developed contemporary production ideas, speculating on material adaptations, the implications of altering production processes, and the effects on the system’s programmatic and communicative abilities.

View coverage in El Adelantado de Segovia newspaper.

Faculty from IIT College of Architecture are members of three of the five design teams chosen to compete in the final phase of a competition to redesign the public spaces of Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Navy Pier is the most popular attraction in Chicago, drawing nearly nine million visitors annually. Navy Pier, Inc., the newly formed not-for-profit entrusted with the redevelopment and operation of the Pier is

conducting an international search for a design team to reimagine the pier’s outdoor public spaces, or Pierscape. This work at Navy Pier provides the opportunity for a design team to have a profound impact on one of the most important and visible public places in Chicago.

Teams were directed to form with representatives from landscape architecture, architecture, urban design, communication and graphic design, lighting design, art curation, engineering, and other relevant disciplines. After two phases of the competition, five teams were chosen as finalists and announced last week. The five finalists will submit design proposals, fee estimates, and participate in oral interviews with Navy Pier. In early 2012, Navy Pier intends to select a design team or teams with whom it would work to complete the design and bring it to fruition.

• • •

The Aedas Architects team includes Assistant Professor Marshall Brown’s Marshall Brown Projects.

The !melk team includes Studio Associate Professor Martin Felsen’s UrbanLab and Adjunct Professor Terry Guen’s Terry Guen Design Associates.

The James Corner Field Opertaions team also includes Terry Guen Design Associates.

Read more about the Navy Pier design competition on Blair Kamin’s Chicago Tribune blog or the official website.

The Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat (CTBUH), based at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, is expanding its activities to include research on high-rise building standards.

CTBUH will develop design guidelines for wind-tunnel testing, structural outriggers, performance-based seismic design, column shortening, foundations and natural ventilation. The guidelines are an effort to standardize practice worldwide, resulting in better tall buildings overall.

Studio Associate Professor Susan CongerAustin conducted a five-day postgraduate seminar in November, hosted by Escola Da Cidade in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This was the

first US-Brazil seminar hosted by Escola Da Cidade and it engaged 30 postgraduate professionals from Brazil, Portugal, and Canada. Conger-Austin’s lectures and expertise in international design workshops were part of a larger three-month series on contemporary US architecture. The seminar was part of Conger-Austin’s ongoing efforts to create broader cultural and educational exchange between the IIT College of Architecture and Escola Da Cidade.

Adjunct Professor Barbara Geiger has just released a new book, Low-Key Genius: The Life and Work of Landscape-Gardener O.C. Simonds, published by Ferme Ornee.

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA A dream course team of Architecture and Interior Design students from the College of Architecture and Visual Communications students from the School of Art and History presented their ideas for a new development in Norman. The semester long project focused on creating easier movement between the University of Oklahoma campus and the city of Norman, which the campus calls home. The dream course was led by Associate Professor of Architecture Hans Butzer, Assistant Professor of Interior Design Janet Biddick, and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs at the School of Art and Art History Karen HayesThumann. Read more.

Meagan Vandecar, a student in OU’s Urban Design studio in Tulsa, is working with the Institute for Quality Communities and Urban Design Studio Director Shawn Schaefer to improve rural communities in Oklahoma. Learn more on her student blog.

A student team in the Division of Landscape Architecture, led by Associate Professor Dr. Reid Coffman, was recognized as a finalist in the International Waterworks Parkitecture Design Competition. See their project.

Inspired by Oklahoma’s own scissor tail, the SkyDance Bridge designed by a collaborative team co-directed by Associate Professor of Architecture Hans Butzer is beginning to take shape in downtown Oklahoma City.

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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Both Renee Cheng, head of the School of Architecture, and Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Design, were listed among the top 25 most admired design educators by Design Intelligence . Fisher has been writing about design in the Huffington Post, has recently published a piece “The Death and Life of Great Architecture Criticism for Places,” and continues to write every other month for Architect magazine about past P/A Award winning projects. He also lectured at Yale and Auburn on topics related to creating more resilient communities, the subject of his next book.

SOUTHEAST AUBURN UNIVERSITY APLA Alum, Daniel Heath (‘08), has been awarded the Charles Rieger and John D. Graham Architectural Art Prize, an awarded fellowship organized at the bequest of the late Charles Rieger, Professor of Architecture at Columbia University.

Mark Matel, a 2011 graduate of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s Masters of Design-Build program (now the Master of Integrated Design and Construction) has been awarded a the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship. Matel is among five chosen for the class of 2012– 2014 Rose Fellows. He will be working in the Roxbury neighborhood, a community in Boston, MA, to redevelop Bartlett Yards, a former transit yard, into a sustainable residential and commercial node.

Matel is the third School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture alumnus to win a Rose Fellowship since the program began in 2000. He joins Steve Hoffman, class of 2000-2003 and Daniel Splaingard, class of 2009-2012. Matel will begin his fellowship in January 2012.

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI Jan Hochstim, a longtime professor at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture who was well known to generations of

students for his exacting standards as a historian of the modern movement, passed away on November 5. He was 80.

Hochstim engaged fully in scholarship, teaching, and professional practice. He began his teaching career in 1958 and taught design and the history of architecture. He also practiced, producing work that ranged from the original Mark Light Stadium at UM to remodeling of the Swensen residence in Coral Gables’ French Village.

Hochstim also renovated the 1940’s-era apartment buildings that became the home of the UM School of Architecture in 1984.

He practiced in recent years with Adam Krantz.

Hochstim’s classes in the history of modernism fueled his scholarly work, and his book, The Paintings and Sketches of Louis I. Kahn (1991), was a critical success with reviews in the architectural press as well as The New York Times Book Review. His subsequent book, Florida Modern: Residential Architecture 1945-1970 (2005), brought together Hochstim’s intellectual interests as well as his personal associations with Florida’s leading modern practitioners.

The Dade Heritage Trust honored Hochstim last March as a “Living legend for his stellar contributions to Miami’s architectural heritage.”

In addition, he was recently appointed to the board of directors of DOCOMOMO US, an organization for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement.

Hochstim was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1931. As an exile during World War II in Uzbekistan, he met his future wife Ruth, also of Poland. After the war, they immigrated to the United States where they were married.

Hochstim earned a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from UM in 1954 and a bachelor of architecture from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in 1958. In 1976, he earned a master’s degree in the history of art and architecture from UM.

Hochstim received the Woodrow W. Wilson Award for Outstanding Teaching at the School of Architecture in 1981-82, and in 1978 his design for Mark Light Stadium received the American Institute of Architects’ Award for Outstanding Concrete Structure in Florida as well as the American Concrete Institute and Florida Concrete and Products Association Award.

Hochstim was predeceased by his wife Ruth and is survived by a brother, Adolf; a son, Richard; and nieces Diana Taylor and Monica Hochstim.

A gathering to celebrate his life was held in the School of Architecture’s courtyard on December 2 at 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jan’s memory to the University of Miami School of Architecture for the Materials Lab, P.O. Box 249178, Coral Gables, FL 33124-5010.

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE-KNOXVILLE Scott Poole, the new dean of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Architecture and Design, was named to the “25 Most Admired Educators of 2012” by DesignIntelligence, a report published by the Design Futures Council.

The annual honor is bestowed on leading design professionals who demonstrate excellence as administrators and educators.

DesignIntelligence staff creates the list based on input from thousands of professionals in academia and industry, spanning the fields of architecture, interior design, industrial design and landscape architecture.

Poole joined UT in July. Prior to coming to the university, he served as the director of the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech. Poole has also been recognized by the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture for his distinguished service.

Poole received a bachelor of arts degree from Temple University, where he was part of the honors anthropology program and an All-American athlete. He earned a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Texas and was a student Fulbright Scholar.

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“Our goal is to make Knoxville a design research hub that reaches out from Tennessee to the world,” he said. “To enhance curricula in the college, we will be adding courses, programs, technological capability, intellectual capital and industrial affiliates.

“The college will play a primary role in meeting the global demand for creativity and become a recognized center for design thinking.”

life of the first academically trained African American architect with his life’s work— the campus of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute.

Professor Weiss has taught architectural and planning history at many prestigious universities for nearly half a century. She has served on the boards of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, and the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians.

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

Susan Martin, UT provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, said: “The College of Architecture and Design’s programs are among some of the most noted and well-respected in the region and nation. We are fortunate to have Dean Poole in the leadership position to further advance the college and build upon its strong foundation.”

The College of Architecture and Design houses architecture, interior design and landscape architecture. The undergraduate architecture program was ranked a Top 20 program for 2011 by DesignIntelligence.

The college’s landscape architecture master’s program, which opened in 2008, is the only program of its kind in the state.

SOUTHWEST TULANE UNIVERSITY Favrot Professor of Architecture Ammar Eloueini, Intl. Assoc. AIA and principal of Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio is one of the five finalist for the prestigious 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program.

He is competing for the opportunity to design and construct an installation within MoMA PS1’s courtyard in Long Island City, Queens. The winners will be announced in February 2012.

Tulane School of Architecture is pleased to announce the publication of Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington by Professor Emerita Ellen Weiss from Newsouth Books with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This text interweaves the

The Modern Language Association will award the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies to Michelangelo Sabatino for Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy; Alessandro Polcri will receive honorable mention for Luigi Pulci e la Chimera: Studi sull’allegoria nel Morgante. Please click here to read the full press release.

Galveston residents won’t soon forget the wrath of Hurricane Ike. Surge tides flooded portions of the island, displacing thousands of homeowners, destroying businesses and leaving a lasting impact on the island’s coastline. As bad as Ike was, the damage could have been much worse.

Recently, researchers from the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED) proposed a levee system to protect downtown Galveston businesses and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). For now, community leaders are pondering this prospective storm barrier, but University of Houston architecture students are actively demonstrating how it can be a functional aspect of the city’s landscape.

This fall, 12 students at UH’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture developed designs and plans for urban amenities that can be incorporated into a Galveston levee.

Parks, landscaping, parking lots, commercial spaces and other amenities are included in students’ physical and computer models. Students recently presented their ideas for a panel of industry professionals, and these plans soon will be shared with Galveston civic leaders. These projects were part of professor Thomas Colbert’s Advanced Design Studio class.

“As architects, we have the opportunity to shape the physical environment around us…to shape our cities, so they’re more sustainable and more resilient,” Colbert said. “This exercise allows us to show community leaders that a levee doesn’t have to be a concrete wall that disrupts a pleasant streetscape. It can actually enhance an entire district and make it a nicer place, while at the same time making it safe.”

Students visited Galveston earlier in the semester and explored the area in which a levee would be placed. They then focused their energies on integrating the levee with a visitors’ center for a prospective coastal recreational area (also proposed by SSPEED).

Fifth-year architecture student Mel Fuentes developed a plan that would create an urban park alongside the levee. He also had the envisioned the transformation of an rarely used rail line into a tourist-friendly light rail system.

“For this project, I looked at other cities with levees, particularly New Orleans,” Fuentes said. “I focused on the consequences of the failure of that levee system and how I could improve on that. Galveston basically has a flat topography and is less vulnerable than New Orleans, but it still needs a levee system of some sort.”

Cristhian Bisso, a fourth-year architecture student, conceptualized a plan to unite areas of Galveston along the levee through enhanced landscaping, a jogging trail and performance pavilion. His plans also include a bridge that joins parking areas and cruise terminals.

“People often think of levees as barriers, but I am using this one to connect two sides of the island,” Bisso said. “It’s an exciting project because community leaders will have a chance to look at our work and perhaps come away with some ideas,” he said.

Colbert is among the researchers participating in SSPEED. He contributed to a recent report that recommended the Galveston levee system, in addition to a hydraulic gate structure that would protect the Houston Ship Channel. The report also advo-

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cated the construction of a levee system along State Highway 146, which serves a major evacuation route during hurricanes.

The entire report can be accessed at http:// sspeed.rice.edu/sspeed/downloads/Final_ Paper_2011.pdf.

SSPEED was founded in 2007 and is based at Rice University. Its mission is to advance research and disseminate information related to severe storm impacts and evacuation strategies in the Gulf Coast area. Participating researchers include professors from the University of Houston, Rice University, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas Southern University, Louisiana State University, University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas A&M University.

In addition to Colbert, UH contributors to SSPEED include Jim Granato, director of the Hobby Center for Public Policy and Hanadi Rifai, professor of civil and environmental engineering. To learn more about SSPEED, visit http://sspeed.rice.edu/ sspeed/index.html.

“Some of the best images from this class will be included in future SSPEED presentations to community leaders in the Galveston area and possibly legislators and anyone who is interested in the future of the island,” Colbert said.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe is a contributing author on the new book, BIM in Academia, published this month by Yale University Press. The book was generated by proceedings from the April 2010 Yale University BIM symposium on the implications of BIM on pedagogy.

Assistant Professor Igor Siddiqui’s installation, “Bayou-luminescence,” is included in DesCours, the annual architecture and art event organized by AIA New Orleans. The project, selected through an international call for proposals, is among ten site-specific installations distributed throughout the city from December 2 through 11.

Assistant Professor Tamie Glass and Associate Professor Ulrich Dangel have received two 2011 American Society of Interior Designers [ASID] Austin Design Excel-

lence Awards. Their remodel of a 1980’s residence originally designed by former School of Architecture dean Alan Taniguchi received a merit award in the Residential Contemporary Large category, while their design for an entertainment bar received 1st place in the Product Design category.

Associate Professor Michael Holleran has contributed a chapter, titled “America’s Early Historic Preservation Movement in a Transatlantic Context,” in the new book, Towards World Heritage: International Origins of the Preservation Movement 18701930, from Ashgate Publishing, edited by Melanie Hall.

Assistant Professor Bjørn Sletto has won a $15,000 grant award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s P3 Awards Program: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet. The award will be used for projects in Sletto’s Santo Domingo class. The project title is “Use of Vermicomposting to Reduce Solid Waste Accumulations, Alleviate Flooding and Further Sustainable Development in Slum Settlements in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.”

Professor David Heymann has just published the articles, “Landscape Is Our Sex” “A Mound in the Wood,” in Places.

They are the first two in a series of three thematically linked essays—observations on buildings and landscapes—that will appear during December 2011 in Places.

Places is an interdisciplinary journal of contemporary architecture, landscape and urbanism, with particular emphasis on the public realm as physical place and social ideal.

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture, was interviewed on Heritage Radio Network’s December 3 edition of “Burning Down the House” by host Curtis B. Wayne. The conversation focused on quality in architecture, with topics ranging from Finnish building laws to Wayne’s problem with recent architecture school graduates to Eduardo Souto de Moura’s Pritzker Prize-winning stadium.

Assistant Professor Fernando Lara’s Bicão social housing project, with Horizontes Ar-

quitetura, won one of the prizes at the 13th annual awards of the Brazilian Institute of Architects, Minas Gerais chapter.

Associate Professor Danilo Udovicki-Selb was asked by the Moscow Architecture Institute to contribute a chapter to a book to be published in memory of S. O. Khan-Magomedov, a world authority on the Russian architectural avant-garde, who pioneered their rehabilitation in the Soviet Union as early as the 1960s.

Also of note, the student projects from this year’s “Studio Paris” (taught by John Blood, Elizabeth Danze, and Danilo Udovicki), as part of Larry Doll’s “Europe Program,” are being exhibited in Paris in the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville.

Associate Professor Lois Weinthal’s recent book, After Taste: Expanded Practice in Interior Design, co-edited with Kent Kleinman and Joanna Merwood-Salisbury and published by Princeton Architectural Press, was reviewed in the November 2011 issue of Interior Design magazine. The magazine’s book reviewer Stanley Abercrombie writes: “This fresh, perceptive, and provocative look at our profession deserves a wide audience.”

NORTHEAST CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK The City College of New York was awarded entry into the prestigious international student 2011 Solar Decathlon competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. As Team New York, the school is among 19 student teams that designed, built, and operated an aesthetic, cost-effective solar-powered houses that were open to the public on the National Mall during the fall of 2011. The CCNY Team New York entry, named the Solar Roof Pod, was an urban focused design meant for mounting on available rooftops in urban settings.

Professor Christian Volkman and Professor Hillary Brown were the faculty Project Advisors.

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The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture was visited by the NAAB accreditation team in October 2011 and had a very positive exit report.

held at the United Nations. Prof. Brown was appointed to the newly established Roger Williams University Community Partnerships Center Board of Advisors.

Brian Healy was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor for fall 2011.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Antonio Di Oronzo was a featured speaker at the Enadii Mexico 2011 conference in Mexico City. His work has been recently published in FRAME magazine (Netherlands), Beaux Arts magazine (Paris), in the books Contemporary Architects, edited by Frank Leung, and Teoria + Praxis, edited by Benjamin Molina.

Joseph Tanne of Resolution: 4 Architecture was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor for fall 2011 and is teaching the inaugural March II studio.

Three illustrious professors have joined the Spitzer School of Architexture faculty full time: Associate Professor Edward Eigen, Professor Toni Griffin and Associate Professor Catherine Seavitt Nordenson. Eigen is an architectural historian focussing on the intersections of the human and natural sciences with architecture in the 19th century. Griffin was appointed to direct the J. Max Bond Architectural Center. Seavitt Nordenson, principal of Catherine Seavitt Studio, is coordinating the first year studio in the MLA Program.

Associate Professor Jacob Alspector was a guest speaker at the annual meeting of the city’s oldest neighborhood civic organization, the Washington Square Association. His lecture, “Grace Church School’s High School Division: Continuing Cooper Square’s Legacy,” addressed the architectural/historical/cultural context of his firm’s design, opening next fall.

Professor Hillary Brown, FAIA, joined the Washington-based National Academies’ Board of Infrastructure & the Constructed Environment for a three-year term. In June, Brown organized a discussion/ presentation at the Museum of the City of New York of Team New York’s Solar Roofpod, with Associate Professor Christian Volkmann and PlaNYC officials.

ACSA Distinguished Professor Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, was elected inaugural Chancellor of the ACSA College of Distinguished Professors. Brown also initiated and cochairs the AIA NY Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee and moderated its inaugural event “VisioNYC 2080: Towards a Risk-Resilient City.” He helped organize and spoke at the 2011 UN World Habitat Day event, “Cities and Climate Change,”

Adjunct Professor Alberto Foyo was awarded an honorary degree by the National University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Ukraine. With Juhani Pallasmaa, he taught in the international summer program of the Compostela Institute in Spain.

His students’ urban proposal, exploring ways of linking the medieval city of Santiago de Compostela with Peter Eisenman’s adjacent new City of Culture, was chosen by the mayor of the city for further development.

Associate Professor Marta Gutman published “Construire la ville: la dimension mondiale dans l’urbanisation moderne,” in Perspective 3 (2010-11), journal of the French Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art. She spoke at the 75th anniversary celebration of the WPA pools, organized by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation at Red Hook Pool in Brooklyn. She continues to edit Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

Adjunct Lecturer Daniel Hauben is currently engaged in a two-year major commission to paint twenty-two paintings for a new Robert AM Stern library and instructional building at Bronx Community College.

Adjunct Lecturer Adam Hayes’s firm Openshop has been retained to develop an architectural, graphic and digital framework for a new brand in China that will be an Authorized Premium Apple Retailer. Fifty stores are anticipated in the next two years.

Adjunct Associate Professor Ali C. Hocek’s firm Think OffSite LLC is featured in “Thinking Outside of the Box,” in Archi-

tecture Leaders Today magazine (Sept/Oct 2011).

MLA Program Director Denise Hoffman Brandt coedited the Fall 2011 issue of SLUM Lab magazine, themed “Last Round Ecologies,” with Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner. The issue’s content covers an array of projects from around the world that reveal facets of the destructive capacity of contemporary city-making and ideas for alternative futures. SSA faculty contributors include Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Elisabetta Terragni, and Michael Sorkin.

Adjunct Assistant Professor David Judelson’s architectural scale sculpture Shelter X-Posed received the curator’s award for best piece in an exhibition of outdoor contemporary sculpture at Chesterwood, a sculpture park in western Massachusetts.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Vanessa Keith edited the book Kingston Harbour: Development Transects, published by the Urban Design Program of Columbia University.

The book charts possible directions for development in downtown Kingston, Jamaica.

Adjunct Assistant Professor Kenneth Petrocca obtained the Certificates of Occupancy for the James Weldon Johnson Children’s Center and Community Center and the Polo Grounds Community Center.

These 20,000 sq. ft. facilities will serve residents by providing child care, senior services, after school programs, basketball tournaments and educational programs.

Associate Professor Dominick R. Pilla published the article “An Affordable and Sustainable Building Design in New York City” in STRUCTURE Magazine (Sept. 2011), featuring his firm’s structural design of the Fox Point Residence in the Bronx and highlighting the benefits of using precast concrete planks and steel in the building design.

Dean George Ranalli’s Saratoga Community Center was featured in the article “Oasis in Limestone and Brick” in Harvard Magazine (Sept./Oct. 2011). The project received a Design Award from the Pennsylvania Council Society of American Registered Architects. The Valentine #2 Chair, designed

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by Dean Ranalli, is currently on view in the exhibit “Highlights of Modern Design from 1900 to the Present, Part II” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The show features work from the Museum’s permanent collection of 20th Century Architecture and Design.

Associate Professor Catherine Seavitt Nordenson received the President’s Citation for Outstanding Alumni Achievement in Architecture at The Cooper Union’s 152nd Commencement in May 2011.

Her essay “High Stakes: Soft Infrastructure for the Rising Seas” appears in the Museum of Modern Art’s catalog Rising Currents, for the 2010 show of the same name.

Adjunct Professor Markus Schulte is a structural engineer and principal with Arup. His work for the Hypar Pavilion at Lincoln Center received a 2011 National Award for structural engineering excellence from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC).

Distinguished Professor Michael Sorkin recently published All Over the Map (Verso, 2012), his 16th book on architecture and urbanism, and it is getting excellent reviews. The Michael Sorkin Studio won first place in a competition to design the re-

newal of a thirty-mile stretch of the Weihe River and a major urban expansion in Xi’an, China. The Studio’s project for 3,900 units of housing in the Xiging District of Tianjin, China, was featured in Architectural Review. Terreform, the non-profit Sorkin directs, has just published By The City/For The City, a project of the Institute for Urban Design, of which Sorkin is President, under its new imprint, Multi-Story Books.

Professor Achva Benzinberg Stein, FASLA, received the City College of New York Outstanding Teaching Award for 2011, an award honoring her commitment to her students and to her field, based on nomination statements submitted by students and colleagues in the School. A plaque bearing her name will be hung in the NAC Rotunda.

She becomes a member of the Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Award Selection Committee for three years. Prof. Stein is currently working on a Master Plan for the Green Belt of the city of Auroville in South India, founded in 1968 as a World City, and recognized as such by both the Government of India and UNESCO. Her design for the Moroccan Court at the Metropolitan Museum opened in November as part of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.

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Associate Professor Elisabetta Terragni’s Trento Tunnel project was selected for the Smart Future Minds Exhibition/Competition. Along with civil and military authorities in Albania, she is working on a large scale project to transform a former military base in Porto Palermo into a Cold War Museum. She presented the project at Festarch 2011: “Città e Anticittà / City and Anti-city” in Perugia, Italy, organized by Abitare magazine.

Adjunct Professor Barbara Wilks, FASLA, published the article “Marine Streets” in Ecological Restoration magazine (Sept.

2011). She spoke at the Pecha Kucha New York #12 event “Dimensions of Urban Design,” as part of Urban Design Week. Her firm W Architecture and Landscape Architecture completed phase one of “The Edge” waterfront park in Williamsburg.

Associate Professor June Williamson organized an interactive workshop on retrofitting suburbia and the panel “Sprawl: Past, Present, Future” for the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a temporary space on East Houston Street, designed by Atelier Bow-Wow. She delivered public lectures on her research at Cornell and the University of Michigan.