Call for Papers

building

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9 8 th aCSA Annual Meeting c a l l for papers New Orleans | March 4-7, 2010 | Royal Sonesta Hotel Host School

Tulane University

Conference Co-chairs

Bruce Goodwin and Judith Kinnard

Theme

Overview What is the role of the building in architectural discourse today? As schools engage in cross-disciplinary dialogues that are essential to the expanded field of architectural practice, does the art and craft of building design remain central to our curricula? Sophisticated technologies now allow us to preview the appearance and predict the performance of proposed buildings. Our traditional conception of design is challenged as decision-making can be automated and building parts can be cut, routed or printed to exact tolerances.

Yet the ecological, economic and cultural contingencies that surround each project are increasingly complex. Recent events have exposed the fragility of buildings as objects in the face of natural and man-made forces and the critical role of infrastructure has been made increasingly apparent.

The 2010 ACSA Annual Meeting will engage multiple themes associated with the changing art of building both as artifact and as process in architecture and related disciplines.

The theme encourages debate on how we might balance traditional definitions of aesthetics, urbanism, preservation and construction with innovative practices that shatter the boundaries of architectural thinking.

These debates will be informed by the city of New Orleans.

More than 3 years after Hurricane Katrina the process and results of the rebuilding efforts at work in this most vibrant and unique of American cities will be an important point of reference and topic for discussion.

S u b m i s s i on s D u e : S e p t e m b e r 3 0 , 2 0 0 9

B ri d g i n g t h e G a p B e t w e e n Q u a l i t i e s a n d Q u a n t i t i e s i n D e s i g n P ra c t i c e Franca Trubiano, Georgia Institute of Technology

Despite conditions of need and crisis, many false and unproductive characterizations continue to shape the teaching of design in schools of architecture. Most evident is the divide that separates qualitative and quantitative descriptions, and measurements of space and matter. A philosophical condition dating back to the 16th and 17th century, via the observable phenomena of Galileo and the disputations of Descartes, architects and their associated engineers/ builders continue to struggle with fields of knowledge whose language and methodologies are highly different and rarely associated. This session encourages the presentation and discussion of architectural projects, student or otherwise, theoretical or built, conceived and executed using analytical processes predicated on the evaluation of specified data-scapes. The adoption of verifiable processes, whether in service to structural design, environmental sustainability, energy measurements or systems management, can contribute to the definition of a building’s performance and as such begin to bridge the present divide. Towards illuminating this goal, papers are sought which make evident the use of analytical processes in the re-conceptualization of architectural design.

Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

C o n s t ru c t s a n d C o n c e p t s : B u i l d i n g i n t h e D e s i g n S t u d i o Scott Murray, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In recent decades, architectural practice has traditionally been marked by a pervasive and perhaps necessary, though one might say unnatural, separation of the process of design from the act of building. This divergence is codified in the terminology of practice: the transition from the design development phase to construction documents technically marks a clean break at the end of a project’s design and the beginning of its construction. The rise of construction management, as a profession outside of architecture, has further entrenched the architect’s disassociation with building. These distinctions are perhaps just as evident in architecture schools, where design studios do not typically address the issues and challenges arising from construction, ideas more often tackled in technology courses which may or may not be related to studio work. A counter view, however, holds that the success of any work of architecture, if it is intended to exist in three dimensions, ultimately depends on how its materials and components come together in physical space to give form to concept, such that constructing becomes an integral part of designing. Some architecture schools have recently taken a critical approach to these issues, seeking effective ways to creatively re-engage with the process of building, initiating innovative studios and other coursework that seek to redefine the design process by reclaiming the act of construction.

engaged in the development of design thinking, how does the act of constructing contribute to and reinforce this agenda? What is the relationship of construction and concept?

How can the act of building be re-introduced into the design process? How can construction invigorate and expand design education?

What is to be learned from working directly with physical materials, sites, and even clients? Examples of relevant work may include design/build studios, solar decathlon projects, digital fabrication workshops, and communitydesign outreach programs, among others. We are interested in both concept and construct-the theoretical underpinnings and the physical outcomes of such projects. Papers may also address, for instance, how design education has historically addressed issues of building, and how this relationship has changed over time. The goal of this session is to highlight current efforts to engage the act of making, thus initiating a critical discussion of the role of building in design education.

This session invites papers and projects that explore diverse strategies for integrating the physical act of making--from the fabrication of discrete components to the construction of whole buildings--into a broader definition of design. If the design studio is fundamentally 98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

Detail Question(ed)

Alexandder Ortenberg, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Axel Schmitzberger, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

It seems that Kas Oosterhuis’ claim ‘One building – One Detail’ fits the contemporary trend of non-standardized architecture and full parametric involvement, also called BIM - Building Information Modeling. The building has no need for standardization; as a matter of fact standardization would contradict the given premise of a responding and responsive building body. The desire to simplify the interaction of parts and elements in a building and in the design process may be a simple reaction to increasingly complex technology. It appears, however, that this quest for reduction is neither novel nor entirely realistic.

The term “detail” itself has undergone many changes in meaning and identity and is in need of special attention. Architecture schools do not teach how to develop building details—even though the majority of offices will charge entry level employees with precisely this type of architectural production.

We seem to agree that once young architects have acquired problem solving skills they will be able to master the specifics of detail on their own. This question, however, has not been adequately discussed as a theoretical subject. As poignant as they were—each in its own way—such provocations as Marco Frascari’s famous essay; Eric Owen Moss’s pledge to never succumb to the seduction of the “hedonistic detail;” and, most recently, Alberto Pérez-Gómez’s profound argument about Western-European fascination with the joint as part of the erotic foundation of its art never produced any adequate response.

This omission may be a reflection of an uneasy feeling about the detail that is deeply ingrained in the contemporary architectural culture—in Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

spite of Edward Ford’s honest attempt to prove otherwise. This feeling could be discerned in the statements that reject the detail in favor of field investigation as well as in those arguing that the detail is effectively all that is left to the architect in our increasingly fragmented, compartmentalized profession.

Oscillation has recently been revived as a design strategy in terms of a top-down and bottom-up feedback loop often identified as a new form of materiality as it rejects material hierarchy but not performative materiality. This new materiality is commonly seen as a by-product of novel, mostly highly automated and digitally motivated fabrication techniques in practical applications. The detail, as part of the whole, is removed and remains an independent material aspect in form of an autarchic connecting device. It becomes logical that new production techniques need to be fully incorporated into the architectural design-process and vice versa.

The proposed session attempts to reinvigorate the discourse of the detail as part of architectural education, as a practical issue and as an ethical and philosophical quest. The new developments in building and design technology—such as sophisticated high-end BIM software and prototyping tools—give it a new urgency and a new perspective. At the same time, fundamental theoretical issues that have been brought up before in the context of the detail—such as the relationships of surface and space, figure and ground, memory and resemblance, aggregation and mutation—still await an adequate theoretical exploration as well as integration in the teaching environment.

D i s a s t e r a s D e s i g n M o m e n t i n N e w O rl e a n s a n d B e y o n d Jacob A. Wagner, University of Missouri-Kansas City

This session seeks papers that address the concept of a “design moment” in the wake of disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The idea of a “design moment” suggests an uncommon opportunity to create significant interventions in the basic urban form of a particular city. In contrast to the incremental growth of a city, design moments are characterized by dramatic alterations of urban form in a short period of time that may accelerate existing trends or radically transform building practice. Design moments provide a critical juncture in the life of a particular city that reveal both continuity and conflict with the urban past. Beyond the impacts to the physical city, a design moment can alter the social structure, act as a catalyst for new approaches to design education, or foster new schools of thought that influence the design professions for several decades.

Design moments can develop in the context of disaster recovery, rebuilding after wars, state-led policy interventions (such as urban renewal), or in response to structural changes in the economy that drastically alter city form.

A design moment is characterized by the proliferation of design ideas, proposals, new practices, and a body of scholarship that reflects on the city, the design moment and its associated challenges of transformation.

This session builds on a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design (forthcoming, 2009) that addresses the design moment in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. New submissions are welcomed for this session that expand and critique the concept of a design moment or present case studies of architectural, planning and design responses

to New Orleans or other urban disasters. We welcome papers that address the following themes evident in the design moment following Hurricane Katrina: 1) Ecological Design, Climate Change and the “Green” Design Moment 2) Demolition, Displacement, Housing and the “Right of Return” 3) Preservation, Urban Conservation and Heritage Planning 4) The Politics of Design in the Aftermath of Disaster 5) Critical Assessments of the Design Professions (Practice and Education) in the Context of a Design Moment We seek papers that address the following questions: How and why do design moments change architectural and planning practice and education? Are design moments simply an expression of a deep attachment to modernism and the “clean slate” approach to urban redevelopment? Do design moments offer any benefits to the residents of the post-disaster city or are they simply an exercise in design fantasy? What is the role of local culture in the context of design moment? Do design moments foster homogeneity of design or design diversity?

We seek scholars who are engaged both in terms of the practice and theory of the design moment in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. We invite comparative work that includes analysis of the New Orleans experience in light of other design moments in other cities - either historical or contemporary.

98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

E n e rg y a n d E n v i ro n m e n t a l S i m u l a t i o n i n t h e D e s i g n S t u d i o Ute Poerschke, Pennsylvania State University Lisa D. Iulo, Pennsylvania State University Loukas N. Kalisperis, Pennsylvania State University

The most important decisions related to energy are made in the early design stage, for example the building’s siting and orientation, its main materiality and construction. Since this stage is rarely accompanied by consultants for reasons of cost and time, architects increasingly perform energy and environmental simulation in order to receive alternative input for the idea generation process. While in the past such simulation tools had been so specialized, time-consuming, and visually and graphically ineffective that architects have not used them, their simplification and enhanced visualization have developed to a stage where environmental and energy performance data can be used routinely within the architect’s design process.

In response to this shift in the use of simulation software beyond an engineering analysis tool toward an architectural design tool, many architecture schools have started experimenting with energy and environmental simulation integration in seminars and studios. Discussions have been initiated if, why, and how such simulation should be implemented into the curricula. Of particular interest is the question; which year-levels of the undergraduate and graduate programs would be most appropriate for introducing digital analysis and simulation of site conditions, passive solar, daylighting and shading, natural ventilation, thermal comfort, renewable and embodied energy, urban microclimates and other related topics?

While the topic of simulation has often been presented at engineering conferences, it has become pivotal to facilitate such discussions within the architecture design realm and ACSA. Therefore, the session seeks papers Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

that discuss the role of energy and environmental simulation in the architecture and urban design curricula. It invites presentations of innovative seminars and studios that have implemented simulation as an important component. The main intent of this session is to collect, exchange, and compare teaching experiences of implementing energy and environmental simulation in architectural undergraduate and graduate courses in order to further enhance integrated strategies and inspire curriculum refinements. Explorations and research presented in this session, and the resultant dialogue, will shed light on the assets and drawbacks of studio or seminar integration of environmental simulation tools. Â

F l o o d A rc h i t e c t u re

Eduard Epp, University of Manitoba

Flood Architecture addresses cultural settlement ideals and practices in geographic regions temporally affected by extreme hydrological / climatic cycles, primarily in river basins, globally. It is constituted and determined by geophysical, technological, and socio-cultural systems working inter-dependently in time, space, and formal constitution.

Flood Architecture addresses the idea of working with water instead of against it.

Flood Architecture resists our compulsive, single-minded efforts to control water through elaborate structural interventions. Instead, it embraces the dynamic relation between land, water, settlement, and built form through a critical exploration of possible relations between natural and human systems and posits hybrid spaces and forms.

Flood Architecture embraces a ‘pioneering’ approach that recognizes both natural and human systems as intrinsically related and that the future well-being of the earth and its inhabitants is contingent upon innovative environmentally based design solutions at all scales. Natural systems include atmospheric, terrestrial and hydrological components. Human systems include biophysical, psychosocial / cultural, and technological components.

ship role of the design disciplines [architects, industrial designers, landscape architects, urban designers …] as ‘agents of positive change’ … together with other allied disciplines including politicians, civic administrators, engineers, community activists, and so on.

Six research / practice sub-themes address Flood Architecture have been identified for consideration in the context of the overall built environment. These include the following: 1. Land Use and Codes; 2. Settlement; 3. Infrastructure; 4. Landscape; 5. Built Form, and; 6. Products The opportunity arises for leading academics, practitioners and students to address Flood Architecture in relation to these subthemes through both poetic and purposeful design proposals and works … and to provide evidence through a very significant academic setting.

Flood Architecture is increasingly a globally shared design issue. Global warming, changing land use patterns, and resource depletion have caused significant changes to settlements ideals and practices both in the ‘developed’ and in the ‘developing world’.

Most importantly, Flood Architecture recognizes and addresses the [potential] leader98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

F l o w a n d C o n t e m p o ra ry A rc h i t e c t u re P ra c t i c e Nana Last, Rice University

One of the prevailing constructs of contemporary architecture practice is that of flow.

Appearing in and around various discussions from smooth space, to systems theory, material logics, emergence and temporality, the construct of flow is nearly as ubiquitous as it is broad. This makes the intersections between flow and architecture at once obvious and illdefined, potentially potent and transformative yet too frequently associated solely with specific types of formal manipulations. The construct of flow, however, is positioned to serve as more than a design tool for architecture: it is situated in a position to open up issues of deep concern to architecture’s own definition, functioning and practical limits. Emerging as a broad epistemological construct, invoking flow activates a series of dichotomies that have long reigned within the discipline of architecture, including those between container and contained, object and field, architecture as a social practice versus its as material and formal ones, and architecture’s epistemological and practical relations to other disciplines and practices. As the term is frequently used to refer to both a designated movement through space and the material formation of architectural space itself, the concept necessarily questions how architecture forms space, enters into, mediates and invokes physical and social spaces along with behaviors.

As flow is a deeply spatial notion, it readily lends itself to architecture, but importantly, it is not limited to architecture or other explicitly spatial practices. Instead, the construct makes strong appearances in numerous disciplines, most notably the physical and natural sciences in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as in discussions of the workings of Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

capitalism. As such, flow has a wide potential to be a tool of analysis of modern and contemporary developments. This range allows flow to act as a powerful catalyst in the reordering of disciplinary workings and interworkings, including those between practice and knowledge. In an attempt to harness that power, this panel seeks papers that examine models, constructs and phenomena of flow in modern and contemporary architecture, landscape and urban practices. The panel seeks papers on all aspects of this topic that examine how flow contributes to or reimagines the discipline and practice of architecture. Other possible paper topics include: how flow builds on developments in other fields ranging from the natural sciences to social, economic and information systems and systems theory; or how the construct is used to rethink architecture’s representation and understanding of the modernist construct of the masses and its more recent incarnation as multitude. The discussions may develop the construct’s appearance across its historical emergence in relation to aspects of modernism/capitalism, or the papers may focus their discussions on the manifestations and ramifications of flow in contemporary practice, particularly with an eye to the future developments.

H o n o ra b l e M e n t i o n : L o s i n g t o t h e C o m p e t i t i o n Michael A. McClure, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

This session aims to interrogate the value of competition entries that did not make the cut, and the role of competitions in design practice and education. The 1922 Chicago Tribune competition and the 1982 Parc de La Villette competition are both examples of competitions where the ‘losing’ schemes are just as important as the built, winning projects. Comparisons of the entries expose and clarify the major discourse of architecture of their time. Specific ‘losing’ entries are important examples of the working practices of particular emerging and established designers. The schemes of academic design competitions that did not win or place nonetheless hold great value for the students, the school, and the larger academy.

This session questions the role of the ‘losing’ competition entry. This vast array of unselected provocations, practices, researches, pedagogies remain vital to design discourse.

The session welcomes debate regarding their role within larger contexts; social, practical, historical, pedagogical…

It welcomes pedagogical approaches, historical and contemporary practices, multidisciplinary comparisons that engage competitions as an active agent in the work

98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

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I n t e g ra t i n g S u s t a i n a b i l i t y I n t o A rc h i t e c t u ra l E d u c a t i o n : A re W e T h e re Ye t ?

John B. Hertz, University of Texas at San Antonio

Sustainability is now a key issue in the ethical and technical concerns of practicing professionals. This session will measure the progress of the integration of these same concerns into the broader architectural curriculum. Are technological courses promoting architecture that is green and energy efficient? Are bridges being built to the natural sciences and engineering? Are the socio-political aspects of architectural education addressing larger issues of sustainability in land use, recycling, historic preservation, transportation, and urban and regional politics? Is sustainability central to studio courses? Are the greener criteria of accreditation a catalyst transforming course content and structure? Does the curriculum itself promote sustainability? In the face of the mounting evidence of climate change and the impact that architecture has on carbon emissions, the critical question is “Has a systemic transformation of the teaching of architecture occurred?�

This session will ask participants to take part in a discussion about the pedagogical changes that are integrating sustainability into the broader curriculum, including technical areas as well as studio, history/theory, and others.

While case studies are important as a snapshot of where we are, papers should also reflect on how individual course experiences relate holistically to other academic offerings and to the curriculum as a whole. It is also open to more encompassing viewpoints regarding the greening of architectural education, including the role of external forces, such as accreditation criteria or calls by the AIA for greater responsibility in the preparation of future professionals.

Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

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I n t e rs e c t i n g

I n f ra s t ru c t u re s : P u b l i c W o rk s a n d the Public Realm

Katherine W. Rinne, California College of the Arts

Infrastructure is the foundation of every community and it is the quality and extent of that infrastructure that determines in large part the economic and social health of towns and cities. Clean water, good schools, affordable housing, and reliable public transportation are all essential components of city building and for the creation of a stimulating and open public realm. Access to infrastructure creates the opportunity for social equity and what has come to be known as “quality of urban life”. This session will focus on architectural, landscape, and urban research, practice, and teaching that promotes deeper understandings of the connections between the construction of civic infrastructures and the construction of a public realm in cities and towns, and the creation of social equity.

Papers that address architectural, technological, political, economic, and/or social issues surrounding the construction of infrastructures could focus on any aspect of transportation, utilities, disposal systems, social services, or disaster preparedness systems.

Transportation infrastructure includes roads, highways, parking, bike lanes, shipping routes and facilities, airports, railroads and public transportation; utilities include water, electric, gas, and communications systems; disposal services include sewerage, run-off water, solid waste, hazardous waste and recycling; social infrastructure includes (among other things) education, public health and recreational facilities, schools, farmer’s markets, affordable housing, hospitals, public toilets, public parks and public agencies like police and fire stations, correctional facilities, post offices, city halls and libraries; while disaster preparedness includes early warning systems

and levees, for example. For the purposes of this session, papers should focus on the manifold ways in which infrastructures overlap and are dependent upon each other for viability: for example, communication systems and correctional facilities; recycling facilities and public transportation; or public schools and park systems. Furthermore, each investigation should then query and explain how these intersections either facilitate or hinder opportunities for social equity across the spectrum of class, race and/or gender. Papers that address how infrastructures can be used as generator of design thinking (rather than as afterthoughts left to engineers) are especially welcome as are those that address the rebuilding and restoration of existing or failed infrastructures as opportunities to create a more just environment.

98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

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I s A rc h i t e c t u re C ri t i c a l ?

Marc J. Neveu, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Within the context of natural, designed, economic, environmental, and other disasters, the justification of architecture has been understandably put into question. What guides the making of architecture? Is it an immediate response to a crisis; the desire for long-term social well-being; the effect of building on natural resources; or is it simply an economic opportunity? What role does theory, if any, still play? This session asks the question: Can architecture still be critical?

I use the word “still” because the past fifteen years has seen a lot of academic bickering around the question of a “critical” architecture. On one side, were Michael Hays, Peter Eisenman and others, each heavily dependent upon the work of Manfredo Tafuri. After opening the pandora’s box of what critical architecture might be, Tafuri returned to Venice, Renaissance Venice to be exact, leaving many to question what a critical architecture should be. Hays stands by the idea of a critical architecture, but admits that the meaning of the term has become ambivalent. His most clear statement on the nature of a critical architecture was proposed in a constantly referred to article from the late 1980s. In the article, Hays distinguishes between a cultural and formal reading of architecture. He uses the work of Mies van der Rohe to exemplify a critical project that is not only culturally or formally bound, but rather may be both. He cites the Friedrichstrasse tower projects as oppositional, resistant, and able to withstand globalizing and consumerist tendencies as well as the contemporary formal vocabulary.

In this way, the work is critical. The other side seems to have tired of all the posturing and pseudo-philosophizing that they saw as a projCall for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

ect of the 1970s and 80s. Theory, they claim, is no longer a viable model for architecture and should be abandoned. Michael Speaks, perhaps the most clear advocate for a postvanguard architecture, calls for a new design intelligence that embraces all that Hays intended to oppose. In various essays, Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting have proposed that architecture might be more projective than critical. Sylvia Lavin has argued for a performative architecture in which the form relates to affect of sensation rather than reference.

Such positions are not oppositional, but rather look to the autonomy of the discipline to propose an innovative response. George Baird in a review of such positions cautions that these approaches may become the “merely pragmatic” and “merely decorative” very quickly.

This session seeks papers that argue for, or against, demonstrate, reveal, or castigate architecture as a critical project. Is the “critical” project relevant or simply an antiquated notion? Is there a critical project that does not operate under Tafuri’s shadow? What is the role of theory in such production? Is there a strictly “architectural” theory, or must we look to other fields of inquiry for validation? Can a critical project be built, or, is it only a “paper” project? Papers may relate to projects that are historical, contemporary, future oriented, academic or professional.

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M a k i n g S e n s e o f t h e A rc h i t e c t u ra l P ro d u c t i o n o f ‘ O t h e rs ’ Sabir Khan, Georgia Tech

For a number of well-intentioned, if under-reflected, reasons -- globalization of practice, cross-cultural awareness, NAAB criteria, curricular breadth -- there is general agreement that courses on the architecture of people, periods, and places outside the Greco-Roman diffusion stream (aka the ‘West’, Euro-America, etc.) ought to be included in the curricula of US architecture schools. The approaches taken in these courses vary: from the survey’s ‘if its Tuesday it must be . . .’ to seminars that employ terms and constructs borrowed from post-colonial criticism. But regardless of the approach, what these courses share is their marginality to motivations and considerations that are central to the curricula.

This session proposes to give these courses -and the theoretical and pedagogical questions that their presence in architectural curricula raises -- the comprehensive appraisal they rarely get. Rather than simply vehicles for exotic content, these courses have the potential to raise issues central to the construction, dissemination, and interpretation of architectural and cultural knowledge. How one goes about making sense of the architectural production of ‘others’ may also reveal much about the frameworks and points of view that govern, or discipline, one’s understanding of architectural production closer to home.

should be the units and the terms of description and analysis? how would one address the challenge of disciplinary, visual, and cultural (il)literacy? how could one defuse and/or deploy stereotypes and clichés that inform the popular reception of this material? how does one triangulate the architectural production of others in order to illuminate the diverse contexts of its production, consumption, and reception?

The larger goal of this session is to sponsor a clear-headed conversation about the relationship of such courses to architectural curricula and to architectural practice today. The issues, challenges, and potential rewards of studying cultural production cross-culturally are perhaps too important to be left to the under-examined margins of curricular tourism or globing billings.

This session invites papers that unpack courses on architectural production in the ‘nonWest’ in order to engage and map underlying epistemological and methodological questions: what kind of issues/challenges do these courses raise? what sorts of inquiry/methods would they require? how would one define, select, and structure information? what 98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

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M a t e ri a l M a k i n g : T h e P ro c e s s o f P re c e d e n t Gail Peter Borden, University of Southern California

Making is a fundamental process of architecture. Material is essential to the activity of design as well as the resultant of the process.

The role of making and the dialogue of a design with material is the focus of this session.

Focused on the identification of projects that resonate with the qualities of the materials, the session will illuminate the potential of new materials, provide a re-interpretation of common “everyday” materials, and embrace the process of making as a generative mechanism of form.

Papers should look at the particular the role of materials in architecture and their influence on precedents [both contemporary and historical] of design process, fabrication methodology, construction procedures and legibility and influence on built work.

Design innovations begin with insights regarding materials. Insights regarding materials occur through tangible and active experimentation. Tangible, active experimentation couples material qualities with particular project applications. The goal of this session is to identify particular project applications that can reveal general understandings and contemporrary trends in architectural design and professional practice.

The issues of materials and their influence on making may address the following questions: How is material used in new and unexpected ways?

How can the characteristics of a material reveal themselves?

Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

How can fabrication and construction affect materiality?

How can a traditional material be altered or advanced?

What qualities of material and process can be discovered experimentally?

What is the role of skin and surface to tectonic?

What is the influence of the joint on the expression of a tectonic and the articulation of a whole?

As in any case study method, papers should look for the deeper didactic lessons of the precedent. The lessons may be practical and technical in nature, or may address qualitative and aesthetic realms.

Papers for this session should be founded in materials with the desire to identify lessons from their innate qualities and the process of their use through design precedents.

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P u b l i c - I n t e re s t A rc h i t e c t u re

Elizabeth Martin, Southern Polytechnic State University

Architects and all design professionals are undergoing a major transformation that is both proactive (searching for roles with greater relevance) and reactive (responsing to the humanitarian and environmental crisis facing the world). The collaborative projects or research studies explored in this session takes the point-of-view that an architecture of public-interest might emerge in partnership with practice, ie, public health, environmental advocacy groups, or design/build clients.

The discipline of architecture also has a long tradition in “making,” a legacy that dovetails easily with public services. Over a decade ago, Thomas Fisher, while editor of “Progressive Architecture,” coined the term public-interest architecture, recently stating that “we need a career path, and possibly even a profession, of public-interest architecture, parallel to public health and public defense, that has its own educational requirements, practice models, financial support, and client base.” [Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford, ed., New York: Metropolis Books, p. 12]

design and communication changing in relationship to building and manufacturing? How can design improve daily lives by creating a public-interest architectural map? Can an emerging geography of architectural activism result in a diversity of approaches to create a beeter, more livable world? How can proactive design solutions anticipate needs during emergency situations including the aftermath of a natural disaster? Are their flexible design solutions that can allow mobile units to be used in regular situations and quickly accommodate needs during an emergency?

Building on Thomas Fisher’s eloquent words, we believe public-interest architecture might emerge as a distinct field in the way that public defense has within law. Our question is: “What might a whole new profession of public-interest architecture look like?”

This session will demonstrate the modest, yet we believe productive ways to prepare architecture students to serve as stewards for our communities. It is an opportunity where the academy and practice can work together and determine: How are the traditional tools of 98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

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R e - B u i l d i n g M o b i l i t y : M o b i l e A rc h i t e c t u re a n d t h e E f f e c t s o n D e s i g n , C u l t u re , S o c i e t y a n d t h e E n v i ro n m e n t John Enright, University of Southern California

This topic addresses mobility and prefabrication in architecture and seeks proposals that examine new models and research that further the discussion of how mobility and prefabrication are affecting design and education. The conference location of New Orleans is particularly significant regarding the rebuilding efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

It has been fifty years since the founder of Airstream trailers, Wally Byam, led a group of forty-one Airstreams on a self-promotional caravan through Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town.

Since that time, the notion of mobility in architecture has had a rich history, from Buckminster Fuller’s early work involving mobility and pre-fabrication (the Dymaxion Car and House) to today’s preoccupation with digital technologies that hope to further integrate manufacturing with design. Popular design culture has further glamorized the notion of prefabrication and factory assembled, vehicularly delivered, “prefab” housing marketed to a new generation of American families looking for more affordable, sustainable and aesthetically designed homes.

In contrast to this development, the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster produced the “FEMA trailer,” distributed throughout New Orleans as provisional housing that remained for months as urban reminders of the tragedy.

Health issues regarding toxicity levels in the trailers and the difficulties involving the physical management of the mobile homes challenged local and federal agencies for months.

This event highlighted the notion that mobile housing units must also consider the repercussions on the environment and the need to understand the infrastructural requirements of a mobile community. While the utilitarian needs of disaster relief were clearly prioritized Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

towards economic efficiency and rapid deployment, what alternatives can architecture offer that could respond to larger cultural issues?

What urban solutions regarding mobility can architects offer via a mobile architecture?

Manufacturing technologies previously used in the automotive and aeronautics industries are becoming more and more prevalent in the design and construction of buildings. New digital tools and techniques have now been fully immersed into the field of architecture and have offered new possibilities regarding how architects conceive, design, document, and communicate design strategies. The application of these technologies to new notions of prefabrication and mobility has been the focus of many architects work in recent years, including the possibility of mass-customization. How are these technologies offering alternatives to new ways of imagining mobility and prefabrication in architecture? Is this merely the evolution towards more efficient building techniques or is it fundamentally changing how buildings are experienced, occupied, and perceived?

This topic asks for contributions that address the breadth of mobility and prefabrication in architecture from high-end prefab techniques and strategies, to possibilities involving efficient alternatives for disaster relief, to new paradigms in design technology and education.

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R e - G e n e ra t i n g

Fo rm : N e w a n d O l d M e t h o d s o f C o n c e i v i n g , F i n d i n g , G e n e ra t i n g , C o m p o s i n g , a n d I t e ra t i n g Fo rm s i n A rc h i t e c t u re

William T. Willoughby, Louisiana Tech University

As we rebuild architecture today, each era of designers must generate forms that best reflect their times’ available technology. Today, generative scripting for 3-D modeling application and tools such as Bentley’s Generative Components, VBScript (RhinoScript), or Rhino Lab’s Grasshopper allow designers to parametrically adjust, transform dynamically, and evolve forms that improve performance based on environmental or programmatic demands—or explore seamless changes to form on the basis of aesthetics.

The transparency of tracing paper allowed past generations of designers to overlay, deliberate over change, and explore subtle iterations of design. Computational equivalents now allow architects to explore, analyze, and generate variations in building form dynamically. In an attempt to critically assess new and old methods of form finding and responses to building performance issues, this session seeks current scholarship on form generation as well as historical examples of iterative design methods.

Following deliberate and exhaustive study through sculptural modeling, Saarinen allowed aesthetic adjustments to trump mathematical purity. How would Saarinen have exploited the digital technologies available to architects today?

This session topic seeks papers and presentations that compare and contrast current and past methods of form generation. Also sought are scholarly works that study historic techniques for evolving form. Case studies that explain new strategies and practices of generative form finding are encouraged.

All design inquiry is a period of forced evolution. Architects have always applied inventive methods with which to explore grand and subtle adjustments to form. When Eero Saarinen designed the Gateway Arch for St. Louis (The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial), he used iterative models, sculpted to various shapes and scales that led eventually to the final arch form. Beginning first with simple pipe cleaners, then later working with accomplished sculptors, Saarinen explored diverse configurations at various scales, including full-scale mock-ups in his office’s parking lot.

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S h ri n k i n g C i t i e s S y n d ro m e : A g e n d a s f o r R e - B u i l d i n g Andreas Luescher, Bowling Green State University Sujata Shetty, University of Toledo

Cites all over the world are facing the prospect of declining populations, collectively becoming part of a global shrinking city phenomenon. While much of the discussion of shrinking cities has focused on Europe, the challenge is acute in the U.S., where, following suburbanization, many cities now present a classic ‘doughnut’ form – a sparse core surrounded by rings of smaller cities. Cities in the U.S. industrial mid-west are facing the additional consequences of the decline of the manufacturing industry and the housing foreclosure crisis.

Efforts to address problems faced by shrinking cities in the U.S. continue mostly to focus on growth and project-based investment.

The many stadiums, convention centers and downtown office buildings stand testament to this approach. Yet in many cities that pursued this approach, an over-abundance of surface parking lots, vacant and abandoned buildings and empty lots reflect a failure of the imagination. It has left us with an urban fabric that is increasingly less solid, more void.

In recent years, however, some U.S. cities such as Philadelphia and Youngstown, Ohio, have used a different range of interventions to address the issue of shrinkage. Attempts at greening and re-sizing – through consolidating vacant land or concentrating investment in more populated parts of the city, for example – have been popular, yet we have few examples of architecture, urban design and related fields being part of the mix.

The proposed session takes advantage of the conference themes to reflect on the challenge of preserving and reusing urban fabric with arCall for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

chitectural and cultural interest within shrinking cities. Among the questions it seeks to consider are: What are current planning and design approaches dealing with shrinking cities?

How will preservationists, urban planners and developers, architects, and others articulate the experiences of living in a shrinking city?

How can the physical space left by the removal of urban structure be transformed? What are concrete examples to create a more legible city? What are the challenges and benefits of multi-disciplinary efforts to envision a larger region that may include several shrinking cities? How can professional and academic communities embrace the concept of communitybased collaboration as one method among many others to help shrinking cities? How can we get government funding for research into the quality of the built environment and the public realm, particularly in shrinking cities?

Contributions that address these and related questions by architects, architectural historians, preservationists, urban planners and designers and those working in other related fields, are sought.

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S u rv e y i n g A rc h i t e c t u ra l H i s t o ry a n d T h e o ry

Marc J. Neveu, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Don Choi, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Almost every school of architecture offers a suite of courses in architectural history and theory. But what purposes do these classes serve? After all, the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) requires not that such history courses be taught but simply that students learn about Western, non-Western, and national/regional traditions. At a time when architectural technology, pedagogical approaches, and historical methodology are changing rapidly, how might history and theory coursework be reconceived? This session aims to examine strategies by which architectural history and theory courses can address contemporary developments in architectural history, practice and pedagogy.

Conventional architectural history and theory classes, especially survey courses, have come under fire from many perspectives. Some historians, for example, argue that typical introductory classes do little more than bombard students with images and facts, a strategy antithetical to more sophisticated interpretations of the past. Architecture department faculty often bemoan the schism between history/theory classes and courses in design, practice, and other areas. And specialists in pedagogy question whether the lectures, essays, and other pieces of typical history/theory classes address the issues of active and assessable learning.

This session invites papers that question the content, role, and goals of courses in architectural history and theory. For instance, in the case of conventional survey classes, what material should be included? Which cities, buildings, and people best serve the learning outcomes of the courses? Should a history of theory be

taught separately? In an age when scholars deny the validity of a single chronological narrative, how can disparate material be organized? By date, theme, location, building type?

Further, how might survey classes be taught and assessed? Because it is often a relatively large class, the survey poses challenges for assessment and content delivery. Do multiple-choice and short-answer exams and essays address the larger learning goals of the architectural curriculum? Does the standard lecture format encourage active learning and the synthesis of material with other subjects and classes?

In fact, should the survey be taught at all?

Beyond basic knowledge of buildings, architects, dates, and facts, what are the learning outcomes of the survey? What other kinds of knowledge should be communicated and learned? How should the survey be related to other courses and subjects? Can the “content� of history and theory be taught without dedicated history and theory classes? Should history and theory escape from the confines of traditional lectures and seminars? How can the survey support or be supported by the other courses in the curriculum?

In an attempt to more clearly define the role of history and theory within the curriculum of a professional architecture program, this session invites papers that analyze, illuminate, detail, and imagine other ways of teaching history and theory. Possible topics include alternative approaches to teaching the canon, the role of technology in teaching history and theory, the relationships between history and other subjects, and pedagogical innovations.

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Te a c h i n g A rc h i t e c t u re — P e r f e c t i n g P e d a g o g y Robert J. Dermody, Roger Williams University

One of the core missions of ACSA is the advancement of architectural education through the facilitation of teaching at all member schools. What better event than the annual ACSA meeting to provide a venue for focused discussion on the practical pedagogy of teaching architecture? A session focusing on teaching would be an ideal forum for junior faculty as they establish themselves in their respective academic communities. Senior faculty would be encouraged to share their vast experiences in all phases of the architecture curriculum.

Every day, professors of architecture strive to teach, inspire and engage their students in various subjects from history and studio, to technology and theory. They explain, share, convey, and impart knowledge using a wide variety of formats and methods. They do this as both accrediting bodies and the profession require increased knowledge and skills from graduates of architecture programs. How does this transfer of information happen in today’s constantly evolving educational/professional environment? How do we do it? Few disciplines have the variety of subjects and class types present in all architecture curriculums. Teachers of architecture must be adept at a variety of presentation methods, for both traditional introductory courses, as well as new advanced topics.

As a compliment to myriad paper sessions on very specific subjects, a forum for a focused discussion on best practices in a variety of class formats and subjects is sure to be of great interest to all ACSA members.

The content of architecture courses and programs is discussed often, but the methods Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

of delivery are often left under-examined.

Specific issues of particular interest include teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, challenges of different course types (i.e. lecture vs. studio), and incorporation of technology into the teaching of architecture.

This session seeks papers that share best practices of teaching all courses in architecture degree programs in today’s more technically demanding environment. As schools attempt to satisfy increasing NAAB requirements, and accommodate students’ desire for more technology teaching methods must evolve. Presentations in this session will offer an opportunity for faculty members of all levels to engage in a dialogue about the craft of teaching architecture. Successful means and methods of teaching will be shared and critiqued. Networking and collaborative or interdisciplinary teaching opportunities will be fostered. Mentoring relationships will be formed. Teaching is what we do. Providing an opportunity at the annual ACSA meeting devoted specifically to discussion of best teaching practices is bound to result in immense interest among a diverse group of participants.

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The Common Benefit of Common Good Design-Build Anselmo G. Canfora, University of Virginia

In more recent times, architecture schools across the US have contributed substantially to humanitarian efforts to mend or improve the built environment for populations in dire need. Building on the activism and the handson teaching of the late Samuel Mockbee, many design-build programs have focused a lot of energy, effort, and resources on helping residents of underserved communities regain a sense of dignity by helping design and build housing, schools, and community facilities. A number of notable organizations like Architects Without Frontiers, Architecture for Humanity, Design Corps, and Habit for Humanity have formed collaborative partnerships with schools of architecture on the frontline of this massive and complex effort to assist those in need.

Impassioned responses to domestic and international catastrophic events have influenced a re-focusing of design education with a humanitarian imperative; program curricula and pedagogical frameworks are now, more than ever, driven by an educational exigency to involve students in a set of real-world, applied research experiences as an important component of an empowered architectural education. Engaging architecture students in a set of eminently complex design problems and scenarios resulting from natural disasters, disease epidemics or political genocides increases their individual and collective awareness and prepares them for potentially new and emerging roles and responsibilities architects will need to perform in practice and the public realm.

As architecture students learn by contributing to the re-building of sustainable communities through design-build programs and projects, it is important to reflect on and question the educa-

tional responsibilities the architecture academy will have going forward; the need to balance the primary responsibility of providing students with a strong foundational architecture education with those of highly complex and increasingly demanding necessities of projects that benefit underrepresented and vulnerable communities.

This session seeks papers and presentations examining design-build programs and projects that effectively integrate humanitarian directives and comprehensive pedagogical frameworks. While raising the level of understanding, consciousness and ethics of the architectural academic community, how are the lessons learned in an architecture studio, as part of an academic exercise, and the lessons learned in the field, as part of a collective humanitarian goal, mutually constructive, purposeful, and beneficial? How do real-world humanitarian experiences prepare students of architecture to positively contribute to the discipline? How can raising social consciousness and the level of building design, craft, technology, and innovation be reciprocally useful? To what degree can common good design-build projects also incorporate lessons in sustainability involving accessibility to clean water, alternative and renewable energy? While architecture schools explore and emphasize interdisciplinary collaborations to achieve these goals, how does the architecture discipline retain its identity while ensuring a thorough preparation for practice?

While design-build programs and projects for the common good effectively tap the energy, creativity, entrepreneurship, and activism of students, how will this instructional focus also help advance the craft and technology of building in service of a sound architectural education?

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Open Session ACSA encourages submissions that do not fit into one of the above topics.

S u b m i s s i on R e q u i r e m e n t s

S u b m i s s i on P r o c e s s

All papers will undergo a blind peer review process. Session Topic Chairs will take into consideration each paper’s relevance to the topic and the evaluation furnished by at least three peer reviewers.

The deadline for submitting a paper to a session for the Annual Meeting is September 30, 2009. Authors will submit papers through the ACSA online interface. When submitting your paper, you will be guided with the Web interface, through the following steps.

Authors may submit only one paper per session topic. The same paper may not be submitted to multiple topics. An author can present no more than two papers at the Annual Meeting as primary author or co-author. All authors submitting papers must be faculty, or staff at ACSA member schools, faculty or staff at ACSA affiliate schools or become supporting ACSA members at the time of paper submission.

Papers submissions (1) must report on recently completed work, (2) cannot have been previously published or presented in public except to a regional audience, and (3) must be written in English. Submissions should be no longer than 4,000 words, excluding the abstract and endnotes.

1. Log in with your ACSA username and password.

2. Enter the title of your paper.

3. Select the Session Topic for your submission.

4. Add additional authors for your paper, if any.

5. Upload your paper in MS Word or RTF format. Format the paper according to these guidelines. * Omit all author names from the paper and any other identifying information to maintain an anonymous review process. * Do not include an abstract in the file. * Use endnotes or a reference list in the paper. Footnotes should NOT be included. * No more than five images may be used in the paper. Images (low resolution) and captions should be embedded in the paper.

7. Click Submit to finalize your submission.

Note: Your paper is not submitted unless you click the Submit button and receive an automatic email confirmation.

Call for Papers - Submissions Due: September 30, 2009

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Pa p e r P r e s e n tat i on All submissions will be reviewed carefully by at least three reviewers. Official acceptance is made by the session topic chairs. Selection is based on innovation, clarity, contribution to the discipline of architecture, and relevance to the session topic. All authors will be notified of the status of their paper and will receive comments from their reviewers.

Accepted authors will be required to complete a copyright transfer form and agree to present the paper at the Annual Meeting before it is published in the proceedings.

Each session will have a moderator, normally the topic chair. Session moderators will notify authors in advance of session guidelines as well as the general expectations for the session. Moderators reserve the right to withhold a paper from the program if the author has refused to comply with those guidelines. Failure to comply with the conference deadlines or with a moderator’s request for materials in advance may result in an author being dropped from the program, even though his or her name may appear in the program book.

In the event of insufficient participation regarding a particular session topic, the conference co-chairs reserve the right to revise the conference schedule accordingly. Session topics must receive a minimum of 6 reviewable submissions in order for the session to continue in the review process. If a session receives fewer than 6 submissions, the session will be canceled, and the papers referred to the Open Session topic and grouped with other papers on similar subjects for standard review. Chairs of canceled sessions will be invited to chair an Open Session and continue overseeing the peer review process and make decisions on papers.

Authors whose papers have been accepted for presentation and publication in the proceedings are required to register for the Annual Meeting. Accepted papers will be published in a digital proceddings avialable for free download from the ACSA website and a printed version on the proceeddings will be availbale for purchse after the meeting.

T i m e l i n e

Q u e s t i on s

April 2009—Call for Papers announced

Contact Mary Lou Baily, ACSA Conferences Manager, with questions about paper submissions (mlbaily@acsa-arch.org, 202.785.2324 x2)

July 15, 2009—Paper submission site opens Sept 30, 2009—Paper submission deadline October 2009—Accept/reject notifications sent to authors with reviewer comments.

Accepted authors revise/pprepare papers for publication Nov 20, 2009 —Final revised papers and copyright forms due Dec 16, 2009—Paper presenter registration deadline March 4-7, 2009—98th ACSA Annual Meeting

98th ACSA Annual Meeting - New Orleans

a r c h i t e c t u r a l e d u c at i on s e r i e s ACSA conference papers get a second life in this series of thematic readers for use across the curriculum in architecture and design programs.

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W ri t i n g U r b a n i s m Edited by Douglas Kelbaugh and Kit Krankel McCullough The second reader asks how cities can become more coherent, sustainable, authentic, equitable, aesthetically compelling and, culturally meaningful. Essays probe such issues as community, social equity, design theory, technology, and globalism. Including some of the most significant texts on urban design from the last two decades, Writing Urbanism offers a multifaceted portrait of urban design today.

Buy online at www.acsa-arch.org. Members save 20% off the cover price.

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F u t u r e Ann u a l M e e t i n g Lo c at i on s 97th ACSA Annual Meeting | March 26-28, 2009 | Portland, OR 98th ACSA Annual Meeting | March 4-7, 2010 | New Orleans, LA 99th ACSA Annual Meeting | March 3-6, 2011 | Montreal, Quebec Canada 100th ACSA Annual Meeting | March 1-4, 2012 | Boston, MA