Quad - Winter 2015

LSU College of Art & Design Magazine

ROUGH SHAPE The current state of Louisiana

UNDER SIEGE

Documenting endangered forts

IT’S A ZOO OUT THERE!

LSU alumnus Ace Torre speaks about his leading projects in exhibit design

HEALING HAITI One project at a time

2015 Winter

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Hello! By the time this issue of Quad arrives in your mailbox, we’ll be celebrating the New Year and buckling down on our resolutions for 2015. Our newly designed website is thriving, and we are well into the second year of our monthly e-newsletter, recently renamed Quad Mail.

As we enter the New Year, our first order of business is to hear from you—the alumni and friends of the LSU College of Art & Design. We are optimistic that you will find a variety of great reads and information in the pages ahead and that there’s something here for each of you: a bit of nostalgia, a handful of new information, and a lot of food for thought.

You’ll likely pick up on the common threads that weave throughout this issue—technology, coastal restoration, diversity, and collaboration. How do these themes fit into your lives, careers, and professions? Please send your thoughts and comments to adsn@lsu.edu with the subject line “Quad Editorial.” We will include your feedback in the next issue of Quad, coming to your doorstep this summer.

We hope you enjoy the pages ahead. Stay in touch!

Angela Harwood Communications Coordinator

21

10

08

2

CONTENTS

09

16

26

CONTENTS FEATURES 10

UNDER SIEGE

16

HEALING HAITI

22

Multidisciplinary student teams document Louisiana’s endangered coastal fortifications.

28

31

Students and faculty address global issues in climate change and environment while learning how to rebuild and rethink cities.

IT’S A ZOO OUT THERE! Alumnus Ace Torre leads in exhibition design by integrating a zoo of disciplines.

DEPARTMENTS 04

Letter from the Dean

05

Our Faculty Get Around

22

Where our faculty went this summer might just surprise you.

06

A Hub For Ideas Art faculty implement an Integrated Digital Environment for Artists.

08

26 28 31 32 34

34

Four Minutes on . . . Wearable Technology Art history Professor Susan Elizabeth Ryan discusses hot new trends in wearable projects.

09 21

32 QUAD EDITORIAL

ART–GDSO

Editor in Chief/Writer

Art Directors

Angela Harwood

Lynne Baggett

state of Louisiana.

Copy Editors

Rod Parker

Kristen Higdon

Design & Illustration

How It’s Made

Julie LeFebvre

Marci Hargroder

Did You Know? Catfish ponds and migratory birds are copacetic.

Rough Shape Jeff Carney, director of CSS, discusses the current

Learn how to make a physical transect model of an oyster barrier reef.

Diversity by Design

CONTRIBUTORS Writers

LSU’s first licensed female African American architect offers advice for

Jeff Carney, Kristen Higdon, Forbes Lipschitz, Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Daniel Willson

minorities in design.

Photographers

Retired interior design professional-in-residence Carroll Mathews talks about life after teaching.

Diane Jones Allen, Jeremiah Ariaz, Lindsay Boley, Camila Carvalho, Marsha Cuddeback, Brian Deppe, Art Guerrero, Robert Holton, Justine Holzman, Joyce Jackson, Grant Murphy, James Osborne IV, Azeo Torre, Matt Williams

Class Notes

On the cover:

Find out what your classmates are up to.

(medium.com/matter). Background photograph © James

Where Are They Now?

Equipped

Illustration of Louisiana courtesy of Matter magazine Osborne IV (jimosborne.net); Outer Terreplain Wall, Fort Proctor, Louisiana, Saint Bernard Parish

What’s in interior design student Daniel Willson’s studio?

CONTENTS

3

Letter from the Dean JEREMIAH ARIAZ Dean Tsolakis attended the Third Hemispheric Meeting of Deans and Heads of Architecture Schools in Antigua, Guatemala, where he confirmed that art

Jeremiah Ariaz, associate professor of photography at the School of Art, traveled by motorcycle to Alaska, the last frontier, answering the call "Go West Young Man.” The experience will shape his future artwork.

and design make all the differenza.

Happy New Year! In this issue of Quad, we are highlighting some of our international initiatives from study abroad to collaborations and exchanges with foreign universities.

Internationalization is high on the LSU and the College of Art & Design agenda. It enriches the lives of the community, enhances diversity, educates students to become citizens of the world, and prepares them for the Odyssey of life. The following lines from the poem, “Ithaka,” by Constantine Cavafy describe the journey more eloquently than I ever could.

Ithaka As you set out for Ithaka

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

hope your road is a long one,

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

full of adventure, full of discovery.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

Better if it lasts for years,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

you’ll never find things like that on your way

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

4

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Source: C. P. Cavafy. C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated

by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis. © 1975 Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

CUDDEBACK & RITCHIE Marsha Cuddeback and TL Ritchie, associate professors of interior design, met with architects, educators, and representatives of ICOMOS and visited several World Heritage sites in Panama in exploration of opportunities for students to engage in field experience and historic preservation initiatives in and around Panama.

30 faculty

20 COUNTRIES

SUMMER 2014 AUSTRIA BURMA/MYANMAR CAMBODIA CHINA FRANCE GERMANY GREECE HAITI

IRELAND ITALY KOREA NETHERLANDS

PANAMA PORTUGAL SAUDI ARABIA THAILAND TURKEY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES

51

cities

OUTSIDE THE U.S.

DISCOVERY

NETWORKING

TEACHING

EXHIBITION

HOLTON & GREESON

MAX CONRAD

Robert Holton, assistant professor at the LSU School of Architecture, and Kelly Greeson, adjunct professor of the LSU Department of Interior Design, explored and lived in earth architecture in Capadocia, Turkey. They received a grant from the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio to pursue research on this topic, which is based on compressed and stabilized earth blocks.

Max Conrad, professor at the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, taught a course at North East Forestry University in Harbin, China, and lectured in Beijing at the offices of Ecoland and Leedscape. He also led an alumni trip to Portugal, Scotland, and England.

OUR FACULTY GETOF AROUND A YEAR FIRSTS

5

A Hub for IDEAs Integrated Digital Environment for Artists Have you ever had an idea for a collaborative project or installation that could be phenomenal if only you had the resources and knowledgebase to see it realized?

Well, thanks to the dedication of LSU School of Art faculty members and a $120,000 grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents, students and faculty now have access to an Integrated Digital Environment for Artists.

The IDEA Hub is located on the first floor of the Art Building and features high-end equipment and cutting-edge technologies. In addition to the hub, four designated nodes, or satellite studios, within digital art, graphic design, photography, and printmaking were established to accommodate multidisci-

plinary and multimedia projects such as those developed for exhibition displays, large-format imaging, contemporary letterpress technologies, and interactive digital cinema, animation, and gaming technologies. Configuration within the hub and nodes enables faculty, graduate students, upper-level undergraduates, and other users to connect to digital resources with networked laptops and mobile devices and to transport content between workstations, studios, and multiple presentation environments.

“The IDEA Hub enables and encourages graduate students to expand the reach, scope, and potential of their projects and research initiatives for more high profile, collaborative projects that no single area or specialization could complete individually,” said Lynne Baggett, professor of graphic design and principal investigator for the IDEA grant. Digital media plays a fundamental role in contemporary art

practice, particularly in the disciplines of digital art, graphic design, photography, and printmaking. During the past decade, these disciplines have evolved substantially to combine digital technologies and artistic investigations within the BFA and MFA curricula. The hub alleviates previous restraints, departmental divisions, and boundaries, enabling students and faculty to pioneer projects that will place LSU on a national level for digital art creation and production.

Several high-end equipment purchases were supported by funds from the grant.

“This is the first grant we’ve received for equipment that isn’t just about replacing old machinery,” added Baggett. A $15,000 Red 4K Scarlet camera capable of capturing 5K stills and 4K motion footage is in constant use and in high demand within the school and across the university.

Other purchases included large-format printers and a $25,000 Hasselblad Flextight X5 scanner. Students can use this equipment to print and scan large-format photographic negatives and prints in color and black-and-white at extremely high resolutions. A Jet 750 A-2 Platemaker, housed in the printmaking node, will be fundamental in modernizing the traditional letterpress. “It is impossible to incorporate digital manifestations of contemporary typography without creating photopolymer plates,” explained

James Osborne IV worked with a team of graduate and undergraduate architecture students led by Professor Ursula Emery McClure on a HABS survey of Fort Pike. The photographic resources made possible by IDEA were crucial in facilitating this interdisciplinary investigation. Osborne’s thesis project, “Danger, Shelter, Opportunity,” was on exhibit at the Glassell Gallery in downtown Baton Rouge.

6

A HUB FOR IDEAS

Professor Leslie Koptcho. “This equipment allows the artist or designer freedom from a structured grid imposed by lines of metal type and, most importantly, to integrate imagery and text as one matrix.” The platemaker will serve digital, graphic design, and printmaking students and will promote interdisciplinary connections to the English and creative writing departments, whose students often enroll in book arts and papermaking courses. The school also used funds from the grant to purchase software and workstations, lighting equipment and projector screens, and to upgrade networking and electrical outlets.

The hub is already sparking interdisciplinary ideas. Derick Ostrenko, assistant professor of digital art, Jesse Allison of the School of Music, and Jason Crow, assistant professor of architecture, submitted a grant to the Coastal Sustainability Studio on visualizing and “sonifying” honey bee populations along the Louisiana bayou. The newly constructed IDEA Hub will serve as the prime location for this collaboration. Last spring, students in Assistant Professor Kristine Thompson’s special studies in photography course, Material Investigations, completed projects, readings, and slideshows that introduced the intersection of contemporary photography with other mediums including video, sculpture, installation, and the Web. Their work was displayed in the Design Building atrium in March.

The School of Art expects more collaborations of this kind as news about the IDEA Hub spreads.

We can’t wait to see what comes next!

Assistant Professors Ostrenko and Thompson participated in a collaborative project spearheaded by Richard Doubleday, assistant professor of graphic design. The collaboration culminated in a multimedia performance of Arnold Schonberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire Op. 21.”

Motion-graphic elements created by School of Art faculty and students in graphic design, digital art, and photography were projected during the performance.

Courtney Wilburn Marse’s graphic design thesis, “A Storied Surface,” was on public display at the Foster Gallery. The large-format printer purchased with funds received from the IDEA grant was a fundamental tool in the completion of her work.

The faculty and staff who were instrumental in preparing the IDEA grant include: Lynne Baggett, Professor of Graphic Design; Courtney Barr, Associate Professor of Graphic Design; Leslie Koptcho, Professor of Printmaking; Derick Ostrenko, Assistant Professor of Digital Art; Rod Parker, Associate Professor of Graphic Design & Director, LSU School of Art; Marshall Roy, Information Technology Analyst, LSU College of Art & Design; and Kristine Thompson, Assistant Professor of Photography.

Students in Kristine Thompson’s large-format photography course worked with a 4 x 5 inch view camera and large-format film to produce images both through analog and digital means. They made traditional silver gelatin prints in the darkroom and learned to scan film in order to make large-format inkjet prints. Their work was displayed in Gallery 229, a photography gallery located on the second floor of the LSU Art Building.

A HUB FOR IDEAS

7

Four Minutes on. ..

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY with Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Professor of New Media and Contemoporary Art History & Theory at the School of Art and Member of the LSU Center for Computational Technology susanelizabethryan.com Wearable technology is not just Google Glass. It is a complex and growing field crossing multiple disciplines including digital and product design; mobile, sonic, and performative art; art and design research; and dress and fashion. My new book, Garments of Paradise: Wearable Discourse in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2014), creates the history and context for this expanded field, and for the hot new trends in wearable digital devices and illuminated and animated clothing we are beginning to see today.

The explosion of wearable technology has been predicted for years. It amounts to nothing less than the migration of the interface from the static screen (phone screens are still static objects) to the body: the rise of the embodied interface, by which digital applications like communications, information retrieval, health monitoring, and even augmented reality experiences, can be made more natural and intuitive, and part of our daily lives as we move about the world. But this new embodied interface is not without its problems, and we are just beginning to debate concerns regarding information ownership, privacy, and safety. One of the most important research areas is art. Wearable technology artists around the world are creating works not as product prototypes, but as explorations of how powerful technologies impact our bodies and our lives.

To this end, LSU Digital Media Assistant Professor Derick Ostrenko and I have teamed up to teach a cross-listed art history/ theory course this spring (Wearable Technology ARTH 4420/ ART 4240). Students will learn about the embodied interface, how it impacts our habits of dress, our lives, and even how we might evolve as a species. The course will combine lectures, discussions, and workshops where they will learn about Arduinos and microprocessors and create wearables of their own. Issues to be debated include the relationships between technology and dress, technology and the body, the ethics of biometrics and data surveillance, and the meaning and merits of posthumanism.

Students may sign up for either the art history or the digital art course numbers, but class work is the same for both, including research and written assignments as well as the fabrication of wearable projects. There will be opportunities to exhibit at the end of the course and even contribute to a runway-style exhibition at RedStick Open Source Festival in May of 2015.

In connection with the course, we are bringing Joanna Berzowska, one of the world’s most celebrated wearable technology artists, to LSU. She will deliver a Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecture to the college and community in March. Berzowska is

8

FOUR MINUTES ON... WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

Leeches (2009) by Joanna Berzowska—a dress with silicone electronic modules that illuminate the wearer and suck power, dramatizing the constant energy drain of all digital devices. © XS Labs

associate professor and chair of the Design and Computation Arts Department at Concordia University, Toronto, Canada, and research director of XS Labs, a research studio focusing on electronic textiles and reactive garments. Her art and design work has been shown at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York City, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Beijing World Art Museum, SIGGRAPH Asia, the Australian Museum in Sydney, NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, and Ars Electronica in Linz. Her projects at XS Labs demonstrate a resistance to the dominant task-based, utilitarian approach to the “electronic” and explore instead the materiality and magic of computing technologies that incorporate beauty and stimulate thoughtfulness. In this way, her goal is to question some of the fundamental assumptions we make about the technologies that we deploy in our digital world.

DID YOU KNOW? Q: How can catfish

farms provide habitat for migratory birds and waterfowl?

A:

Approximately 90,000 acres of ponds are dedicat-

ed to catfish farming in the United States. The majority of catfish farms are located in the Mississippi Delta region. By charting catfish production patterns in relation to bird migration, it becomes evident that catfish ponds can provide critical stopover habitat within the Mississippi flyway, the largest migratory bird route in America. In addition to producing thousands of pounds of catfish annually, catfish ponds can be strategically designed and sited to maximize habitat potential. The average pond, constructed by building above-ground levees in clay-rich land, is 10 to 20 land acres in size and 4 to 6 feet deep. Prior to shorebird migration, catfish farmers can lower pond water levels in order to expose shallow mudflats around the perimeter.

Similarly, empty catfish ponds can be disked and flooded with shallow water. The resultant mudflats can provide habitat for a variety of shorebirds, including stilts, avocets, sandpipers, plovers, willet, and yellowlegs. By examining the American catfish industry through the landscape ecology, this research endeavor strives to balance habitat requirements with production demands in order to create a new model for sustainable aquaculture.

Forbes Lipschitz, assistant professor of landscape architecture at LSU, received a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grant for her project, “From Pond to Plate: The Landscape of Catfish Production and Processing in the Deep South,� which maps the landscape of catfish production, processing, and distribution in the Deep South. Visit ag-lands.com for more information about her research.

FOUR DID MINUTES ON ...

YOU KNOW?

9

UNDER SIEGE A multidisciplinary team of graduate and undergraduate students in architecture, landscape architecture, and art win national prizes for documenting the endangered coastal fortifications in Louisiana.

10

FEATURE

Photography by James Osborne IV

T

oday, there is no better illustration of the threat posed by coastal erosion than the examination of Louisiana’s coastal fortifications, made obsolete by advances in technology nearly 150 years ago and abandoned following the Civil War. Along with Louisiana’s disappearing coastline, the tides and violent storm action are slowly but surely erasing these historical structures—most are falling into ruin and in dangerous and deteriorating condition. Some forts, formerly accessible by land, can now only be reached by boat; others sit in water during high tide. All demonstrate just how quickly the sea is reclaiming the land.

FORT PROCTOR

The Recording Historic Structures course taught every other spring by A. Hays Town Professor Ursula Emery McClure continues the long history of the LSU School of Architecture’s involvement with historic preservation and its participation in the Charles E. Peterson Prize, a national student competition intended to heighten awareness about historic buildings in the U.S. and to augment the collection of measured HABS (Historic American Buildings Survey) drawings at the Library of Congress. The school’s submissions from 1989–2002 won eight prizes through the efforts of Professor William Brockway, and in 2012, the school entered the competition again and won the Peterson Prize for the HABS documentation of Fort Proctor, completed in McClure’s course. McClure received more than $75,000 in grants from the National Park Service and the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio (CSS) to complete HABS documentation and preservation studies of the endangered fort.

The fort was selected as a research site because of its extreme environmental risk and historical significance. Fort Proctor was built in the 1850s on the shore of Lake Borgne and is now completely surrounded by water. The fort has remained a static marker in a fluctuating landscape and serves as a great tool for recording major ecological changes within the Gulf Coast environment.

In addition to completing the HABS documentation, McClure was a member of a multidisciplinary team that used geographical condition surveys, material analyses, photogrammetric and photographic documentation, and GIS mapping to develop animations that visualize the appearance and landscape of Fort Proctor over time. These “digital shorts” provide a permanent archive, or “conditional preservation,” of the structure, contributing to the legacy record of Louisiana’s coastal built environment and the U.S. system of coastal fortifications while establishing a new procedure for preserving sites at extreme environmental risk. McClure’s published research on the topic was awarded the 2013 ARCC Best Research Paper of the Year and can be found online at arcc-journal.org/index.php/ repository/article/view/147.

FORT PIKE

LSU students enrolled in the spring 2014 Recording Historic Structures course taught by McClure got an up-close look at Fort Pike. The team included two undergraduate architecture students and several graduate students from all design disciplines within the LSU College of Art & Design. “Working with an interdisciplinary team was important. We had all the experts, including an extremely talented photographer, a well-versed historian, a knowledgeable professor of architecture, a gifted landscape architecture student with a keen eye for sketching, and dedicated undergrad and grad students who love history and appreciate perfection in measuring and drawing,” said Lindsay Boley (BArch 2014), one of the project’s team leaders.

As a team leader, Boley worked with McClure and two other team leaders, Jimmy Canales and Nathaniel Frank. Her duties began a semester before the class started. She visited the fort several times to gain an understanding of its complexities, to determine the best way to document such an extensive fort, and to create a frame of reference for measuring the fort. She also gathered information from the state

parks office and worked with Canales on the beginnings of the historical report.

Boley and Frank helped McClure recruit members for the team, ultimately deciding 12 members would be sufficient, and Boley scheduled the class visits to the fort and made decisions on appropriate work sessions and deadlines.

“Working with an interdisciplinary team was important. We had all the experts” – Lindsay Boley (BArch 2014)

The team explored field measurement and photographic techniques and gained hands-on field and laboratory experience in current methods of documenting and recording historic buildings. Course work included guidelines research, precedent studies of previous Peterson Prize winners, and the production of drawings conforming to HABS standards in relation to the fort.

Due to the size of Fort Pike, the class spent six full Saturdays and a seventh, shorter visit—on top of the three visits the team leaders made the previous semester—to complete the field notes.

Currently existing in a state of ruin, Fort Pike is located in brackish marsh along the south side of the Rigolets in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne. Similar to Fort Proctor, HABS documentation of Fort Pike is important because of its architectural and historical significance to coastal military fortifications and its perilous condition within the coastal ecosystem of Louisiana.

Over the years, numerous hurricanes have battered the fort. During high tide the lower level of Fort Pike floods, leaving mud and wildlife throughout the interior. The exterior walls are severely damaged, and the main part of the fort is exposed to wave action from the Rigolets, accelerating deterioration. The foundation of the fort was constructed using cypress logs arranged in a horizontal pattern to

Left: An aerial view of Fort Pike UNDER SIEGE

11

form a grillage on which the structure sits. Meant to stay dry, the foundation’s exposure to water during high tides has caused the grillage to rot, and Fort Pike’s masonry walls to shift, crack, and tilt.

If present predictions regarding coastal land loss and global climate change hold true, Fort Pike is at risk of being more severely damaged or even completely destroyed and erased.

AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF FORT PIKE

After the Civil War, the fort was mostly controlled by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers until it was accepted as a state park in 1934 and entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Since then, it has been a featured setting for several movies, including GI Joe: Retaliation and Jonah Hex. Today, visitors are allowed into the garrison and casemates, and a small museum exhibits historical documents and uniforms.

CULTURAL PRESERVATION

Fort Pike was responsible for the protection of the major port city of New Orleans and our nation’s interior. Designed by one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s most notable military engineers, Simon Bernard, construction of the fort began in 1819 and was completed in 1826. Fort Pike, along with its twin, Fort Macomb, located seven miles south (the fort featured in the first season of the HBO series True Detective), represents the superb, unaltered relics of 17th-century French, or Vauban, design. Sebastian Vauban (1632–1707), military engineer for King Louis XIV, created some of the greatest masonry fortifications in all of France. These successful forts were considered perfect in form and function—so perfect that most of the major nations of the world, including the U.S., copied them for more than 200 years.

Prior to the Civil War, Fort Pike’s role in military affairs varied considerably. During the Seminole Wars in the 1830s, the fort served as a staging area for troops in route to Florida and also as a collection point for hundreds of Seminole prisoners and their slaves. Soldiers bound for Texas and Mexico used Fort Pike as a resting place during the Mexican War in the 1840s, after which the fort was largely abandoned until it was captured by the Louisiana militia in 1861, before the state seceded from the Union. Confederate soldiers held the fort until Union forces took New Orleans in 1862, after which it was used as a base for raids along the Gulf Coast, as a protective outpost for New Orleans, and as a training center where former slaves were taught to use heavy artillery—these troops later became part of the U.S. Colored Troops. Despite all of this activity, not a single cannonball was ever fired in battle from Fort Pike.

Team leader Canales took on the full responsibility of preparing the historical report for the HABS documentation. The rest of the students were responsible for graphically representing Fort Pike through a set of field recordings, AutoCAD drawings, and large-format photography. Once documentation was complete, selected works were submitted to the Peterson Prize competition.

The final survey, containing photographs, written historical and descriptive data, copies of measured and interpretive drawings, and field records, won second place in the 2014 competition.

“I learned a great deal about being a leader,” Boley said. “It was nice to work under Professor McClure, who has always been a role model for success and dedication. Managing a group of 12 people of all ages across different disciplines was not an easy task, but everyone on the team pulled their weight, and we were able to produce an abundance of quality work. It’s a great feeling to win second place after all of the time we spent perfecting our work.”

Boley is currently living in Chicago, utilizing her keen sense of detail as an intern at VOA Associates, Inc., an international design firm. “I actually measured an existing building and did AutoCAD drawings of it just the other week,” she added.

The team and involved state agencies hope that recognition of the fort’s relevance in U.S. military history and the attention garnered from the Peterson Prize will bring more awareness to the fragile condition of the fort. Some professionals have already begun taking action to preserve Fort Pike. John Milner Associates, a team of architects and archaeologists based in Alexandria, Virginia, provided designs for the fort and its site.

A History of Peterson Prizes Teams from the LSU School of Architecture have won or placed in the Peterson Prize competition 10 times throughout the history of the competition. The teams were led by Professor William Brockway from 1989–2002, and Professor Ursula Emery McClure started the school’s participation again in 2012. Visit nps.gov for more information.

1989

1991

1995

2000

2012

First Place Livestock Judging Pavillion Baton Rouge, LA

Third Place St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Weyanoke, LA

Fourth Place Melrose Plantation, Yucca House Melrose, LA

Third Place U.S. Barracks, Buildings A & B Baton Rouge, LA

First Place Fort Proctor Lake Borgne, LA

1990 Second Place U.S. Arsenal Powder Magazine Baton Rouge, LA

12

FEATURE

1994 Third Place Marcel Prudhomme House Opelousas, LA

1998 Second Place Olivier House St. Martinville, LA

2002 First Place Olivier Plantation Store Lydia, LA

2014 Second Place Fort Pike New Orleans, LA

A Step-by-Step Guide to HABS Documentation 1 Establish a Zero Line Because Fort Pike is sinking unevenly the students had to first establish a zero line to serve as a consistent level

Photo by Lindsay Boley

for measurement.

2 Take Measurements The team of 12 students measured the entire fort, inside and out.

3 Record Field Notes Students recorded measurements on site and re-created clean copies of their field notes back in the studio. The field notes were submitted to HABS along with the rest of the final documentation materials.

4 Prepare Final Drawings Back at the studio, the team used AutoCAD to translate their field notes into final drawings according to HABS documentation standards.

5 Take Photographs Jim Osborne, the team’s photographer, photographed the fort and developed the large-format, film negatives required by HABS.

6 Prepare the Final Report The students combined the photographs, written historical and descriptive data, copies of field notes and records, and final drawings into a final report. This documentation creates a permanent archive of the structure that will be maintained in a special collection at the Library of Congress and made available to the public copyright free in hard copy and electronic formats.

UNDER SIEGE

13

Most significantly, the team designed wooden structures that sit in the corner casemates of the fort and work to stabilize the structure in the event of further structural deterioration.

DANGER, SHELTER, OPPORTUNITY

Photo by Lindsay Boley

In order to meet the photography guidelines required by HABS for documenting Fort Pike, McClure approached James “Jim” Osborne IV (MFA 2014), a photography graduate student at the LSU School of Art whose thesis project, “Danger, Shelter, Opportunity,” explores Louisiana’s system of coastal fortifications. Osborne has been visiting and photographing Louisiana’s forts since 2011. He enrolled in McClure’s course and was instrumental in producing the large-format negatives required by HABS—he even purchased a drone to capture aerial shots. His work is ongoing as he continues to photograph the forts for his body of work. He plans to compile his efforts into a book that will serve as a permanent record of the forts that were once so critical to the development of the nation.

14

FEATURE FEATURE

Originally from New Orleans, Osborne’s interest in the forts was sparked during the years he spent hunting and fishing in coastal Louisiana. He often used the forts as landmarks for navigation along the coast and, at that time, most of the forts were still accessible by land. Locals would drive to the forts for picnics, and teenagers used the forts as hangouts. Osborne left New Orleans to attend Louisiana Tech University, where he received a BFA in photography, and after college, he was hired as the lead civilian field photographer for the United States Army at Fort Polk and the Joint Readiness Training Center. Upon his return to New Orleans after Katrina, he was surprised to discover that only one of the forts—Fort Pike—remained open to the public, and that even though the forts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, no official documentation or photographs of the forts existed.

In addition to Fort Pike, Osborne has photographed Fort Macomb, Fort Proctor, Fort Jackson, and, most recently, Fort St. Phillip. The National Park Service asked Professor McClure to consider Fort St.

Phillip’s eligibility as the next project for HABS documentation. The fort sits in a state of abandonment, mostly buried under marsh, and it was heavily damaged during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The fort is privately owned, so gaining access to the site can be tricky—Osborne was offered the opportunity to tour Fort St. Phillip through his connections with the Plaquemine Historical Society. He found the fort complex to be mostly inaccessible and concluded that gathering the detailed measurements required for documentation would be impossible. “You would have to drag a pirogue for miles to even get to the bunkers,” he noted. Its condition is unfortunate as Fort St. Phillip has a most interesting history. Built by the Spanish in the 18th century, the original brick fort and the concrete structures from the time of the Spanish–American War still remain. The fort withstood nine days of artillery fire and kept the British Navy from reaching New Orleans during the War of 1812, and it was the site of a 12-day siege by the Union army during the Civil War. Later, the fort was used as a tanning factory, and it was

1

Fort Pike

2

Fort Macomb

3

Fort Proctor

4

Fort Jackson

5

Fort St. Phillip

2 1 3

5 4

occupied by a small spiritual commune in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

Osborne’s work with Professor McClure led to another HABS project with unabridged Architecture, a firm based in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, dedicated to civic and sustainable design within fragile coastal environments . Osborne is working with the firm to document the original mission control center for NASA’s Stennis Space Center, located on the Pearl River in Mississippi. The center played an important role in the development of the Saturn V rocket, and several of the test stands were declared National Historic Landmarks in 1985. Jim is also teaching two courses— basic photography and advanced digital photography—at the LSU School of Art. Visit jimosborne.net to view more of his work.

UNDER UNDER SIEGE SIEGE 15

HEALING HAITI

J

anuary 2015 marks the fifth-year anniversary of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing more than 250,000 people and displacing 1.5 million more, and the country still faces challenges on the long path toward recovery. Haiti is hampered by the ongoing cholera epidemic introduced after the earthquake, killing more than 8,000 Haitians to date. The nation is faced with a lack of affordable, safe, permanent housing and soaring rent prices; rebuilding is compounded by weak enforcement of new building codes. Haiti is troubled by misallocations and a lack of adequate funding. Poor infrastructure and huge amounts of litter and waste, from plastic bottles and bags to polystyrene wrappings, are cause for ongoing health and environmental concerns. Deforestation and food insecurity are major problems, as well as the 2.5 million Haitians living on $2 or less a day, one economic shock or natural disaster away from falling back into poverty. Members of the LSU/Haiti Task Force hope to assist Haitians with these problems and more while providing educational exchange opportunities for students at LSU.

The LSU/Haiti Task Force is an interdisciplinary collaborative of the College of Art & Design, the AgCenter, the College of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS), and the Office of International Programs Academic Programs Abroad (APA). Austin Allen, associate professor of landscape architecture, is a leading member of the task force. He has extensive experience in planning and design strategies through his recovery work in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and through his work in post-earthquake Haiti, where he took LSU students on a service-learning project in the fall of 2010. Through his experiences in postdisaster environments and his research interests in resilience, recovery, and regeneration of landscapes and place, Allen has many “lessons learned” to share. His most valuable advice when working in post-disaster environments is to work with local partners on specific projects. “Therein lay opportunities for real exchanges in technology, learning, and understanding.”

Since the summer of 2013, members of the LSU/Haiti Task Force have visited the country half a dozen times.

LSU/Haiti Task Force member Austin Allen, associate professor and graduate coordinator at the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, teaches courses that integrate communication and film with planning, landscape, and urban design theory and practice.

Along with Allen, task force members include former Associate Professor David Weindorf and Professor Carl Motsenbocker of the School of Plant, Environmental & Soil Sciences; Associate Professor Wes Michaels of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture; Professor Hector Zapata of the Department of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness; Dr. Joyce Jackson, professor of cultural anthropology and director of African and African American Studies within HSS; and Harald Leder, interim director of APA. These LSU faculty members and more have been working to establish collaborations with individual nonprofits and organizations in the U.S. and Haiti. Alkis Tsolakis, dean of the LSU College of Art & Design, accompanied the group on a visit to Haiti in October 2013, and the task force came back brimming with the idea of bringing the colleges together for a full-scale initiative to establish a semester-long experience for students. By integrating a variety of disciplines, the task force can provide the expertise to tackle several of Haiti’s most pressing issues.

The task force’s first steps were to identify key organizations and establish partnerships. “Although we have several goals, I think the most important is focusing research and academic activities on solutions for resolving problems of mutual interest and benefit. The four main areas we are looking at are culture, agriculture, the built environment, and entrepreneurship,” explained Dr. Joyce Jackson.

Last January, the group began working with Zanmi Agrikol, the agricultural arm of Zanmi Lasante, a nonprofit organization with strong ties to Partners

Photo by Matt Williams (MLA 2014)

HEALING HAITI

17

in Health, on an agriculture and urban design initiative in Jacmel. Zanmi Agrikol’s mission is to give families the tools they need to fight malnutrition—seeds, trees, education, and even a goat—empowering families to grow their own food. This past summer, experts from Haiti came to New Orleans for a two-day seminar on the benefits of bringing goats into the urban environment. Goats have long been a part of Haiti’s culture, but in the case of New Orleans, researchers are looking into the potential of goats to help with the maintenance of the city’s many vacant lots. This partnership has the potential for real exchanges, as local United States organizations, nonprofits, and universities, such as the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement & Development in New Orleans, LSU, and Southern University, work with nonprofits and organizations in Haiti on projects that are beneficial to both countries.

A CITY WITH TIES TO NEW ORLEANS

While the task force is working in several areas in Haiti, Jacmel is a particular focus because of its strong ties with Louisiana.

Jacmel’s historic district has a similar architecture to that of the New Orleans French Quarter, and New Orleans and the state of Louisiana have a significant Haitian population, one of the driving factors in Louisiana’s quick response during the early days of Haiti’s recovery. In April 2010, in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Louisiana-Haiti Sustainable Village Project, a temporary consortium of more than 40 organizations in New Orleans, worked to build an emergency village in Haiti by providing housing, infrastructure, and other services that constituted a community instead of a camp.

The project sent thousands of tons of medical supplies, tents, household goods, food, solar units, and panels via barge to medical teams and others in Jacmel. The outgrowth is a new consortium of New Orleans and Louisiana public and private interest, the Haiti/ New Orleans Cultural Heritage Task Force, which meets monthly in New Orleans.

As a professor in cultural anthropology and African and African American Studies, Dr. Jackson is particularly interested in the similarities between Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnival in Jacmel. Both street rituals represent a reservoir of cultural elements that are about the need and desire to celebrate life while expressing the complexities of politics and society in one large ceremonial. Jackson is conducting ethnographic research with people in both locations, with a guiding focus on “the viability of theatrical ritual performance and representation in mask and music and the operation of street ritual as a social weapon and tool of resistance and transformation.”

Jackson is leading a spring intercession study abroad course on cultural sustainability in Haiti this May. The course is open to undergraduate African and African American Studies students and graduate anthropology students. Its focus is threefold: 1) to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the historical, social, and cultural contexts of Haiti and its influences on the Antebellum South, specifically Louisiana and New Orleans; 2) to give students practical experience on how to conduct ethnographic field work in an international site; and 3) to provide a community engagement experience intended to strengthen students’ global understanding of how culture can fortify and help sustain a community, especially a post-disaster community such as Jacmel. “There is much to be learned and understood by our students and American audiences in general about Haitian culture and its close ties to Louisiana, as well as other Southern and African American traditions,” Jackson explained.

“By educating our students, it will become clearer to them why southern Louisiana is such a unique region and why Haiti’s stability and recovery should be important to Americans.”

A PLACE IN THE URBAN FABRIC

John Taylor (center), wetland specialist for the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement & Development, and Matt Williams, MLA 2014 (left), at Justin Jean Toussaint’s (right) farm in the hills of Cayes Jacmel. Toussaint is an agricultural specialist for the National Institute for Agricultural Research and a major force behind Haiti’s agricultural and reforestation efforts. Photo by Diane Jones Allen

18

NARI WARD FEATURE

Students in the College of Art & Design have much to offer and to learn from post-disaster Haiti, as well. During the winter 2014 intersession, Associate Professor Wes Michaels took his landscape architecture studio to Mirebalais, a town about 90 miles outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Mirebalais is home to the newly built, $17 million University Hospital, operated

by Partners in Health and its sister organization Zanmi Lasante.

The teaching hospital and cutting-edge facility is answering the country’s immediate need for health care facilities by offering free health care to Haitians. However, Michaels pointed out, “Building a hospital requires a lot more than the construction of the building. A hospital has to have a place in the urban fabric.”

Once they were there, they realized it wasn’t scary, and they liked the experience. Michaels is taking another group of landscape architecture students to Haiti in January 2015.

A COLLABORATION WISH LIST

Paula Hyppolite is the co-founder of the Ciné Institute in Jacmel, a grassroots forum that gives voice to the stories and opinions of Haitian citizens. The speaker series,“A Soapbox in Haiti,” is filmed on the roads and streets of Haiti and champions the spirit of the Haitian people. Episodes from the series can be viewed at cineinstitute.com.

While the hospital itself is considered a great success, the planners overlooked the town’s size and ability to accommodate the almost instant influx in population as Haitians flocked to the city for health care. Because of the lack of temporary accommodations, patients and their families are setting up camps outside the hospital, causing sanitation issues as there are no bathrooms, showers, or clean water. The hospital is the only area in Mirebalais with an abundance of street lights and has quickly become a place where people want to gather, attracting street vendors and locals. Security is a concern, as people roam into the hospital at will, and the health care providers often have trouble distinguishing the patients from the crowd. The Zanmi Lasante organization asked LSU landscape architecture students to come up with a new urban design plan to incorporate the influx of people in the city and around the hospital.

Students in Michaels’s advanced intersession course worked on design solutions, which were presented to Zanmi Lasante and Partners in Health. Some of the students’ ideas are currently being pursued. The students suggested the incorporation of an existing site across the street from the hospital, rethinking the hospital’s check-in process for patients. One of the most creative plans proposed the creation of an additional town square down the road to draw away activity from the hospital while providing a gathering place for locals, businesses, and visitors. Michaels said one of the most remarkable results of the endeavor was the change he saw in the students themselves. At first, not knowing what to expect, the students were nervous about visiting Haiti.

LSU/Haiti Task Force members continue to establish a growing list of community partners, nonprofits, and private organizations in their efforts toward a cooperative agreement. Potential partnerships include the South-East Department, the City of Jacmel, and the Public University of the South-East at Jacmel, a new university founded in 2011. Allen has identified specific partnerships for the College of Art & Design, such as the Ciné Institute, a two-year, tuition-free, college-level program that creates modern opportunities for Haiti’s youth through training in film production and new audio-visual technologies, and FOSAJ (Foyer D’Orientation et de Soutien Aux Artistes Jacmeliens), an artists’ collective whose mission is to educate and market artists and artisans; promote the social, psychological, and economic benefits of art; and encourage economic development through cultural activities and quality events.

The members of the task force understand the importance of being helpful and are being careful not to make promises that end up in failed attempts. By taking small steps and focusing on partnerships with local communities and organizations, the group is making headway toward its goal of establishing a semester-long program in Haiti with a focus on cultural and historical preservation, agriculture, the built environment, and entrepreneurship that is beneficial to both countries.

Carnival in Haiti, also known as Kanaval, coincides with Mardi Gras and is celebrated with music, bands, and parades. Kanaval celebrations were greatly curtailed by the 2010 earthquake. In 2011, costumed performers satirized darker themes than usual, such as the post-earthquake cholera epidemic.

Photo by Dr. Joyce Jackson

HEALING HAITI

19

A NEW MODEL FOR THE FUTURE OF HAITI In July 2012, the Board of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti approved a study to provide a strategic framework for the utilization of a large parcel of its land for the purpose of developing the economy, creating jobs, providing the country with a model of sustainable development, and enhancing the well-being of the middle-income population.

The board contracted Sustainable Strategies International to provide an assessment, strategic plan, and implementation strategy for the community of Gressier, a coastal area in the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement in the West Department of Haiti. Emmanuel Stefanakis, principal policy advisor at SSI, approached the LSU College of Art & Design in search of a design team to create a master plan based on the study. Landscape architecture graduate student Erin Dibos (MLA 2014) performed an initial analysis of the Gressier site before she graduated from LSU, and the master plan phase of the project was led by Dean Alkis Tsolakis and Robert Holton, assistant professor of architecture. Tsolakis, Holton, and four undergraduate students of the LSU School of Architecture—Susana Constenia, Chelsey Karasoulis, Angela Palmer, and Eva Rodriquez (all four graduated in May 2014)—worked on the master plan throughout the month of June 2014.

The proposed Gressier project is unique in that it is the first to address the full array of Haiti’s national policy goals in a single project. The plan’s innovative, holistic approach is designed to

The Gressier site is an irregularly shaped parcel approximately 150 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 square meters) in size, with steep slopes, open views, and pockets of vegetation.

20

NARI WARD FEATURE

surmount the deep economic and social problems of the nation: reconstruct the economy, re-grow the middle class, stabilize the environment, and reduce the risk of natural catastrophes. The main economic driver of the community is the creation of an “advanced industrial cluster” focused on value-added agriculture. Haiti currently imports more than two-thirds of its agricultural products; increased agricultural output is necessary to meet demand and increase food security. The heart of the cluster is a technical college for educating a new generation of entrepreneurs on how to increase crop yield using improved and sustainable farming practices. At least 40 percent of the land will be used for housing for families, educational facilities, and basic services. The community will have its own power generation and distribution grid and be nearly energy self-sufficient through the use of renewable resources such as solar energy, rainwater collection, the use of green roofs, and landscaping with indigenous plants.

The project is intended to be a highly replicable, adaptable, and scalable model and has the potential to make Haiti a leader in innovative planning throughout the Caribbean. Stefanakis presented the report and master plan to Haitian government officials, and the LSU design team presented the master plan to the Haiti/New Orleans Cultural Task Force. The project is now in the fundraising phase. Several organizations have expressed interest in the project, including Harvard Medical School and YMCA.

Rough Shape

THE CURRENT STATE OF LOUISIANA

By Jeff Carney, Director, LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio Associate Professor, LSU School of Architecture

Louisiana is rapidly losing its coast.

According to Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, Louisiana has lost 1,880 miles of land since the 1930s. So, why has the official state map stayed the same for decades?

Brett Anderson’s recent article in the online journal, Matter, appropriately titled “Louisiana Loses Its Boot,” presents an interesting argument for a radical rethinking of the iconic image. Anderson’s investigation reveals fundamental conflicts and entrenched attitudes surrounding the nature of land and territory that we, as Louisianans and Americans, hold

close. This collective ethos shapes the way we inhabit our landscape. We live in a state and nation that is built upon a narrative of westward expansion, demarcated by the Jeffersonian grid to facilitate the surveying, subdividing, and control of territory. In Louisiana, the unique land-ownership patterns of bayou communities laid out according to the French apent system are manifestations of a similar though regionally specific attitude toward land.

But Louisiana is shrinking! The unmaking of this territory is happening right in front of our eyes. It is happening through the almost imperceptibly slow sinking and erosion that frays our wetlands and the swift and violent force of a hurricane’s deadly strike. Anderson’s article, like much in the news, scientific reports, and governmental plans, reflects a call to arms intended to raise awareness and to hold the line against the expanding seas and shrinking landscape.

Drawing attention to the inaccuracy of our current map of Louisiana is an important step in fighting back against a growing crisis. However, the flaw with this reimagined map is not—as some would argue—that the new edge is inaccurately located. The error is that we insist on representing coastal Louisiana as a territory bound by firm edges in the first place. The value derived from the Mississippi Delta is found precisely in the territories between the two maps.

Giving valuable representation to this indeterminate wetland zone is a worthy investigation in itself. Whether it is on or off the map, much of this space was not terra firma before and likely not navigable water now. These deltaic marshes are the economic, ecologic, and cultural heart of the region. Dismissing them neither as land nor as water denies the essential role that this third space has played historically and must play in the state’s future.

Admittedly, any changes to a state map will be controversial, but in Louisiana, more than any place in the country, our edge is mysterious, dynamic, and rich. It is our greatest asset. It is not a line at all but a realm, thick with potential.

Illustration by Matter, medium.com/matter

ArtiFACT

In November 2014, Jeff Carney was named one of Baton Rouge Business Report’s “40 under 40” for his work with the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio. Read more at design.lsu.edu.

ROUGH SHAPE SHAPE 21 ROUGH

IT’S A ZOO OUT THERE Ace Torre’s exhibit designs explore themes of interconnectedness and enliven ancient civilizations. He turns five year olds into knowledgeable advocates for the giant panda or the mahogany rainforests.

And he does it all painlessly, under the guise of fun.

All Photographs © Torre Design Consortium

F

orty-four years ago, Azeo “Ace” Torre was working his way toward a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at LSU while performing gigs in New Orleans as a keyboardist.

Today, at 66 years old, he is the CEO and principal of Torre Design Consortium, a multidisciplinary design firm that provides services in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, urban design, environmental planning, and zoological and interpretive planning and exhibit design.

As communications coordinator for the LSU College of Art & Design, I’ve heard much about Ace Torre, mostly along the lines of, “Did you know he designed the Mike the Tiger Habitat?”

One of LSU’s most distinguished alumni, Ace received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the Robert Reich School in 1971. A true, modern-day Renaissance man, Ace’s career exemplifies the interdisciplinary foundations of the college: he is a LEED Accredited Professional; a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects; a licensed architect in 49 states; a licensed landscape architect in 16 states; a licensed interior designer in two states; a gifted musician and talented author; and an award-winning artist, painter, sculptor, and furniture designer who invented his own unique approach to design drawing coined the “tilt-up.” His legacy within the College of Art & Design includes four endowed scholarships, annually awarded to students who demonstrate exceptional design talent in architecture, art, interior design, and landscape architecture.

When I set out to interview Ace at his office—a grand, picturesque, late-19th-century historic home located on Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans—I wasn’t sure how much more I could learn about the man. Dozens of articles have been written about Ace, his sketching techniques and publications,

his commitment to the environment, his philanthropy, and most of all, his body of work, for which he has received bevies of national and regional awards. In fact, I discovered what I’m sure most of Ace’s friends, family, colleagues, and even casual acquaintances already know: his biggest strength and the driving force behind his success is his multifaceted career.

A natural storyteller, avid adventurer, and confident designer, Ace has maintained a passion for his work that is remarkable. With the zeal of a turn-ofthe-20th-century explorer on a mission to find El Dorado—Percy Fawcett on a quest to find the Lost City of Z—Ace turns daring expeditions into captivating exhibitions. He goes where no man—well, where few men—have gone before, meticulously recording every detail. He then re-creates those journeys, building interactive exhibits that anyone can enjoy for the modest price of a day at the zoo.

Ace researches every aspect of his design concepts, traveling to exotic locales and noting the architectural details of an African rondavel lodge or observing the way a herd of hippos wallow along the banks of the Nile. He is equally inspired by venues closer to home, such as Yellowstone National Park or the coastal Northwest. He interprets these voyages

and—voila!—his efforts become the Zambezi River Hippo Camp, Teton Trek, the Northwest Passage. All three are phases of the Memphis Zoo & Aquarium’s master plan, which he designed and helped conceive in the mid-1980s. Inspired by the Old Faithful Lodge at Yellowstone, Teton Trek is a surprisingly authentic replica, all the way down to the rocking chairs on the front porch and the view of grizzly bears lumbering in a stream-lined valley.

The lodge has become such a popular venue for weddings that couples have to reserve the space 18 months in advance!

An unexpected bonus is the effect of the lodge in winter. Many Memphians now spend their snow days at the zoo.

The multidisciplinary nature of Ace’s work is what keeps him so youthfully

Left: Thanks to the zoo staff and hospital research center designed by Ace and his firm, the Lowry Park

Above: Ace uses his tilt-up technique to illustrate plans

Zoo Manatee Hospital works to rescue, rehabilitate,

for the Zambezi River Hippo Camp, a new exhibit

and return Florida’s endangered manatees to the wild.

currently under construction at the Memphis Zoo.

IT’S AARE ZOOTHEY OUT NOW? THERE WHERE

23

The Okavango Delta exhibit at the Virginia Zoo at Norfolk features large habitats with free-roaming animals including zebras, giraffes, lions, elephants, rhinos, meerkats, and several smaller mammals.

passionate; he has found his own Fountain of Youth: a career that combines the ever-evolving professions of art and design with an unlimited amount of room for creativity, where every project is a new excursion. He remains forever young by serving the American public as translator/park ranger/Sherpa, guiding us through the tactile, three-dimensional, full-sensory, movie-like experiences he intuitively fashions out of the spark of an idea and dozens of quick, sprawling sketches. Once exorcised, these ideas and initial sketches are developed in more detail, evolving into exotic renderings and then full-scale installations of Amazonia, the Avenue of the Sphinxes, the Great Mayan Reef.

Ace will tell you that it all started with the multidisciplinary foundation he received studying at the LSU College of Art & Design. “Combining the elements of architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and exhibit design are crucial to what we do here.” After receiving his BLA, Ace taught landscape architecture at LSU and Tulane and began his career as the founder of the Urban Design Department of the New Orleans Planning Commission. Upon being awarded the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture (1974–76), he left his government job to study in Italy for two years. Ace first encountered modern zoo design during his travels across Europe and Africa.

Modern zoological exhibitions have significantly evolved since their inception in the early 1900s, when European zoos began eschewing the obviously manmade enclosures, cages, and iron bars of the Victorian-era menageries in favor of more naturalistic exhibits with concealed barriers, artificial rock, and moats.

People of a certain age may remember when zoos were organized by species and visitors followed trails leading to one box-shaped house after another, each featuring a collection of amphibians, reptiles, fish, or birds. The zoos Ace saw in Europe were focused on education and conservation. “Zoos that created an experience,” he recalled. The exhibits were arranged geographically or by region; strategically placed signs directed guests to Africa, South America, Australia, or North America, and the species

24

FEATURE

were placed accordingly—but separately—in each neighborhood.

When Ace returned from Rome, he worked as a designer in an architectural production firm that had the opportunity to bid on a small project at the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans. “At that time,” he laughed, “if a potential client asked if you could design a zoo exhibit, you immediately said yes I can, and you figured it out along the way.” The design was a success and led to projects at other zoos, including Lowry Park Zoo and Busch Gardens in Tampa, Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, and more. After a few more years and a buyout, Ace became the principal and CEO of Torre Design Consortium. His reputation as an innovative zoological and interpretive planner and exhibit designer grew, and TDC became one of a handful of firms in the country specializing in zoological exhibits.

Taking the geographical orientation of exhibits a few steps further, contemporary zoos aim to create bioclimatic, mixed-species exhibits “that talk about man’s chronology with nature, sociology, and biology,” Ace explained. Nowadays, visitors enter an exhibit, maybe a large, glass dome, and they feel the arid air and hear the whispering hush of the Sahara Desert. They pass through tangled vines and are transported to the thick damp, raucous noise, and fecund fertility of the Amazon Rainforest—where it even smells hot. Often, the more friendly species cross paths with visitors, roaming freely as they please.

Today, most zoos are a mix of the old and the new—works in progress as they raise funds to implement each phase of their master plans. Over the span of his career, Ace has designed master plans and exhibit spaces for more than 40 zoos and aquariums in the U.S. and one each in Canada and China. Exhibit materials and technologies are always improving, allowing for more authentic, realistic, environmentally friendly displays and more comfortable habitats for the “critters,” as Ace calls the inhabitants. When Ace shares pictures of the Tropics of Americas exhibit at the Palm Beach Zoo, the pyramids are so well realized

Amazonia at the Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden in Evansville, Indiana, exemplifies contemporary, bioclimactic, mixed-species exhibit design.

$1 million a year on the program. “By witnessing firsthand how that people ask, “Where in the Yucatan is that?” An element of some manatees arrive at the zoo, guests realize the importance the Teton Lodge exhibit at the Memphis Zoo provides visitors of manatee conservation and its statewide relevance,” (lowrywith a behind-the-scenes look at a Comfort Rock. Yes, those parkzoo.com). In 2013, a red tide bloom stretching from Sarasota critters hug those rocks for a reason. Depending on the time of to Ft. Myers killed a record number of manatees; red tide algae year, hot or cold water is pumped through pipes embedded in the releases toxins that paralyze manatees, causing them to drown. faux rock, providing animals respite from extreme climates. A Marine mammals all over the world suffer a similar fate every reptile complex designed by Ace and currently under construcyear. Fortunately, staff members of the Lowry Park Zoo Manatee tion at Zoo Atlanta is LEED Silver certified and will soon acquire Hospital discovered the manatees could be saved with life jackLEED Gold certification, meaning that it meets or exceeds the ets—or even pool noodles! Now, researchers world-wide can work U.S. Green Building Council’s highest standards of Leadership to implement similar solutions as needed, thanks to the Lowry in Energy & Environmental Design. With new innovations come Park Zoo staff and the hospital research center that was designed new price tags. Ace said the cost of these exhibits has increased

by Ace and his firm. dramatically over the years.

In 2015, Torre Design Consortium will celebrate its 35th anni “Zoos are expensive,” Ace remarked. “As a rule of thumb, exversary. In that time, the firm has completed zoological planning hibits cost a minimum of $4 million an acre, $10 million an acre and exhibit designs totaling more than $1 billion. Eighty-five for aquatic exhibits.” These transformations take time. From percent of the firm’s projects have been outside of Louisiana. The start to finish, schematic to construction, a $20 million exhibit zoos Ace has designed are frequently ranked within the top 10 in takes an average of three years to implement (one year to design the country by Trip Advisor, including the Memphis Zoo, which and two years to construct). But the global impact on communihas held the number one spot and was ranked sixth in 2014. ties is worth the cost, Ace contends. “A successful zoo will realize Almost all are ranked in the top 50.

100 percent of its regional population in attendance per year.”

The afternoon I spent with Ace Torre discussing exhibit de Ace likes to point out that “more people go to zoos each year signs and zoos was a priceless experience for which I would have than to all professional sports events combined.” According gladly paid admission. to the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, 181 million people visit zoos and aquariums each 41 year. Zoos and aquariums 33 30 contribute $16 billion to the U.S. economy, support 142,000 36 9 jobs, and spend $160 million in 18 support of conservation proj13 14 ects each year. The 229 AZA 35 PROFESSIONAL accredited zoos (215 located 32 23 38 LICENSES 25 40 in the U.S.) house 751,931 Architecture animals and 6,000 species of 28 11 29 24 which 1,000 are threatened or 21 Landscape 42 Architecture 34 endangered. Only 11 percent 15 17 22 16 12 20 Interior 7 37 of these zoos are for profit; the 10 Design 1 2 26 majority are nonprofit or city 19 3 6 8 5 owned.

39 31 4 Many zoos support rescue Manitoba, Canada and breeding programs, 27 Nanchang, China such as the Lowry Park Zoo THE UNITED STATES OF ACE Manatee Hospital, which 1. Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo 16. El Paso Zoo 30. Oregon Zoo works to rescue, rehabilitate, 2. Alexandria Zoological Park 17. Fort Worth Zoo 31. Palm Beach Zoo research, and return Florida’s 3. Alliance for Sustainable Wildlife* 18. Great Plains Zoo & Delbridge Museum 32. Peoria Zoo 4. Assiniboine Park Zoo of Natural History 33. Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium endangered manatees to 5. Audubon Aquarium of the Americas 19. Houston Zoo 34. Reid Park Zoo the wild. Since the hospital 6. Audubon Zoo 20. Jackson Zoological Park 35. Sacramento Zoo opened in 1991, approximately 7. Birmingham Zoo 21. Little Rock Zoo 36. Seneca Park Zoo 8. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay 22. Louisiana Purchase Gardens & Zoo 37. Shreveport Zoological Garden 10 percent of Florida’s mana9. Buttonwood Park Zoo 23. Louisville Zoological Garden 38. Smithsonian National Park Zoo tees have received care at the 10. Cameron Park Zoo 24. Memphis Zoo & Aquarium 39. Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo 11. Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park 25. Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden 40. Virginia Zoological Park zoo—almost 300 manatees to 12. Chehaw Wild Animal Park 26. Mike the Tiger Habitat 41. Woodland Park Zoo date. The zoo spends nearly 13. Chicago Zoological Soc. / Brookfield Zoo 27. Nanchang Zoo 42. Zoo Atlanta 14. Cosley Zoo 15. Dallas Zoo

28. Oklahoma City Zoological Park 29. Orange County Zoo

*Partnership between Audubon Nature Institute & San Diego Zoo Global

IT’S A ZOO OUT THERE

25

HOW IT’S MADE Physical Transect Model Camila Carvalho and Grant Murphy, BLA 2016 Developing concepts for potential exhibition content for the 16,000-square-foot Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Expanded Small Scale Physical Model Exhibition Space (the first project of the Baton Rouge Water Campus), fourth-year landscape architecture students in Assistant Professor Justine Holzman’s studio investigated and interpreted specific technologies of ecological restoration.

Camila Carvalho and Grant Murphy investigated the placement of OysterBreak technology to create a cohesive, unified reef system in the Southwest Pass near Vermilion Bay. Here’s how they fabricated a physical transect model to portray the effects of an oyster barrier reef over time.

1 Designing Templates for Terrain Using Rhino software, Carvalho and Murphy exaggerated the terrain of the ocean floor to make it more legible. They used Rhino’s contour command, which automatically marked the cuts for the width of the chipboard. The contour details were exported to AutoCAD, which they used to prepare 13 separate 22" x 34" boards, templates for the laser cutter.

Software: AutoCAD Rhinocerus Hardware: Belt and Disc Sanders Clamps and Vices Laser Cutter Materials: Acrylic Chipboard Glue Rocks Spray Paint and Texture

26

HOW IT’S MADE

Concept

Terrain Volume

Vertical Slices

2 Fabrication Using the laser cutter in the Design Shop, they cut 129 pieces of one-ply chipboard and two pieces of acrylic. They vertically aligned and glued together the chipboard and acrylic cuts, using clamps and vices to keep the structure from warping. They used a spray texture on the base/ocean floor and the acrylic pieces protruding from the base of the model were etched with increments of time.

3 Testing and Assembly Carvalho and Murphy tested several materials, including plaster, cement, and wax, before determining that sanded and spray-painted chipboard best represented the concrete rings that are placed on the ocean floor and seeded with oysters in the manmade creation of reefs. The rings were stacked on the model’s base, and rocks were layered to specify the growth of oysters over time.

4 Presentation and Display Carvalho and Murphy’s poster visualized the unseen elements of measuring, tracking, and manipulating an oyster barrier reef, and their model enhanced and connected the information presented on the board.

HOW IT’S MADE 27

Diversity by Design In May 2014, Nicole Hilton was notified that she had passed the Architect Registration Examination (ARE), making her the first African American female graduate of the LSU School of Architecture to become a licensed architect.

This achievement may sound a bit shocking (after all, it’s the 21st century!), but the truth is there just aren’t that many African American architects, especially female African American architects, registered in the U.S. According to the Directory of African American Architects (blackarch.uc.edu), Nicole is the 315th African American woman and the 1,931st African American in the country to obtain licensure. The most recent information provided by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) estimates that there are 105,847 licensed architects in the country, which means African Americans represent less than 1.8 percent and female African American architects less than 0.3 percent of licensed professionals.

All 50 states require individuals to be licensed and registered before they can call themselves architects or contract to provide architectural services. Those in the profession know how hard it is to achieve licensure, but for those who don’t—it’s hard. It’s a three-step process that starts with an education from an accredited school, then requires one to work as an intern under a licensed architect for a minimum of three years until he or she has earned enough Internship Development Program (IDP) credits to attempt, often more than once, to pass the ARE. The June 2014 NCARB by the Numbers reports the average age of those who do obtain licensure is 35. Many who earn degrees in architecture never take the test, choosing to work in affiliated fields instead.

Minorities are underrepresented in the profession in general, not just regarding licensure. The American Institute of Architects website states that ethnic minority members make up 10 percent of their total membership, and only 17 percent of AIA members are female. While these numbers are increasing, encouraging diversity in the profession must remain a priority.

A PROACTIVE APPROACH

In 2013–14, ethnic minorities represented 26 percent of undergraduate students studying architecture at LSU, and currently, almost half of the students studying architecture are female. These figures are impressive when compared to the

28

NARI WARD DIVERSITY

BY DESIGN

national average and a direct result of the school’s concentrated efforts to increase diversity. In 2000, the School of Architecture hired Dana Mitchell as recruiting and administrative advisor, and Professor and Director Jori Erdman has been instrumental in hiring a more gender diverse faculty—now almost half of the school’s faculty members are women. But the school has no intention of becoming complacent. In spring 2014, the school established a diversity committee dedicated to teaching, recruiting, and supporting minority, international, and firstgeneration students.

Assistant Professor Catherine Bonier, chair of the committee, said the committee’s main goal is to recruit and retain a student body that reflects the diversity of Louisiana, with a focus on firstgeneration college students and underrepresented minorities. As a first step, the committee turned to Dereck Rovaris Sr., LSU’s new vice provost for diversity.

Rovaris has a special affinity for architecture students. He was good at art and drafting in high school and thought Michael

UNDERGRADUATE AFRICAN AMERICANS

UNDERGRADUATE ETHNIC MINORITIES

GRADUATE AFRICAN AMERICANS

GRADUATE ETHNIC MINORITIES

30%

20%

10%

0%

2009–10

2010–11

2011–12

2012–13

In 2013–14, the LSU School of Architecture saw a rise in the undergraduate minority population and African American undergraduate and graduate students while the total percentage of ethnic minority graduate students declined.

2013–14

Brady from The Brady Bunch had a cool gig, so he decided he wanted to be an architect. However, he dropped out of the architecture program at the University of Kansas in his third semester. “I liked it, but it was frustrating. I was a first-generation, Pell Grant student competing with kids with much more means,” he recalled. “I would be appalled after spending $8 on a pencil, only to find out my classmates spent $40, and I could only afford the cheapest modeling materials.” Rovaris said the grading was subjective, as well. “There was no dialogue.” Of the eight African American students in his class, only two ended up finishing the program. Rovaris changed majors and still managed to graduate within four years, but said he often wishes he’d “toughed it out and stayed.”

While many things have changed since Rovaris was a student, there is much to learn from his experience. For one, architecture students still face additional financial burdens beyond the cost of tuition. For example, they are required to purchase a personal laptop equipped to handle costly software applications, at least a $1,500 expense. And, due to the rigorous nature of the program, students with jobs often struggle to keep up with the workload and long studio hours. The diversity committee will be instrumental in addressing these issues and more, with plans to review curricula as well as the cost of architectural hardware, software, plotting, and model-making materials to better consider the economic resources of the students and not preference those with access to more funds.

Nicole Hilton, BArch 2007 Photo by Art Guerrero Photography

DIVERSITY BY DESIGN 29

NICOLE HILTON’S LEGACY

The honor of being LSU’s first female African American to obtain licensure couldn’t have gone to a more worthy individual. Nicole was one of the original charter members for the LSU chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS). She served as the organization’s first president from its establishment in 2005 through her senior year, joining forces with AIAS, and she became a national representative of the NOMA Board of Directors. Nicole earned an honorable mention in the OJ Baker design competition and was a recipient of the Simpson Strong Tie Scholarship. Upon graduation, she was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi medal, which nationally recognizes students for academic excellence, promise of professional merit, and leadership.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2007, Nicole accepted a position at McAfee3 Architects, a femaleowned, African American firm with headquarters in Atlanta.

Nicole excelled under the mentorship of Cheryl McAfee, FAIA and CEO, and John Busby, FAIA. During her IDP training at McAfee3, she obtained her LEED AP certification and gained a valuable, well-rounded experience working in a small firm.

She wanted to lead her own projects, “to be thrown out there to sink or swim,” which led to her position as a designer and project manager at Chasm Architecture in Atlanta. For more than

At Chasm Architecture in Atlanta, Nicole Hilton has worked on the Pratt Library (pictured here), the historical rehabilitation of Fort Valley State University’s Bishop Hall, new student housing at LeMoyne Owen College, and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport projects for the A380 AirBus Gate and USO club design.

Image courtesy of Chasm Architecture

30

NARI WARD DIVERSITY

BY DESIGN

two years, she has worked under the mentorship of architecture alumnus Nathaniel Clark (BArch 1996), AIA, NCARB, president of Chasm. Her work experience has included a variety of projects in aviation, higher education, commercial, civic, and religious architecture. As a registered architect in the state of Georgia, Nicole is currently leading projects for the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Fort Valley State University. She is a member of AIA and has maintained her affiliation with NOMA. In Nicole’s experience the most significant challenge for minorities in the profession is being placed in a position to make an impact and have a voice. “The key is for those in the profession to make a conscious effort to have a diverse project team. Excelling at your job will help others find it common to work with you as a counterpart. Focus on having a high-quality skillset; don’t limit yourself to only what you’re exposed to; and position yourself so that your voice is heard,” Nicole advised.

Nicole’s achievements are truly an inspiration to others in the profession. “I have excelled beyond the norm and am a professional because of the School of Architecture’s constant requirement of excellence, intense preparation, and balanced education. The school’s and the college’s intentional efforts to make diversity in architecture, art, and design—especially as a Southern school—are remarkable and important.”

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Carroll Mathews

As a child, interior design alumna and former professional in residence Carroll Mathews (BFA 1972) spent her summers at her grandparents’ beach cottage on the Mississippi coast in Pass Christian. Built in a simpler time and utilizing the elements of natural ventilation and light, the old cottage was a place to live in harmony with nature. The cottage was Carroll’s first experience with a structure that was built to complement nature and where she attributes her initial interest in sustainable design.

After Carroll graduated college and had several years of experience in consulting work at a Herman Miller dealership, Jerry Nielson, head of the LSU interior design program at the time, contacted her to help with student critiques and to serve as a client for a student project. “Next thing you know, he asked me to teach one class . . . then two . . . then by 1978, I was teaching full time,” Carroll laughed. It is obvious that teaching made Carroll happy. “The pleasure of introducing new material and learning experiences to students through travel was the ultimate satisfaction.” As a teacher, Carroll started to thoroughly develop her interest in sustainable design. “Resource efficiency and the use of indigenous materials were always a strong component of my design aesthetic, but it was not until I came back to teach that I had the opportunity to research the area further,” she explained.

“It is so gratifying to see the current faculty place such emphasis on this essential aspect of design.”

In 2006, the mother of three retired at age 56, after 31 years of teaching. “My husband Dale and I had the opportunity to travel so we decided to take it.” Little did they know, Hurricane Katrina would interrupt their short-term plans. The hurricane devastated Carroll’s and her family’s beach cottages in Pass Christian as well as her parents’ home in New Orleans. Carroll now reflects on this time fondly. “I am thankful that I had that time to spend with my family as we restored, rebuilt, and redefined our futures together.”

After recovering from Katrina, Carroll and Dale took to the road.

“We took a two-month road trip to Quebec and back. We drove up the East Coast, stopping at historical sites and reconnecting with old friends along the way,” she said. The couple has also taken various hiking and backpacking trips in the West and Southwest United States and in Scotland. “We have much more traveling planned in the future, especially around Europe,” Carroll added.

Carroll said she was hoping to paint more at this particular point in her life, and increasing her artistic endeavors is still a goal.

“Every trip we take I bring a journal and watercolors, and I have incorporated this enjoyment into other activities as well,” she said.

Since her retirement, she has mostly worked on design projects at leisure. “I completed my collaboration with LaHouse on campus [louisianahouse.org], helped my son design the interior of his new store in Lafayette, and I have participated in small projects for the revitalization of downtown Pass Christian.”

When asked about the best part of retirement, Carroll quickly responded, “Every day is a new day, and I don’t know what’s in store.

I love the flexibility, especially in regards to my grandchildren.”

Since retiring, Carroll’s family has doubled in size. “We have four grandchildren, and I love having time to spend with them.”

Ultimately, Carroll and her family were unable to salvage their beach cottages after Katrina, but they found a house that survived the storm a couple of miles down the road. Making this home their own has been her biggest project since retiring. Updates included adding porches for outdoor living, opening the house to natural ventilation, and painting a large mural of the local flora that connects the interior to its environment. “I have enjoyed designing the house in a way that recalls the simplicity of my grandparents’ cottage,” Carroll said. As a result, the Mathews are able to continue the family tradition of gathering on the coast in Pass Christian— her proudest accomplishment yet.

ArtiFACT

In honor of her retirement, Carroll’s husband Dale Mathews established a scholarship in her name for interior design students—the Carroll King Mathews Sustainable Design Scholarship.

CLASS NOTES 31

Class NOTES 1960s

and aesthetics for Texas highways

ability services to commercial,

as well as other state projects for

educational, and institutional

Cleve Larry Mizell, BLA ’62,

the past 19 years—work that he

communities.

of Tennessee was recently

is very passionate about! In other

elected a trustee of ASLA for a

news, Kerry’s old Baton Rouge

Warren Kron, BLA ’97, was

three-year term.

band, Shotgun Leboa and the

appointed to the GIS manager

Livestock Show, was inducted into

position at the Baton Rouge

James Turner, BLA ’69, has

the Regional Louisiana Music Hall

City-Parish Department of Infor-

been working on the landscape

of Fame in 2012. Presently, he

mation Services in May 2014, after

of Hodges Gardens State Park in

enjoys performing swamp music

working as the GIS coordinator at

western Louisiana. The site is the

around Austin with his band, The

the City-Parish Planning Commis-

last notable public garden in the

Mighty Pelicans.

sion for 16 years. He now works

state not yet listed in the National Register of Historic Places. James and Kim Kelley, managers of the site, are hoping to present their

1990s

Mark Boyer, MLA ’94, has ac-

more closely with all city-parish departments to further implement the eBRGIS Program. Warren recently became a certified GIS

cepted a three-year appointment

Professional by the GIS Certifica-

from the University of Arkansas as

1970s

tion Institute and serves on the

co-director of the Wally Cordes

Louisiana GIS Council.

Michael Nidoh, BARCH ’76,

other faculty co-directors to

retired as the director of city plan-

deliver teaching enhancement

ning from the City of Bridgeport,

programs for all university faculty.

case to the Louisiana Preservation Board in November.

Teaching and Faculty Support Center. He will work with two

2000s

Aaron Hussey, MFA ’02, sculptor and owner of ApH Studio in Baton Rouge, has completed several projects this year including the LBJ-MLK Crossroads Memorial Project in San Marcos, Texas, and the St. Tammany Parish Fishing Pier project in Louisiana. He was also a finalist in the LSU Eunice Community Education Building Project.

Connecticut, after 35 years.

Stephen Jackson, BARCH ’78, recently celebrated Cockfield Jackson Architects’ 20th year anniversary. The firm, where Jackson is a principal and partner, is entering its third decade of professional practice. Cockfield Jackson Architects recently completed the renovation of the Jeff Boss Locker Room at Tiger Stadium.

Nathan Elliott, ASLA, LEED AP, BLA ’04, was recently promot-

film about her family and their

ed from vice president to principal

inducted into ASLA’s Council of

Brandi Bourque McDaniel, AIA, BARCH ’96, is celebrating

Yvonne Boudreaux, BARCH ’02, produced a documentary connection to the shooting of

of the Office of James Burnett’s

Fellows during the 2014 ASLA

her two-year anniversary as a

Huey P. Long entitled 61 Bullets.

Solana Beach, California, office.

Annual Meeting and Expo.

partner of Studio D Consulting +

It premiered at the Austin and

Now in his sixth year with the firm,

Design, a Texas-based sustain-

New Orleans film festivals in Oc-

Nathan’s professional work includes

ability and architectural design

tober. This project has been sev-

a variety of urban parks, corporate

firm. The firm provides innovative

en years in the making, and she

headquarters, academic campuses,

and environmentally responsible

is honored to have it screened in

mixed-use developments, and

architectural design and sustain-

Louisiana.

hospitality projects in the U.S. and

Tary Arterburn, BLA ’79, and Steve Shurtz, BLA ’77, were

1980s

Kerry Blackmon, BARCH ’80, has been designing landscapes

32

NARI CLASSWARD NOTES

abroad, including Klyde Warren Park

ties, town center developments,

the stewardship of 10 historic

in Dallas, Myriad Botanical Gardens

commercial, and mixed-use and

buildings in Sam Houston Park as

in Oklahoma City, and Hall Wines in

residential developments. Charlie

buildings curator of the Heritage

St. Helena, California.

is currently involved in the design

Society of Houston.

of Bridgeland’s Hidden Creek Park in Cypress, Texas. In his new role at LJA Engineers, Inc., he will oversee the development and growth of the landscape architecture group.

Samuel Baucum, MLA ’05, was promoted to the position of design associate at Bluegreen Aspen. Since joining the firm in

Adrianna Speer, BFA ’12,

2012, Sam’s detailed expertise

is currently a first-year MFA candi-

and innovative vision have

date at Louisiana Tech University.

contributed to the successful

Since graduating she has studied

Katherine Mathews Landry, BFA ’04, started her own business in

realization of countless projects ranging from high-end residential

Jerry Hooker, BLA ’08, became

2008, Katherine Landry Photography.

design to large-scale public works

business partner and principal

Her photography accomplishments

and parks throughout the Roaring

of Mirador Group in Houston.

have earned her features in the Wall

Fork Valley.

Over the past four years, Jerry

painting in the south of France,

has helped grow the firm from

Street Journal, Destination Weddings

four to 20 employees working in

Advocate. She and her husband,

Christina Tietje Carlisle, BLA ’06, is a campus planner at

Jeremy, have two children, Mazie and

the University Planning Office of

mercial architecture, landscape

Mack, and a dog, Millie. Katherine

Tulane.

architecture, interior design, and

magazine, Skiing magazine, and The

West Ireland, and Greece.

all fields of residential and com-

planning.

volunteers through the Junior League of Baton Rouge and the Baton Rouge

Holly Streekstra, MFA ’06, was

Ballet Theatre Board. Katherine is

an artist in residence at Titanik

the daughter of Carroll Mathews (see

Gallery in Turku, Finland, in fall

Genevieve Addison Jock, BID ’09, is doing freelance residential

article on page 31).

2013. In the 2013–14 academic

design work and building her

year, she was a Fulbright Teaching

handmade baby and toddler prod-

Ben Navo Jr., BARCH ’13, is an

Scholar and a lecturer in mixed

uct line of reusable meal and play

intern architect at the Architectural

media at Kaposvar University in

mats, called Busy Mats, on Etsy.

Studio in Baton Rouge.

Hungary. She is teaching sculpture at MCAD at Hamline University in

Amy Phillips, BFA ’09,

Alex Ochoa, BLA ’14, is a

Minneapolis.

is the creative director at

junior landscape architect at

Teknarus, a Baton Rouge technol-

Sawyer|Berson in New York.

Emily Ardoin, BID ’08,

ogy company specializing in de-

Ochoa won a student ASLA

returned to school and earned a

sign, development, and managed

Honor Award in analysis and

Master of Science in Historic Pres-

services. Teknarus offers the full

planning for his project “Beyond

ervation from the University of

spectrum of design and develop-

Turf: Reinterpreting the Eco-

Texas at Austin after working four

ment services.

logical Management of Vacant

years at Steinmetz & Associates in New Orleans. While pursuing

2010s

Charlie Patout, PLA, BLA ’04,

her degree, Emily curated an

has 10 years of experience spe-

exhibition, Inside Modern Texas:

cializing in urban planning, land

The Case for Preserving Interiors,

recently relocated from Austin,

planning, urban design, and land-

for UT Austin’s Architecture and

Texas, to Charleston, South Caro-

scape architecture. His experience

Planning Library. She has since

lina, where she is now a landscape

includes master planned communi-

begun a new career overseeing

architect at Thomas & Hutton.

Mary Martinich, MLA ’10,

Landscapes.”

Stay in touch!

design.lsu.edu/alumni CLASS NOTES 33

EQUIPPED

Daniel Willson – BFA 2012 | BID 2016

10 3

6 7

2 1

4

8

9 11

12

5

1. I always have at least one hoodie in

my studio. It gets cold up here during the hot months, and during the cold months it’s handy if I need to make a food or supply run outside of the building.

2. I use a small whiteboard for sketching

out quick space-planning solutions or other design ideas. I photograph anything I like if I need to see it again.

3. Pliers, steel wire, and glue are a few

staples I use when creating models.

34

NARI WARD EQUIPPED

4. I order samples of things I like even if

I’m not using them for a project—who knows what you might need later?

5. A T-square, a ruler, and a scale are all

necessary drafting supplies.

6. I recently received a BFA in sculpture

and made these gears for a large sculpture installation that was part of my capstone project.

7. I made this model and 3D print for

a prototyping exercise in a components course this semester.

8. I picked up this saxophone sculpture

at the art market downtown. I like to keep images and artwork around my space to keep me inspired.

9. I don’t like to rely too heavily on com-

puter-generated images of spaces, so I use Prismacolor pencils, watercolors, drafting pencils, vellum, templates, and other supplies for renderings.

Hand-drawn elements add a personal touch to presentations that can’t be replicated.

10. I use my laptop for everything. I run

design and 3D-modeling software as well as Microsoft Office Suite and other applications.

11. General office supplies are nice

to have around. You have to stay organized in this program or you’ll go nuts!

12. I always have a Moleskine on my per-

son or in my book sack. I use these pocket-sized gridded books in place of large sketchbooks. (Yes, I draw on the covers.)

MICHAEL TRIEGEL A FREEDOM OF A DIFFERENT KIND

EXHIBITION:

LECTURE:

January 22 – March 1, 2015

February 11, 2015, 5 p.m.

RECEPTION: February 12, 2015, 6–8 p.m.

Glassell Gallery at the Shaw Center for the Arts 100 Lafayette Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70801 glassellgallery.org

Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecture Series LSU Design Building Auditorium, Room 103

1  02 Design Building Baton Rouge, LA 70803-7010

MAIL

LSU College of Art & Design

Stay in the loop year-round

by signing up for Quad Mail, the LSU College of Art & Design’s monthly e-newsletter, delivered to your inbox the last Wednesday of each month.

Subscribers receive up-to-date information about what our alumni, faculty, and students are doing. Quad Mail includes upcoming event listings such as receptions, gallery exhibitions, lectures, and alumni events.

Sign up and/or update your e-mail preferences at design.lsu.edu.

facebook.com/lsucoad twitter.com/lsucoad instagram.com/lsuartanddesign linkedin.com/in/lsucoad