MAY 2019
Art + Design : News + Notes
Hillier College of Architecture and Design New Jersey Institute of Technology 1
NEW NAME: J. Robert Hillier and Barbara A. Hillier College of Architecture and Design
Digital Design Program Ranked #1 in New Jersey by Animation Career Review in Graphic Design and Animation
Upon receipt of the largest gift ever received by NJIT, the College of Architecture and Design has been renamed in honor of its benefactors, Princeton architects and principles of Studio Hillier, J. Robert and Barbara A. Hillier. The gift will provide scholarships to expand and diversify the student body in the fields of architecture and design, funds for technology, and more. Robert Hillier cited the long and impressive history of technological innovation at NJIT’s College of Architecture and Design as well as future potential creative and financial opportunities provided by Artificial Intelligence in the hands of designers. Barbara Hillier challenged the College to teach its graduates to let “humanity” shape the built environment. The announcement was made by NJIT President Joel Bloom on Tuesday afternoon, May 21 in Weston Hall at the conclusion of the annual College Celebration and Awards Ceremony that follows the undergraduate commencement exercises.
The Digital Design program at NJIT has been named by Animation Career Review as the top program in New Jersey to study graphic design and animation. This marks an improvement in the rankings for animation and is the first time NJIT has been ranked for graphic design. Additionally, the School of Art + Design placed in the top 20 nationally among schools offering an animation-related Bachelor of Arts degree, and top 20 overall on the East Coast. The program was recognized for its depth and breadth with animation embedded in the Entertainment Track of a generalized course of study, and graphic design is integrated throughout the program.
Interior Design Students Sweep ModernfoldStyles Workplace of the Future Competition
Princeton Review Lists NJIT Among Top Schools for Video Game Design for Fifth Time
Three third-year Interior Design students – Amena Chaudhri, James Chao, and Sarah Whitehouse – captured 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places respectively in the 2019 ModernfoldStyles Workplace of the Future Student Design Competition. Open to students of architecture and interior design from New York, New Jersey, and the greater Philadelphia area, the brief called for a law office in New York City with accommodation for 80 employees in an area of 12,500 square feet (gross). Judging was based in part on (1) innovation, (2) artistic and creative skill, (3) feasibility, and (4) communication and application of the concept of “Workplace of the Future.” Professional judges represented the firms of Gensler, Perkins + Will, SBLM Architects, Huntsman Architectural Group, and TPG Architecture. Chaudhri won a prize of $3,500 and a summer internship with TPG Architecture, while Chao and Whitehouse received $2,000 and $1,000 respectively. All three winners designed their projects in the Interior Design studio taught by adjunct and NJIT alumnus Brandon Warshofsky, principal of Brick Studios, LLC in Newark. This marks the second consecutive win by an NJIT Interior Design student in the ModernfoldStyles competition.
For the fifth time in six years, and the fourth consecutive year, NJIT has been named a top 50 school in which to study video game design by Princeton Review. The rankings are based on data collected from 150 schools with game design programs and included student successes in working for game companies, facilities and technology available for student use, faculty credentials, and opportunities for multi-disciplinary collaboration and research. NJIT was the 13th ranked public university, and was the top program housed in a public university in New Jersey. Game design is a collaborative endeavor at NJIT with the Digital Design program in the School of Art + Design housed in the Hiller College of Architecture and Design, and Information Technology in the Department of Informatics offered by the Ying Wu College of Computing.
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Nine Industrial Design Students Awarded Research Seed Grants
Branko Kolarevic Named Dean of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design
Nine different Industrial design students were selected as winners for the Spring 2019 Undergraduate Research Innovation program (URI) Phase 1 Seed Grants for three different projects. Studying design in the context of a research university opens opportunities for cross-disciplinary studies that allow undergraduate students to participate in the collective effort to generate and disseminate new knowledge. The selected students are Haian Alhoch, Ben Ruoff, Kaishon Way, and Brent Hartwell who will work on “SemiAutonomous Sensor Bots” with Associate Professor Martina Decker. Andrew Carter, Jenna Stuiso, Jayna Patel, and Masha Chernyakhovskaya are working on “Weakly-Electric Fish Amplifier” with Decker and Associate Professor Eric Fortune of the Department of Biological Sciences. Daniel Meza will be working on “Slime Mold Tissue Fixation” with Assistant Professor Simon Garnier of the Department of Biological Sciences. Receipt of these grants is based on a multi-phase competitive process that required submission of written proposals and presentation to an External Advisory Board.
Dr. Branko R. Kolarevic, current president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Past President of the Canadian Architectural Certification Board (CACB) and the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), and current Associate Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary, has been named Dean of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, succeeding Interim Dean Tony Schuman who held the position for two and one-half years during the search for Dean Emeritus Urs Gauchat’s successor. Kolarevic was introduced as the incoming Dean to students, faculty, and alumni at Design Showcase in April, and will take his position at NJIT on July 1. Previous posts for Kolarevic have included teaching positions at Ball State University, California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Northeastern University, University of Hong Kong, University of Miami, and University of Pennsylvania. Widely published, he is the author of the book Architectural Modeling and Rendering, and author or co-author of more than 20 book chapters and 75 papers or articles. Kolarevic earned his Diploma Engineer in Architecture at Belgrade University, a Master of Design Studies and Doctor of Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Interior Design Ranked Best in New Jersey by Universities.com
NJIT Student Project Makes GDC 2019 Unreal Engine Student Sizzle Real
NJIT has the best Interior Design program in New Jersey for 2019 according to Universities.com. The ranking is based on a compilation of data from government sources, student surveys, college graduate interviews, and editorial review.
Break-A-Leg, a game created in a collaboration between Digital Design and Informatics students appeared on the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 Student Reel produced by Unreal Engine. The game was designed by Jimmy Benites (Digital Design) and Satchel Quinn (Information Technology) with help from Digital Design students Lasha Areshidze, Bryan Carbajal, Michael Mejia, and Shivan Patel. The work is a product of an independent study project with Lecturer and Coordinator of the Digital Design program, Augustus Wendell.
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Interior Design Students Awarded at IIDA Student Design Competition and Showcase in Philadelphia Third-year student Chloe Blottman and fourth-year student Evi Manoussakis from the Interior Design program were each awarded Honorable Mention in the 2019 IIDA Student Showcase and Competition on March 7, 2019. The Mid-Atlantic Region competition is open to schools from Pennsylvania and Delaware as well as New Jersey. Nine NJIT students traveled to Philadelphia for the event and with eleven entries, NJIT had greater representation than any other school. Hosted at Spectrum Workplace’s downtown showroom, the projects were evaluated by a panel of professional judges which praised the work put forth by the NJIT students as “compelling” and “realistic.” Both projects were completed in design studios taught by University Lecturer Julio Figueroa. Interior Design students from the School of Art + Design have received awards in the annual competition two of the last three years.
Ferrer Creates NJIT Watch
Aldrich Among Winners for “Us” Art Contest
Jonathan Ferrer, a 2014 graduate from the Industrial Design program, adjunct faculty member, luxury watch designer and founder of Brew Watch Co., has created an original watch especially for the NJIT community. Release of the new product is timed to coincide with the annual NJIT Alumni Weekend at the end of May, 2019. The automatic watch has signature NJIT red accents and all the schools engraved on the caseback.
2018 Digital Design graduate Everett Aldrich was selected as one of five winners of the art competition publicizing writer/director Jordan Peele’s latest movie, “Us,” based on the original trailer. On February 27, Universal Pictures brought Aldrich and the other winners to Los Angeles to talk about their art where the work was shown to Peele, Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke. Aldrich’s art also made an appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah during an interview with Nyong’o at South by Southwest (SXSW), and was used for the publicity poster for the curated fan art gallery at SXSW.
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Digital Design Students Travel with NJIT SIGGRAPH to Austin for South by Southwest
Interior Design Students Selected for IIDA Charette at NeoCon 2019 in Chicago
A group of Digital Design students traveling under the auspices of the student organization NJIT SIGGRAPH, went to Austin, Texas, in March to attend South by Southwest (SXSW) 2019’s Film and Interactive Festival. The group spent nine days in Austin attending film premieres (e.g. Us, Villains, The Art of Self Defense) and participating in development workshops where they were able to receive career advice from industry professionals. The students were able to network with representatives from LAIKA, Pixar, NASA, and more. The attendees included four seniors (Jerry Bellone, Giovanni Gagliano, Alex Schuppel, Joshua Weinberg), three juniors (Michael Decaprio, Michael Mejia, Nicholas Seccondro), and two sophomores (Jordan Mikhail, Kaylin Wittmeyer). SXSW was founded in 1987 and celebrates the convergence of diverse and inventive disciplines.
For the for the fourth consecutive year, Interior Design students from NJIT’s School of Art + Design have been selected to participate in the annual International Interior Design Association (IIDA) Student Charette to be held at the NeoCon in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. For the first time, however, three NJIT students were chosen to participate: rising seniors Chloe Blottman, James Chao, and Victoria Birritteri will compete live June 11 during a six-hour competition to develop a design solution that will subsequently be presented to a panel of judges. The event is sponsored by Herman Miller, Benjamin Moore, and Wallcoverings Association. This is the 51st NeoCon which is the interior design industry’s premier annual exposition and conference.
(c) Mathew Schwartz
(c) Glenn Goldman
Goldman and Schwartz Among Winners of AIA West Jersey Annual Photo Contest Assistant Professor of Industrial Design Mathew Schwartz and Director of the School of Art + Design Glenn Goldman have each produced three winning photographs for the annual competition sponsored by the West Jersey section of the American Institute of Architects (AIAWJ) that were published in their 2019 calendar. Schwartz’s “Hogwarts of Law” (University of Michigan), was selected for the month of February, “Buildings of Kum Kam” (Thailand), was selected for May, and “Curves of Zaha” was published on the back cover. Goldman’s “Segovia” was awarded Best Color Image and placed in January, “Blue Door” (Maitland, Florida) was selected for June, and “Selfie at MoMA” (New York City) was selected for November. In all the pair had six of the fourteen winning photographs. Goldman, who was a winner for the eighth consecutive year, also had one photograph, “Davies Alpine House,” named as a merit selection and Schwartz had two: “Painted Wood Temple” and “Windmills of Salt Fields.” A photograph of the 18th century villa, Chiswick House by Lord Burlington (“Palladian Villa”), by Goldman was competitively selected for online exhibit by Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon in the group show “Black and White: Photography.”
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Cassidy Lavine Wins A+D Medal The Art + Design Medal, the highest honor the school offers to a graduating student, was awarded to Industrial Design major Cassidy Lavine of Newton, New Jersey. A graduate of Kittatinny Regional High School and a member of the Albert Dorman Honors College at NJIT, Lavine also won the Award for Academic Achievement in Industrial Design for having the highest academic average in the program during the four years of her undergraduate career. Because of her outstanding academic record, she was selected as the Gonfalon carrier representing both schools in the College of Architecture and Design during the commencement exercises held in the Prudential Center in Newark. Lauded for the quality of her design projects, Lavine exhibited work at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York in 2018, won the NJIT Design Showcase Award for Industrial Design in 2018, and was named the Foundation Year Designer of Distinction in 2016. In 2017 she received an NJIT Provost Research Grant to create an affordable food composter in a multidisciplinary project that combined Industrial Design with Civil and Environmental Engineering. During her time at NJIT, Lavine has had internships at Advanced Group in Andover, NJ, and at Peloton Interactive in New York City. She currently is working in graphic design for Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the world’s largest museum exhibition firm, in New York.
Narahara Participates in FORUM8 Design Festival and Serves as Judge for 6th Cloud Programming World Cup in Tokyo Associate Professor of Digital Design, Taro Narahara, served as one of four judges for the 6th Cloud Programming World Cup in Tokyo, part of the FORUM8 Design Festival, in November 2018. Seventeen teams signed up for the event that started with the first round in July, with six teams nominated for the final judging at Shinagawa Intercity Hall on November 15, 2018. Narahara has served as a judge in the event since its inception in 2013 and has already been named as judge for the 2019 event. The program challenged groups of students to “develop software that can run on VR-Cloud using UC-win/Road SDK and VR-Cloud SDK.” The category of developed software was open and could include almost anything from general all-purpose software, business or engineering software to game software. Winning projects included an autonomous truck loader and the development of a fire escape simulation system. Co-located during the Design Festival was the 11th International VR Symposium in which Narahara and Yoshihro Kobayashi from Arizona State University presented “Education Framework of Machine Learning and Machine Control Technology.”
Schwartz Presents at SimAUD 2019 in Atlanta Assistant Professor of Industrial Design Mathew Schwartz with Subhajit Das presented “Interpreting Non-fat Surfaces for Walkability Analysis” at the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture + Urban Design (SimAUD) 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia, in April. The authors maintain that “while standards for wheelchair ramps exist, they rarely show the entire picture, nor do they account for surface variation beyond a single axis.” Presented in the Geometric Explorations session, the paper looks at biomechanics and architecture in relation to surface walkability and presents a novel graph creation method that can respond to variations in surface height for walkability analysis where edge weights of the graph are based on surface condition of parent-child height variations.
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Beyond the Olympics: Kum-Biocca Collaborates with Korea Telecom in the Design of Mobile Transportation Application
Gervits and Reay Present at NJ VALE Conference
Assistant Professor of Digital Design Hannah Kum-Biocca is partnering with the Korean government and Korea Telecom, the leading mobile network provider in Korea, to extend software originally developed and tested for the Pyeong Chang Olympics as a first phase of the project into a full mobility-as-a service (MaaS) application that merges ride-sharing services across any transportation means from planes, trains, and automobiles to rental bicycles.
“Voicing History: Digital Projects and Oral History Initiatives at the Littman Library, NJIT” prepared by Director of the Littman Architecture and Design Library Maya Gervits and Architecture and Design Library Specialist Danielle Reay, was presented on January 4 at the New Jersey Conference of the Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE), a consortium of 51 New Jersey college and university libraries. “Digital Archive of Newark Architecture” and “History of the College of Architecture and Design” are initiatives that apply technology to make archival materials more generally accessible. The presentation demonstrated how archiving and analyzing historic materials in a variety of formats makes it possible to amplify the narratives that constitute collective memory and create a more holistic picture of the past. Among the images shown at the conference were a set of “then” and “now” images at the College, juxtaposing methods of teaching, use of technology, and the interior learning environments.
Dr. Kum-Biocca presented the results of the different versions and testing of the mobile software to a panel of representatives from Korea Telecom, the Korean government, and in an invited talk at Konkuk University in Seoul. The application included a map interface and the ability for users to book and ride any transportation seamlessly to their destination. The UI/UX design and usability research were tested on an international set of users by Kum-Biocca and her student team.
Gosser Curates New Jeru[salem] at Art & Artifacts of Newark NJIT alumnus Matthew Gosser curated a retrospective of images from HYCIDE (“a photography magazine dedicated to subculture, art and conflict”) by magazine founder and Newark icon, Akintola Hanif, called New Jeru[salem]. The exhibition was available for public viewing from February 9 through April 5, 2019 at Art & Artifacts of Newark on Washington Street (recently featured in the United Airlines inflight magazine Hemispheres article “Three Perfect Days: Newark”). Akintola’s photographs of life on Newark’s streets have been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum.
Narahara Presents at SIGGRAPH Asia Associate Professor of Digital Design Taro Narahara and Yoshihiro Kobayashi of Arizona State University presented “Personalizing Homemade Bots with Plug & Play AI for STEAM Education” at SIGGRAPH Asia in Tokyo, Japan, on December 4, 2018. The pair “proposed educational modules [that] demonstrate AI’s ability to personalize things through re-enactments of robots assembled by participants using networks trained to assimilate their game-play styles in VR for STEAM fields.”
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Think Pieces Returns to the College with Talks by Decker, Esperdy, and Kum-Biocca Think Pieces, the popular lightning-fast presentation format during which faculty make brief presentations about current research returned on March 4, 2019, with three talks. Associate Professor of Architecture and Industrial Design Martina Decker spoke about her current research in nanotechnology and emergent materials and highlighted interdisciplinary endeavors. Associate Professor of Architecture Gabrielle Esperdy presented her exploration of the evolution of built form in Los Angeles by starting with the Ed Ruscha archives, and her efforts to establish a classification scheme for comprehending the city’s architectural typologies and urban morphologies. Assistant Professor of Digital Design Hannah Kum-Biocca discussed her research in human-computer interaction and her work in the use of projection and augmented reality for interactive user experience.
New and Returning Faculty at the School of Art + Design Mariam Raafat Abdelazim is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint degree program in Urban Systems at NJIT and Rutgers University. She earned a BS in Architectural Engineering at The American University in Cairo (AUC) and as MS in Architecture (History, Theory, and Criticism program) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A former Research Assistant at MIT and Teaching Assistant at MIT and AUC, she taught in the Foundation Year course, Communication in Art + Design – Digital Media. Previously, Abdelazim worked as an architectural designer at Douglas C. Wright Architects in New York City. Kristen Hagen is a Senior Interior Designer at Kalashian Architecture & Design (KKAD) in Chester, NJ, and a 2013 graduate from the Interior Design program at NJIT. Prior to KKAD, she worked as a design consultant for Business Furniture, Inc. and as an intern at Wyndham Worldwide. One of the early graduates of the program, Hagen was the first graduate of the School of Art + Design to take and pass the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) certification examination. Digital Design alumna Monica Nelson, the 2018 A+D Medal Winner and former NJIT SIGGRAPH President, returned less than one year after graduation to teach and coordinate the Foundation Year course, Communication in Art + Design – Digital Media. Nelson also works as a production assistant at Ntropic in New York and previously worked for Kim Wendell Design LLC in Brooklyn. She was an instructor for iD Tech Camps in Princeton teaching students aged 10 to 17 covering basics in 3D modeling, 3D printing, and Python programming for game design. Miguel Rodrigues comes to NJIT’s Digital Design program from industry where he has extensive experience in directing, creating storyboards, animation, video editing and mapping, and design and illustration for web, television, and print. He has a BFA and MFA in Animation from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. Rodrigues’s personal and professional work has been featured in MoMA, New York magazine, Arte Fuse, Loop de Loop, and Liquid TV, and he has worked on projects for Stephen King, Marvel, DC Comics, MTV, American Choppers, and more. Prior to NJIT he has worked for Interactive-U in Calgary, Barat Foundation in Newark, Optical Design Concepts in Woodstock, and Horizon NY, Inc. in New York City. Rodrigues taught animation to second-year Digital Design students and will be teaching a variety of courses within the program. Stephen Schaum is a Brooklyn-based artist focusing on the translation of dynamic patterns in nature into physical, spatial, and time-based experiential forms who joined NJIT to teach a third-year Digital Design studio concentrating on physical computing and interactivity. Schaum earned a BA in Sculpture from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU) and MDes. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Before joining NJIT, he served as an Artist/Professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden and at the Seoul Institute of Art in Korea as well as teaching an experiential studio at Harvard. His work has been exhibited widely and is part of public works/collections at Vanderbilt University, College of Charleston, and Iwate Town Hall in Japan. Sophia Sobers ’11 is a multiple-media and multidisciplinary artist who has returned to NJIT eight years after completing her BS in Architecture taking advantage of Digital Design courses in the just-established School of Art + Design. She received the degree MFA Digital + Media from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2013 where she won the Thesis Award for her work, and then taught as an adjunct at RISD for three years. From 2016 through 2018 Sobers was a Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Studio Arts at the University of Pittsburgh and then moved on to teach at Carnegie Mellon University where she was an adjunct at the Institute for Integrative Innovation prior to her return to New Jersey. With numerous solo and group exhibits to her credit, including a place in the rotation of the exhibit “Art on the Marquee” projected on the exterior of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in 2013, she recently had her first solo exhibit, “Power Tools” at On Canal in New York City which was an immersive installation depicting plugs, power strips and USB adapters reimagined as large-scale soft sculptures which double as interactive plush furniture. Architecture alumnus Brandon Warshofsky ’13, principal of Brick Studios, LLC in Newark, taught the third year Interior Design studio that focuses on commercial and office design. Licensed in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, Warshofsky previously worked for Posen Architects, LLC, in West Orange, New Jersey, and is the First Vice President of the AIA Newark and Suburban chapter and has been a speaker at the American Institute of Architects Grassroots Conference in Washington, DC.
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Leah Greis Joins Littman Library Staff With the departure of Danielle Reay, Leah Greis has temporarily joined the Littman Library staff. Greis has a BA in Graphic Design from Michigan State University, an MLIS (Master in Library and Information Science) degree from the City University of London, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Museums & Digital Culture at Pratt. She previously worked as a librarian at CUNY College of Staten Island, Sotheby’s, and the Tate Museum, among other institutions. Greis will be providing reference assistance and work on developing several Littman Library digital projects.
13th Annual Design Showcase Hosted at NJIT Design Showcase, the annual event bringing together alumni, students, and faculty of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, moved from Weston Hall into the Atrium of the Campus Center in 2019. Held on April 11, the event combined networking opportunities, mini-trade show, alumni keynote lecture by Serge Demerjian ’93 (Silverstein Properties) and Earl Jackson ’99 (Earl Jackson Architecture Workshop), and a curated display of student work. Chaired by Trevor Munson ’08 (Director of Construction, WeWork) and Donald Henry ’80 (Managing Partner, Urbahn Architects), the event is the largest fundraiser of the year for the College. Awards for best student work in each program are annually determined by an alumni jury from each discipline. The Industrial Design winner selected by Jonathan Ferrer ’14 and Renee Collins ’18 was Preston Konopka. The Digital Design winner selected by Marta Brulinski ’16, Nate Soto ’17, and Monica Nelson ’18 was Christian Menendez. And the Interior Design winner selected by Tatiana Duarte ’14, Cathrine Fahmy ’17, and Pamela Ospina ’18 was Chloe Blottman. Interim Dean Tony Schuman was given a certificate of recognition for his efforts on behalf of the College for the past two and one-half years.
Art + Science Exhibit Opens in Littman Library The Littman Library hosted an original exhibit celebrating the convergence of art and science with an aptly named exhibit, Art + Science, that contained work by both faculty and students at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design and the departments of Biology, Physics, Humanities, and Informatics. Works by David Rothenberg, Mat Schwartz, Martina Decker in collaboration with Philip Barden, Hannah Kum-Biocca in collaboration with Kim Hyomin, Industrial Design student Victor Nzegwu, Architecture student Kevin Tan, Industrial Design student Daniel Meza in collaboration with Simon Garnier, and students Jimmy Benites from Digital Design and Satchel Quinn from Information Technology working with Augustus Wendell were displayed. Curated by the Director of the Littman Library, Maya Gervits, the exhibit promoted the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge and collaboration, and featured creative work in a variety of formats, including analog and digital images, computer simulation, augmented reality, 3D prints, an interactive website, video game, and a selection of books.
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Third Annual New Jersey Industrial Designers Society of America Student Showcase Hosted at NJIT
“Psycho-geographies” Exhibited in College Gallery
Students Attend Career Fair at NJIT
Digital Design and Information Technology Hold Spring Game Expo
For the third consecutive year, the annual showcase of student work for Industrial Design programs in New Jersey was organized by the NJIT chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and hosted in the Gallery at Weston Hall in April. The exhibit, organized by third-year students Masha Chernyakhovskaya and Jayna Patel along with their colleagues, featured a wide array of student work from NJIT, Kean University, and Montclair State University and was attended by students, family, faculty, and alumni from the three schools in addition to prospective students and their parents at the April Open House held on the NJIT campus.
The Hillier College of Architecture and Design hosted “Psycho-geographies,” an exhibit of solo and collaborative works of art by Alexandra Schoenberg and Leslie Adler. Having studios at Manufacturer’s Village in East Orange, the two practices have come together exploring their common interest of opposites “to form dislocations of architectural representations and mental landscapes filled with intuitive, subconscious markings.” Curated by Matt Gosser, the exhibit was in the Gallery of the College of Architecture and Design and on display February and March, 2019.
Weston Hall played host to the annual Spring Game Expo attended by both Digital Design and Information Technology students and faculty on April 24. Organized by University Lecturer and Associate Director of the MIXR Labs in the Department of Informatics DJ Kehoe, with assistance from University Lecturer and Coordinator of the Digital Design program in the School of Art + Design, Augustus Wendell, the program included demonstrations of studentcreated games and a series of seminars and presentations. The first panel discussed “New Research in Games and VR” with Assistant Professors Antje Ihlefeld (Biomedical Engineering), Amy Hoover (Informatics), and Margarita Vinnikov (Informatics). “Introduction to Game Narrative” was presented by Game Designer and adjunct faculty member at MIT, Matthew Weise. And finally, there was an introduction to NJIT ESPORTS and a student panel about their trip to the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.
Whether looking for summer internships or full-time postgraduate employment, every Spring semester, students flock to the NJIT Career Fair at the Wellness and Events Center (WEC) on campus where they have an opportunity to meet with potential employers and get a close-up look at what’s available for an event sponsored by NJIT’s Career Development Services. The event, which was held on February 13 with more than 200 employees recruiting, frequently includes firms with College of Architecture and Design alumni that are looking for students.
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Interior Design Hosts Robust Industry Speak Seminar Series The Interior Design program was host to a series of five different industry seminars in the spring semester, including industrysponsored lunches and one dinner during the spring semester. The first session was held on March 7 with a visit from Melissa Garra representing Sherwin Williams who spoke about paints, color choices, and industry resources available to students and professionals. Just one week later on March 14, Knoll sponsored a lunch and learn in the Interior Design studios as Tina Imbriale and Gina Morgan presented a history of the company and midcentury modernist furniture, and the products and organization of the company today. After spring break, McGrory Glass represented by Brianna Nastasi sponsored a lunch and learn on March 28 and presented information about types of glass, interior uses for glass, and how best to match and specify the appropriate product for the task. And finally, on Monday evening April 8, Matthew Negron ’13 (Industrial Design) of Dauphin, organized a “dinner and learn” with Michael Malfi of Shaw Contract and Michelle Petriello of Architex Fabrics during which the vendors discussed their products and career paths as designers and sales representatives.
Tea with Alumni Series Takes Place in Littman Library The Littman Library has become a social focus of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design with the establishment of the “Tea with Alumni” series. The four evening sessions (one each in September, November, January, and May) hosted by Director of the Littman Library, Maya Gervits, welcomes alumni from each program for a wide-ranging discussion with students and faculty. This year the events drew more alumni than were invited as positive word-ofmouth advertising has generated interest. Art + Design alumni participating included Renee Collins ’18 (Industrial Design), Rachel Corres ’13 (Digital Design), Jon Ferrer ’14 (Industrial Design), Ben Gross ’12 (Digital Design), Emily Guttierez ’18 (Interior Design), Matthew Negron, ’13 (Industrial Design), Monica Nelson ’18 (Digital Design), Audrey Ngo ’16 (Industrial Design), Adam Raiffe ’12 (Interior Design), Isabella Rizzo ’18 (Interior Design), and Banafsheh Soltani ’12. The alumni talk about their careers and various post-college options the students have. The informal sessions facilitate networking and connections between students and alumni in the Mostoller Reading Room of the Library and reinforces the expansive nature of the College community.
Students Teach Students at Skills Fair On February 15, students gathered in the Weston Hall Gallery to learn new skills from other students. The student-organized Skills Fair included all four programs in the College of Architecture and Design and was set up to help other students learn useful skills that will help them in their design studies. The assistance offered included instruction in Adobe Illustrator and After Effects from Jerry Bellone, a senior in Digital Design; tutorials in Autodesk Maya provided by third-year Digital Design student Nicholas Seccondro; instruction in Autodesk Revit and Enscape VR from Interior Design students Chloe Blottman and Evi Manoussakis; vinyl cutting assistance from second-year Industrial Design student Elizabeth Spencer; and more.
Digital Humanities Showcase at NJIT The Hillier College of Architecture and Design was well represented at the Albert Dorman Honors College Colloquium, Digital Humanities Showcase, held on March 6. Director of the Littman Library Maya Gervits and Librarian Danielle Reay presented their work on the “Digital Archive of Newark Architecture.” Lecturer and Coordinator of the Digital Design program Augustus Wendell and Gervits presented “Using VR to Recreate a Lost Monument.” Architectural Librarian Leah Greis presented “Gamification in the Museum Sector: Masonic Mission!” And Coordinator of Accreditations, Digital Platforms, and Media Burçak Özlüdil Altin with Wendell presented “Temporospatial Analysis of Insane Asylums & Agent-Based Modeling in Historical Research.”
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NJIT Serves as Global Game Jam Site for 9th Consecutive Year NJIT maintained its tradition of involvement in the world-wide gaming community by serving again as a northern New Jersey site for the Global Game Jam in January. 47,000 participants made 9,000 games at 860 sites in 113 countries. There were six sites in New Jersey alone, with NJIT having the largest participation in the state as 95 jammers produced 16 games in 48 hours. For the second consecutive year, NJIT had the 6th largest site hosted by a public university in the United States. The event is a collaboration between the Information Technology and Digital Design programs at NJIT. Registrants were greeted by CoAD Dean Tony Schuman and A+D Director Glenn Goldman at the opening late Friday afternoon, January 25. Coordinator of the Digital Design program, Augustus Wendell, presented the theme “What home means to you” to the attendees. The video keynote speakers were Brie Code and Eve Thomas from Tru Luv (a Toronto-based studio focusing on interactive experiences), Limpho Moeti from Free Lives (a South African video game developer), and Rami Ismail from Vlambeer (a Dutch independent game studio). The event was coordinated by Information Technology student Satchel Quinn and Digital Design student and president of NJIT SIGGRAPH, Jerry Bellone. After introductions, participants started to brainstorm and pitch ideas over pizza. Mirroring the game creation process in industry, multi-disciplinary teams were formed on site to leverage the expertise jammers bring in environment and character design, coding, musical score and soundtrack creation, and gameplay strategies. The program concluded Sunday afternoon January 27 with a “game expo” where students and guests could try the games created during the weekend. Among the games produced were: HIWTHI: Home is Where the Heart Is, which follows a small alien parasite traveling through the host’s body and battling antibodies in search of a home – the human heart; Imagination Heights, a turn-based RPG about a group of children having an adventure in their city, altering their landscapes with their imagination that was inspired by EarthBound and Octopath Traveler; Quotidian, a visual novel emphasizing the significance of everyday decisions; and Escape the Orphanage, where orphan #0087 tries to evade the many traps in front of him in search of a loving home. In addition to NJIT, popular school sites in the United States included the Art Institute of Houston, Carnegie Mellon, Cogswell College, Georgia State, LSU, MIT, Northeastern, NYU, Savannah College of Art and Design, University of California – Santa Cruz, University of Denver, University of Missouri – St. Louis, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, and VCU. Large independent US sites included Facebook/Oculus HQ in Menlo Park, Imangi Studios in Raleigh, Pacific Science Center in Seattle, and Playcrafting + Microsoft in New York City.
Art + Design : News + Notes
School of Art + Design; Hillier College of Architecture and Design; New Jersey Institute of Technology; Newark, NJ 07102-1982
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