Platform Spring/Summer 2008 by UT School of Architecture

Platform The University of Texas at Austin â&#x20AC;˘ School of Architecture Spring/Summer 2008 Tactics for an Urbanizing Landscape

Making Territory

Tactics for an Urbanizing Landscape

by Frederick R. Steiner, Dean

by Dean J. Almy III, Director, Graduate Programs in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design

The Dutch invented the work landschap, which migrated into English as our “landscape.” In its Dutch root, landschap refers to a territory made by people. The Dutch have constructed much of their nation from low lying lands below sea level. They created busy cities and rich farmlands from lakes, marshes, and river channels as they protected large natural areas. As a result, the concept of creating land is central to the Dutch culture.

As territorial distinctions between the natural and cultural landscapes disappear, the disciplines of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design have begun to superimpose their conventionally distinct agendas in order to strategize new ways of structuring the ecologies of settlement. Urban Design, a discipline once exclusively concerned with the form and space of cities, has much to learn from this collaboration; first and foremost is that landscape is NOT open space. Landscape is dense with material, program, and content; it adjusts to the forces of change brought about by shifting populations, environmental degradation, waste, and the accumulation and protection of resources. This temporal understanding of landscape has shifted the emphasis in urban design from focusing on the city as a static artifact to one of dynamic processes and outcomes. Landscape on the other hand has begun to recover its role as the framework for urbanization, a role so eloquently established by Frederick Law Olmsted at the foundation of the discipline. Forces of globalization, the rapidly expanding urbanization in the American southwest, the evacuation of territories along the rust belt, and global climate change have demanded new tactics for strategizing the future of America’s rapidly urbanizing landscape.

As our nation, and much of the world, continues to urbanize, we face issues similar to those that have challenged citizens of The Netherlands throughout their history. How do we construct livable spaces that are more dense? How do we make places in challenging environments? How do we inhabit a warmer planet with rising coastlines? How do we maintain productive farmlands and preserve significant habitat for other species? As we address such questions, the idea of landscape will surely become more central to our culture, too. Frederick R. Steiner, Dean, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin. Photograph by Kenny Braun.

Cover image: Analytical mapping, Uvalde, Texas, drawing by Jason Sowell.

In the process, landscape architecture can lead the design and planning disciplines. This leadership is especially essential for the health and vitality of urban regions. As more of us live in cities, the quality of our built environment grows in importance. Landscape architecture in many ways occupies the ground between architecture and urban planning while overlapping with both. As a result, landscape architecture helps bridge the rule-making orientation of the planners and the formmaking emphasis of the architects. This bridge is as important for our School of Architecture as the larger world. Our Master of Landscape Architecture program is still in its infancy, having been initiated in 2002 with our first graduating class in 2006. The addition of landscape architecture to the school has been transformative. For example, the involvement of landscape architecture students has enhanced the quality of our ULI Gerald Hines Urban Design Competition teams. Our program is beginning to transform landscape architecture in Texas as well. Our graduates are much sought after by leading firms in Texas and around the nation. This past year, our MLA students competed in the Texas American Society of Landscape Architects Awards Program for the first time. They received three of the seven awards given and all of the awards for graduate students. I am excited about what landscape architecture has brought to our School of Architecture. I am equally excited about the prospects for landscape architecture to create better territories for us all to inhabit.

Although still in its infancy, the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture is already beginning to have an impact on the culture of design education here at the School of Architecture by bringing these issues to the forefront of the academic discourse. New representational techniques, methods of analytical research, and environmental awareness, combined with a re-conceptualization of the transformative roles of urban infrastructure, programmatic surfaces, and ecological performance have created a culture of invention while opening up new scenarios for our urban future. Landscape Architecture faculty are sought after by institutions around the country to serve as reviewers and critics. They have won competitions, organized conferences of international significance, and have received national recognition. Most importantly, they have created a graduate program that has set rigorous standards for the education of young professionals entering the field. Our graduates are beginning to populate the most prestigious firms in the country, a testament to the efforts the faculty have put into the teaching and mentoring of students in the program. Meanwhile, researchers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center are inventing new methods for creating sustainable ecologies, while changing the culture of landscape practice. Although only six years old, the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture has much to be proud of and a bright future to look forward to.

Opposite page: Students and faculty from the UTSOA Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture: Dean Fritz Steiner, Assistant Professor Jason Sowell, Assistant Professor Hope Hasbrouck, Associate Professor Dean Almy, Lecturer Lynn Osgood, John Hart Asher, Marvin E. Wylie, Michael Averitt, Scott E. Biehle, Cameron Campbell, Eli Pearson, Shau Y. Duan, Tiffany Price, Christine A. Trobenter, Emily Manderson, Emily Rogers, Kelly Humphry, Monica Luecking, Michael Pecen, Ashley Hagan, Angellica Willis, Iping Yang, Tobin Strickland, Jane Puthaaroon, Erin Bernstein, Caroline Castello, Sandy Veras, Lyndsey Shaffer, Alison Baker, Tom Cox, and Lanie McKinnon. Missing from the photograph are Professor Mirka Benes, Cassie Bergstrom, Genevieve A. Buentello, Gail Gladstone, Steve Shelton, Michelle Slattery, and Megan Taylor.

Pl at f orm • 2

Platform Published by the School of Architecture The University of Texas at Austin Tactics for an Urbanizing Landscape • Spring/Summer 2008 Guest Editor: Dean J. Almy III Managing Editor: Pamela Peters

Making Territory by Frederick R. Steiner

Tactics for an Urbanizing Landscape by Dean J. Almy III

The Roles of Teaching the History of Landscape Architecture: Synthetic Rehearsal and Cultural Translation by Mirka Benes

seedBANK by Hope Hasbrouck and Jason Sowell

Second Nature: Quarry Reclamation, Bridgeport, Texas by Jason Sowell

Densifying Dallas by Dean J. Almy III

Limits of Growth: Learning from the Past by Barbara Hoidn

American Society of Landscape Architects | Texas Chapter 2008 Awards

Setting Our Sights Higher and Wider by Frederick R. Steiner

Green Roof Myth-Busting by Steve Windhager, Mark Simmons, Jeannine Tinsley, and Brian Gardiner

Alumni Connection

New UTSOA Endowments

Alumni Profiles: Ilsa Frank, Jamie White, John S. Chase, and Scott Polikov

Donor Profile: John Greene Taylor

UTSOA Advisory Council: Letter from the Chairperson

Friends of Architecture

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture 1 University Station B7500 Austin, TX 78712-0222 512.471.1922 soa.utexas.edu To our readers: We welcome any ideas, questions, or comments. Feel free to share your thoughts with Editor Pamela Peters at p.peters@mail.utexas.edu. Platform • 3

THE ROLES OF TEACHING THE HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: Synthetic Rehearsal and Cultural Translation by Mirka Benes As a teacher of the history of landscape architecture in a school of architecture, I reflect often on the relationship between my scholarly research and my teaching, and on how these relate to what goes on in the pedagogy of the design studio. The pedagogical enterprise in landscape architecture interests me as an intellectual domain in itself, as does the formation of professionals, and this has led to a strong synergy between my teaching methods and those of the design studio. What, I ask, can be the role and relevance of history in a professional design school and for the profession itself? The roles of history teaching must be considered in the context of the new challenges that designers face today. Globalization, climate change, and obsolescence of infrastructure are causing huge shifts in the kinds of demand for landscape architecture. These shifts have exploded upon us during the last fifteen years and will continue to do so for a long time. Climate change will cause more dislocations at large scale, if predictions come true, for example, the flooding of vast coastal areas if sea levels rise by a few feet. The decline of much infrastructure built in the 1930s and right after World War II here and in Europe (for instance, highways and bridges) will require much work and renewal, too.

At one level, these dislocations will lead to more of the same kind of work for landscape architects, from suburban gardens for exploding middle classes to company headquarters; what happened in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan in the 1950s and 1960s is now happening in Eastern Europe, Mexico, Brazil, China, and India. But it will not all be the same kind of work. New challenges and opportunities will come from the huge speed at which all this happens now (both the construction of the new and the obsolescence of the old), which entails much larger coordination, hence a larger scale. This increase in scale is why landscape architecture has found a huge expansion lately, in the gap between planning and architecture, to conceptualize the connection between larger/regional and individual/architectural scales.

yards, or the Artery in Boston. In many cases, the settings or the commissions are often of a new kind. One cannot simply rely on established typologies, that is, an Omstedian notion of the park, when designing something for Dubai or even when designing La Villette. The study of history can teach us how new syntheses and typologies were invented. In a globalizing world, an increasingly international perspective is necessary on the part of everyone, and in particular professionals and design students. Universities need to be “international” in viewpoint and activities and so do design schools. They need to respond to global concerns, and they can do this also by connecting strongly to the international initiatives taken by the larger university. Globalization leads to migrations of peoples, typologies, and ways of life (think of MacDonald’s) and thus always involves two sides, the new and the old—giving form to the new (for example, to the new globablized facts of airports or business districts or shopping malls) and defining the relationship of the new to existing conditions and traditions, so that meaning can be conveyed—whichever way one may choose for this relationship, inflecting it to the local or overtly denying it. The ability to conceptualize cultural translation is becoming an increasingly important aspect of design, not only because many commissions may be abroad, but also because of the very nature of the commissions and their users, which will stand as embodiments of huge cultural transitions. Again, the study of history provides many models for conceptualizing such cultural translation.

At another level, besides the continuation of the traditional commissions (private gardens, parks, corporate landscapes), I see landscape architecture as facing at least three broad challenges, in which the study of history can play a major role—infrastructure, multiculturalism, and inter-disciplinarity. Commissions with these challenges require the landscape architect to reconceptualize old typologies and conceptualize new ones, whether designing new infrastructure in developing countries like China, Mexico, Brazil, and India, or converting existing infrastructure in older developed countries, e.g., La Villette Park in Paris, the industrial Ruhr district near Frankfurt, the Berlin rail

Pl at f orm • 4

At a deeper level, history can play a more structural role in the design studio, because it offers the historian—and the design student—an occasion to rehearse the act of conceptualization in examples of the past, to rehearse synthetically how meanings are created. The teaching of history plays a fundamental role in design education, because it shows—from a historical distance and with a range of perspectives and methods—just how meanings, social issues, and culture operate in the design process as a synthetic process and in the reception of designs by clients. In a world that is becoming increasingly technologically complex, history as a subject in design schools should and is likely to remain a strong field having the role of interpretation and “figuring it out.” “What does it all mean?” is a question intimately and always tied to the question “How to design?”

The new commissions are complex, involving larger teams and combining expertises. In other words, the ability to talk extra-disciplinarily and to incorporate outside disciplines in one’s conceptualization of the project, is increasingly important. These current challenges— infrastructure, multi-culturalism, and inter-disciplinarity—are already being reflected in how history is being taught. Historical studies at large (e.g., social history, which now includes the social history of technology, of science, of national infrastructure) are responding to such global concerns with inter-disciplinarity. Everywhere, there is an increasingly international outlook and an interest for non-Western history, for Asian and Islamic cultures. I myself teach with the concept of “comparative cultures” and have been carried by my research into studying the history of landscapes of the great Islamic empires, from medieval Spain to early modern Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia, which I have also begun to teach. In every way, the study of history is bcoming more inter-disciplinary than it was. For myself, my intellectual interests and expertise in my area of research, early modern Europe (1400-1800), have been wide and they continue to widen, including, for example, geography, agrarian history, cartography and mapping, history of landscape painting and representation, history of architecture and cities, history of printing, publication, and libraries, history of collecting and museology, and histoy of science.

Images 1. Interior of Persian Pavilion, Isfahan, 17th century.

Today, professional design practice and course offerings in design schools focus meaningfully on materials, structures, sciences and technologies, brownfields and soil, sites and infrastructure, as well as the formal-aesthetic, functional, and outright philosophical issues involved. These issues stem from a configuration of concerns from concrete to spiritual, the map and the matrix in which the design profession carves its territory. The question of what the configuration is and how the territory is carved is one of general interest for designers. A good way to take cognizance of its structural quality is to study through historical examples how these issues operated in a different place or time, how they came to be, involving the student in the matter of translation from one (past) situation to the other (in the present). This, in my view, is one of the key roles of history as a subject in the design curriculum.

2. Persian Pavilion, Isfahan, 17th century. 3. Map, ca. 1815, of Istanbul and Golden Horn, from I. Melling. 4. Villa d’Este, Tivoli, Italy, fountains and water. 5. Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy, Andrea Palladio. 6. Turkish kiosk, interior. 7. Fortification designs, 17th century. 8. 18th century view of Turkish women at Sweet Waters of Europe, public gardens outside of Istanbul. 9. Galileo Galilei, 1630 ca., title page.

Platform • 5

seedBANK by Hope Hasbrouck and Jason Sowell During the spring 2007 semester Professors Jason Sowell and Hope Hasbrouck spearheaded the design direction on a submission for the Cleveland Design Competition single-stage ideas competition at Irishtown Bend. The competition asked entrants to submit design proposals for the hillside flanking the Cuyahoga River’s west bank in Cleveland’s Industrial Valley. seedBANK’s design team of Sowell and Hasbrouck with Michael Averitt [MLA ‘08] and Jane Puthaaroon [MLA candidate ‘10] was awarded second place in the international competition sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, AIA Cleveland, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Forum Architects, and the Ohio Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The design team approached the solution through the articulation of the project’s form-based intent that sought to stabilize the flexible alluvial morphology of the Cuyahoga River; the development of an operational strategy for the propagation of the site and the region’s vegetal community; and the programmatic overlay of seed propagation and nursery program with the social, cultural, and historic preservation programs of the site. Acknowledging Cleveland’s industrial economy (past and present), seedBANK recalibrated the Irishtown Bend segment of the Cuyahoga River’s western edge as a working landscape, such that productive seed plots are harvested as a resource for rebuilding the Cuyahoga River’s riparian corridor and the city’s urban landscape network.

Pl at f orm • 6

Organized along a central path, the hillside is engineered as a series of sloped terraces and topographic folds that utilize retaining, gradient, dredged fill, and vegetation root systems as a means of stabilizing soils and structuring the nursery’s lattice work of interwoven fields. The folds and shifts are then seeded with the region’s predominant plant communities according to river proximity and elevation, such that the planting zones mark the geographic transition from the upper plateau to the river flats, even as the path provides a physical connection from the city to the river. Managed by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, with the aid of school groups and science classes, the landscape’s various seeds are handharvested for both storage and germination in constructed dry sheds and hydroponic facilities. Soil levels are maintained through the annual addition of dredged material and biosolids as a means of reducing the city’s landfill and dredged facility volume. Disposal fees are collected as a funding source. The produced seeds and plants are then transported to sites along the river’s riparian edges, brownfield mining reclamation sites, the city’s park system, or street planting network; seeds and seedlings are also available for individual sale. Viewed less as a park and more as a functional landscape, seedBANK replaces the city’s now defunct nursery facilities and seeks to integrate a constant productive system with transitional public open space programs and recreational threads. In this manner, games and events take place amidst worked plots and harvesting cycles, even as the site connects into the city’s open space amenities, such as the Canal Tow Path or the downtown park system. In addition, by maintaining stores of local and adapted species among the managed plant communities, the city’s seed supply retains a genetic diversity necessary for healthy vegetation propagation and implementation. Platform • 7

SECOND NATURE: Quarry Reclamation, Bridgeport, Texas by Jason Sowell

Comprehensive Landscape Studio, Spring 2007 Instructor: Jason Sowell, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Class Participants: Cassie Acuff, Michael Averitt, Alison Baker, Tom Cox, Lyndsey Shaffer, Michelle Slattery, and Sandra Veras

Dilemmas Contemporary urbanism within North America has been influenced as much by economic trends and related infrastructural networks, as by formal organizational typologies overlaid onto the landscape. Patterns of development, and the cities tied to them, reflect these dominant modes of production and distribution, such that shifts in economic trends often lead to obsolete manufacturing zones, mined sites, or abandoned communities. Pl at f orm • 8

The city of Bridgeport in Wise County, Texas, provides a useful case study for the potential impact of the above trends. Formally established in 1873, the city’s economic development has been tied to finite resource extraction industries, segueing from brick clay and coal in the late 1800s to early 1900s, to natural gas and construction aggregates from the early 1900s to present day. The seventh largest

natural gas facility in the United States is located south of the city, while four of the nation’s largest producers of construction aggregates operate over 5,000 acres of open pit mines to the west and north. With depths up to 220 feet, the mines supply 25 million tons of aggregate per year at a net worth of $100 million and remain the leading supplier of crushed stone, sand, and cement for infrastructure and building

construction projects within the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The abrasions and scars resulting from the extraction process are an inherent by-product of such growth. Ironically, as urbanization increases and quarry operations move into decline, productive landscapes and ecological systems are transformed into wasted lands.

Images 1.-3. Sandra Veras REGIONAL FRAMEWORK, Bridgeport Quarry Reclamation, plan and sections. 4. Cassie Acuff REGIONAL FRAMEWORK, Bridgeport Quarry Reclamation, biodiesel production distribution map.

Support The semester’s success was predicated on a number of individuals and organizations who generously donated time, knowledge, and funding. They include Jerome Frank, William Myers, Cody Thornton, Jerry Gregg, Ken Buffington, Bridgeport Economic Development Corporation, the City of Bridgeport, Hanson Aggregates, TXI Bridgeport Stone, JK Miller Real Estate + Development, Martin Marietta, and Lattimore Materials.

Methodologies In conjunction with the Dallas Urban Lab, and under sponsorship by Jerome Frank Investments and the Bridgeport Economic Development Corporation, the school’s spring 2007 comprehensive landscape studio examined the various quarries within the context of the region’s reliance on the mining of a finite resource and the impending development pressures that arise as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex expands. The studio’s premise positioned landscape as an effective medium for engaging blighted territories, protracted reclamation schedules, development uncertainty, competing programs, and dynamic systems and processes. Research

became the subject of design itself, such that empirical data was utilized to identify economic, ecologic, and infrastructural networks that connected industry to city, city to region, and region to territory. Within this framework, each student developed a specific scenario whereby industrial processes, waste streams, and reclamation strategies: 1. redefined the site’s productive potential with new programs or functions that, implemented over time, maintain the landscape’s viability as the aggregate source is depleted and the industries tied to its removal are relocated;

2. injected basic and non-basic sector jobs into Wise County’s economy as a means of maintaining economic stability and transforming the county’s existing economic structure; 3. positioned the quarry within a larger regional landscape network (particularly the LBJ Grasslands and Lake Bridgeport) in order to conserve land for watersheds, native habitat, and recreational open space; and 4. leveraged economic growth as a means of directing development pressure within the region.

The quarries’ reclamation grew from a range of phenomena that addressed the need to diversify the sites’ economic and ecologic health. From biodiesel to desalination, water storage to soil manufacture, large cat preserves to hunting retreats, vineyards to tire recycling, and cemeteries to landfills, the scenarios tapped into existing local industries with global potential in order to provide operations and materials capable of transforming 1,000 acre holes in the ground. As such, landscape became the lens and the means for constructing the quarries’ second nature.

Platform • 9

Densifying Dallas by Dean J. Almy III The Work of The Dallas Urban Laboratory As one of the fastest growing regional metropolises in North America, the population of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is expected to double over the next few decades. The resulting demand on resources will generate significant developmental pressure and an increased strain upon the urban and environmental infrastructure of the city and the region. In response, the City of Dallas has already undertaken a series of initiatives intended to transform Dallas into a world-class city capable of sustaining this massive change. Among these is the Forward Dallas plan, which has the Trinity River Corridor as its centerpiece. Together with the construction of three new bridges designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the re-zoning of land along both sides of the river and the re-design of the river corridor itself, Dallas is embarking on a new agenda that is moving the city toward a significant increase in density along the river and a shift in the lifestyle of its citizens.

Urban Laboratory are engaging in an enthusiastic dialog of ideas and images with the stakeholders of Dallas. Initial Tactics For The Re-Development of the Western Trinity River Corridor As part of Forward Dallas, The City of Dallasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Trinity River zoning overlay allows for significantly increased land-use density and the development of mixeduse programs to catalyze urban

life along the corridor. The potential of this newly adopted land-use plan is in its ability to catalyze economic development along the river, foreshadowing a new future, one that is capable of addressing the growing demand for an urban lifestyle. The major impediments to development along the western edge of the river have been the long-standing economic decline in the area and the perception of urban blight. All this is about to

In response, The Dallas Urban Laboratory has been established as a long-term applied research initiative of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the School of Architecture. As Dallas evolves over the next few decades, the role of the urban laboratory, through its research initiative, will be to contribute to the debate on shaping the growth and quality of life in the city. Complementing the work of local civic groups, professional design firms, and the City Planning Department, students working through the Dallas 2.

Pl at f orm â&#x20AC;˘ 1 0

change, however, as the linkages created by the new Trinity River bridges, along with the rezoning of inner urban land along the corridor, have brought the economic potential of this area into sharp focus. The students working with the Dallas Urban Laboratory have taken on the potential of this landscape in order to jump ahead of the development market while the opportunity still exists to assist in structuring positive change for the future. Reconciling the opposing forces of gentrification with the preservation of the strong cultural communities already in place, the initial structure plan developed by the Dallas Urban Laboratory attempts to transform the river’s edge into a heterogeneous mix of housing, commercial, retail, recreation, and culture. Within the area, many parcels— some of which are the brownfield remnants of the area’s industrial heritage—are too large to control development outcomes. Regenerating the area will require a comprehensive urban design approach to land development controls along with an appropriate mixture of uses, improvements in the urban infrastructure, and a system of open space to serve the needs of the community. This new density must be able to benefit everyone—developers and neighborhoods alike—in order to result in the construction of a meaningful urban environment. Capitalizing on the potential fostered by the Trinity River Corridor Project, block sizes and orientations must be developed

that can support multiple development initiatives while maintaining coherence between them. Transit systems are to be extended, linking back to the city center, with a new DART connection along the existing railway and a surface transit system linked into a series of new Transit Oriented Development (TOD) areas. Beckley Street is re-aligned in order to provide a connection between the major bridges and roads, and to facilitate links with the transit system, while pulling away from the levee edge in order to increase the potential for urbanizing the river’s edge.

Finally, a green infrastructure overlaid onto the scheme provides for the sustainability and recreational potential of the district serving the needs of the residents by increasing the number and frequency of access points to the park and acting as an ecological framework for the new development. These proposals work within the Trinity River Corridor’s allowable densities and the underlying development

intentions of the new zoning overlay, developing more specific agendas for the character of these new urban neighborhoods while addressing the problem of the rapid population growth that Dallas is expected to experience within the coming decades. The Dallas Urban Laboratory is creating a strategic plan for sustainable urban living, working, and playing, five minutes from the heart of the city. Images 1. Catalytic Landscapes: New development zones and significant Infrastructural linkages to central Dallas. 2. Structure Plan: The re-development of the western edge of the Trinity River Corridor, as jointly developed by eleven students working in the Dallas Urban Laboratory studio.

The strategies envisioned by the students in The Dallas Urban Laboratory address these issues by proposing a reconsideration of the land organization patterns in order to allow for the gradual collective development of the new urban core. A mixture of affordable family-oriented housing typologies, schools, and shops, allows for a new sense of community while increasing the residential density and available lifestyle choices. The plan supports 15,000 new households, significantly increasing residential opportunities in the inner city. New development along the river provides a mixture of uses, from entertainment to hotels and commercial space, lining the river with density and re-positioning it in its rightful place as the heart of the future city. This is accomplished by a number of development objectives, including the re-orientation of parcels to the river and locating new programs along the top of the levee.

3. Transit Oriented Development: Interchange between DART and surface rail in the new development zone, showing view corridor from the DART rail stop to the new I-30 Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava. 4. Landscape Systems Plan: A series of green fingers link future development to the Trinity River Corridor, providing ecological connectivity deep into the new housing neighborhoods. Opportunities for recreation and hydrological management are provided within the plan along with a series of green roofs occupying the view corridors back to the City of Dallas. 5. View from over the Belmont Hotel: Build-out scenario for the Western Commerce Street District and La Bajada area of the Trinity River Corridor.

Platform • 1 1

LIMITS OF GROWTH: Learning from the Past by Barbara Hoidn In the early twentieth century, the urban design debate led us to believe it’s just a matter of choice—an equivalent choice between a pastoral and secluded life in a garden city or an urbane and hedonistic life in the dense city, two contrasting models that would gradually blend into an urbane lifestyle in balance with nature.

Barbara Hoidn is a Visiting Associate Professor at Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin and a Fellow of the O’Neil Ford Chair. With Wilfried Wang, she is a founder of HOIDN WANG PARTNER, Berlin. Professor Hoidn studied architecture and city planning at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. She worked as a project architect for the Public Building Administration in Frankfurt/Main and as a project partner with the office of José Paulo dos Santos, Oporto, Portugal. In 1994, she was appointed Director of the Architecture Workshop, the strategic department of the Senate Building Director of Berlin. She was responsible for the urban design of central areas in Berlin and issues related to urban developments in Berlin after the reunification.

There is no better model than the garden city to symbolize the philosophical, social, and technological hopes of past millenia. A socially sensible society would eventually guarantee this affordable vision for most citizens. What was meant to support a better, healthier, more humane habitat for all was condemned to turn into its own caricature by the end of the century—both a Pandora’s box in terms of energy and land consumption and a treadmill of consumerism. But the recent economic crash has revealed the deception behind that popular dream of a privately owned suburban house and its destabilizing effects for a city’s economy.

Instead of viewing it as a disaster for one pitiable invidual, one could pause for a moment and draw a larger, global picture of the standard model of the western city and its future prospects for success. Between 1960 and 2008 (my life span so far), the world’s population has more than doubled— from 2.8 billion to 6.5 billion people.

Pl at f orm • 1 2

More than 50% of the world’s population lives in China, India, Europe, and the United States. Since 2006, for the first time in history, more than 50% of the people dwell in cities rather than in the countryside. Most cities in the industrialized world tend to welcome an increase in population, as long as it means more wealth, a larger tax base, and more purchasing power. Most cities in the developing countries have been overwhelmed by explosive growth, not only that initiated by wealthy international traders, but also by significant migration within the countries—moving people too poor to move elsewhere to the cities, to serve as a cheap labor force for the global market. Yet they are hardly able to participate in their local economies and are therefore excluded from communal investments in public infrastructure. Cities reflect the paradigmatic shifts of habits and ethics of humankind and are compactions of culture and economy. The world’s productivity has kept up with the growth of its population in the past 100 years, and so has the overall level of pollution and consumption. Now, the industrialized world, used to hunting for inexpensive products and an ever growing consumption level of energy, is faced with the downside of those practices—social inequalities and undersupplied areas, shortages of fossil energy, indications of climate change, and competition from developing countries with similar comsumption desires.

The neccessity for and interdependance on global productivity connects the world’s population in an unprecedented way, raising issues of solidarity and responsible actions beyond national borders. Those who insist on low inexpensive density in one area will have to compensate for overcrowded settlements without electricity elsewhere. Those who waste energy in one area will have to compensate for declining food production elsewhere. Trade-offs will have to be made if we don’t want to risk the aggressive political agitation and exploitations experienced at the beginning of the last century. Who could deny that human conditions and interrelationships have profoundly and irreversibly changed on a global level? Yet, our actions do not yet match our insights. Our actions are growing at a much slower rate than the accelerated transformation of cities into megacities in Asia, Africa, and South America might indicate. And, the subject’s point of view is largely determined by geographical location.

Images 4.

convenience of consumption. The choice for a life in a garden city is still an option, but there will be a price tag on it. The insight for the neccessity of adaptive transformation will be addressed mainly in Western industrialized cities that are asked to reduce their resource consumption and waste while improving the livability for their growing populations. New developments will need to address issues of consumption on all levels. New prototypes already seek autonomy from global energy markets and pollution measures.

1. Ahmedabad, India, renaturalization of the river, a 79% publicly financed project to control the standards of the project, remaining 21% negotiated with private investors.

What, at first, might seem absurd on a local level will make sense when measured globally. This new “global” attitude in urban design schemes requires new technologies and management systems. New energy standards and consumption caps will be applied at the urban design scale. We can use our sophisticated technologies to drive these processes or work against them.

2. Bejing, China, Courtyard Clusters Project, 2001, densification of traditional Chinese courtyard structures by Yun Ho Chang, Atelier FCJZ. 3. Development, Mumbai, India. 4. and 5. Abu Dhabi, Arab Emirates, Masdar development, 2007, masterplan for a CO2 and car-free city by Foster + Partners.

To begin developing without acknowledging and addressing the profoundly different global ecological, economic, and social conditions would be negligent.

Since it is unlikely that mankind will universally accept limitations on growth or limitations on individual mobility as a condition for global networking, we will continue with contrasting arguments about the appropriate future “universal” models of inhabiting this planet, just as in previous centuries. This therapeutic debate will oscillate between philosophical, defensive, and proactive models for voluntary and unavoidable limits/patterns of growth, all sacrificing the current 5.

Platform • 1 3

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS | TEXAS CHAPTER: 2008 Awards Three teams from the Landscape Architecture Program received 2008 Texas American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Student Design Competition awards. Michael Averitt won two awards—an Honor Award for Design and an Honor Award for Analysis and Planning. The team of Cameron Campbell, Eli Pearson, and Erin Tyson won an Honor Award for Analysis and Planning.

2H20: Bridgeport Quarries Reclamation Bridgeport, Texas (Fig. 1a.–1c.) Michael Averitt Honor Award, Analysis and Planning

This project addresses problems developing from and for major industries in Wise County by developing new water-based industries on the approximately 5,000 acres of quarry site. The nested sustainable industries proposed generate materials as well as revenue for large-scale reclamation, protect groundwater resources and rural industry, and also develop the land for commercial and recreational use by expressing the legacy of land use of the site.

Reimers Ranch Orchard Cemetery Austin, Texas (Fig. 2a.–2c.)

2a.

Michael Averitt Honor Award, General Design

This design investigates the idea of sustainability in relation to a rural cemetery by integrating processes and systems that not only provide maintenance and revenue generation, but also define the aesthetic of the project. Reimers Ranch has been operated privately as a park facility open to the public for activites such as rock climbing, mountain biking, and hiking. Recently, Travis County purchased the property and now operates and maintains the land as a park and nature preserve. In an effort to preserve the land from development in perpetuity, Travis County has been considering a plan for developing a relatively small portion of the property as a cemetery to achieve cemetery classification for the entire land parcel and protect it from development.

Pl at f orm • 1 4

1a.

2b.

1b.

1c.

2c.

Beyond the Walls: Crimea, Ukraine Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukraine (Fig. 3a.â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3e.) Cameron Campbell, Eli Pearson, and Erin Tyson Honor Award, Analysis and Planning

Beyond the Walls, a proposal for the establishment of an archeological park outside Sevastopol, seeks to recreate the spatial experiences of a cultural landscape that has been contested and occupied for thousands of years. The park was the site of ancient Greek agricultural plots, farmhouses, and systematic division walls. Beyond the Walls proposes interventions to address stakeholder concerns, to establish a regional precedent for an archaeological park, and to combine management and display of cultural and natural resources. 3a.

The studio in Ukraine was sponsored by the Institute of Classical Archeology, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Packard Humanities Institute.

3b.

3c.

3d.

3e.

Platform â&#x20AC;˘ 1 5

Setting Our Sights Higher and Wider by Frederick R. Steiner Organizers of a new initiative are working to extend green standards beyond buildings in order to encourage landscape architects, civil engineers, planners, and land managers to implement environmentally sound practices across entire sites.

Images 1., 2., and 4. Residential Learning Center, University of Vermont, Andropogon Associates Ltd., in collaboration with Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company. The project includes a central water feature—a biofiltration swale that collects stormwater from the buildings and adjacent site. The swale flows down through the central portion of the site and connects to the amphitheater and wetland gardens. 3. Native plant backyard garden. Photo courtesy of Andy and Sally Wasnowski. 5. Roof garden at the American Society of Landscape Architects headquarters in Washington, D.C. 6. The Mount Tabor Middle School Rain Garden “in action” during an intense downpour. The garden is regarded as one of Portland, Oregon’s most successful examples of sustainable stormwater management. Photo by Kevin Robert Perry.

In September 2005, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas, hosted the first Site Sustainability Summit. Forty-five participants—including landscape architects, architects, planners, ecologists, hydrologists, experts in sustainable materials, and park professionals—attended the two-day event, which was planned by the Wildflower Center and the Washington, D.C.-based American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The goal of the two organizations was to set in motion the development of an evaluation tool that could measure the sustainable attributes of a site beyond what is currently measured within the certification process for the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Although LEED has significantly advanced green building—and gives credit for some site-related strategies, such as planting native species and conserving water—the summit’s organizers believed more could be accomplished in regard to the land itself. The participants at the summit reached the same conclusion and advocated the development of a national sustainability metric for landscapes. This metric would be designed as a stand-alone tool, as well as one that could subsequently be incorporated into the LEED certification process pending approval by USGBC. Getting Started LEED was first released in 2000 as a standard for new building construction. It offers four levels of certification—certified, silver, gold, and platinum—depending on how many credits a project accrues from within six categories—sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor air quality, and innovation and the design process. From its early focus on new building construction, LEED has expanded to address major renovation projects, the operations and maintenance programs of existing buildings, commercial interiors, homes, neighborhoods, campuses, schools, and retail. One rating system in particular, LEED for Neighborhood Development (ND), developed from a collaboration among USGBC, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Congress for the New Urbanism. These three distinct organizations came together to integrate the principles of smart growth, urbanism, and green building at this broad scale of planning and design. Like neighborhood development, site design requires participation from a variety of diverse disciplines. As a result of the 2005 meeting, and with LEED-ND as a working model, a partnership was formed among ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden to launch the Sustainable Sites Initiative in September 2006. In addition to these leading partners, the Initiative includes USGBC, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency, the National Recreation and Parks Association, the Nature Conservancy, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Environment and Water Resources Institute, and the Center for Sustainable Development at The University of Texas at Austin. From these and other organizations, the initiative has assembled a working group of more than 30 subject matter experts who have been on the front lines around the country trying to improve the sustainability of sites nationwide. This dynamic group of governmental officials, academics, and practitioners represent disciplines such as landscape architecture, urban planning, botany, ecology, engineering, horticulture, soil science, and forestry. The experts offer in-depth knowledge of soils, vegetation, hydrology, materials, and human health and well-being. The organizers believe that only by opening channels of dialogue among these varied sectors and disciplines can this effort be successful. The Scope of the Task The Sustainable Sites Initiative uses the term “site” very broadly. It defines “site” as an entire project area that is being protected, developed, or redeveloped for public or private purposes. Any project area can be considered, regardless of its location, typology, ownership, or the number of buildings, if any, it supports. The initiative considers the landscape attributes of the site itself and the integration of the buildings within that site. For example, the roof of a residential complex or office building could be considered, as well as the yard and the parking lot. The initiative would also apply to integrated building-landscape projects, such as college campuses, urban plazas, and business parks. It would also address parks, cemeteries, and botanic gardens without significant buildings—entities that currently are not covered by the existing LEED standards. The Sustainable Sites Initiative has multiple, overlapping goals. First and foremost, it aims to develop a national standard that outlines the overarching characteristics of a sustainable site. The standard will specify sustainable site-related planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance practices; it will offer measurement tools to quantify the effect of a site on ecological conditions, including air and water quality, biodiversity, and global warming; and it will provide performance targets for future projects. The organizers believe that by providing these site-related definitions, practices, measuring tools, and targets, the initiative will extend green standards beyond buildings and encourage landscape architects, civil engineers, and land managers to implement sustainable practices for larger project portfolios they work with. The effort’s ultimate goal is to increase recognition and incentives for sustainable site practices within these broader markets.

Frederick R. Steiner is part of the team designing the Sustainable Sites Initiative. This article was modified from a previous version that appeared in Urban Land Green (Spring 2008), a magazine of The Urban Land Institute.

Pl at f orm • 1 6

Drawing on this rich history, the initiative is using the following principles to guide decisions that involve areas of uncertainty in a way that is scientifically and philosophically responsible and consistent: • Do no harm. Do not degrade or deteriorate the site or the surrounding environment. Where there has been previous disturbance or development, promote projects to regenerate ecosystem services through sustainable design. • Follow a precautionary principle. Avoid making decisions in light of uncertainties that may involve serious environmental and human health risks, especially where those actions could pose a threat of serious harm or irreversible damage. Conduct an examination of the full range of alternatives—including no action—by being open, informed, and democratic with all potentially affected parties. • Design to include nature and culture. Create and implement designs that are responsive to economic, environmental, and cultural conditions with respect to the local, regional, and global context. • Use a decision-making hierarchy of preservation, conservation, and regeneration. Maximize and mimic the benefits derived from ecosystem services by applying preservation, conservation, and restoration practices: (1) preserve existing environmental features, (2) conserve resources and landscapes in a sustainable manner, and (3) regenerate lost or damaged ecosystem services. • Provide regenerative systems as intergenerational equity. Provide future generations with a sustainable environment supported by regenerative systems and endowed with regenerative resources.

The Principles Just as LEED built on knowledge about building efficiency that had evolved since the 1970s, the Sustainable Sites Initiative grew from the theory that landscapes could be designed by using nature as a guide (a theory originally espoused by the late Ian McHarg, founder of and professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, in his 1969 book, Design with Nature). It also grew from the regenerative design ideas that were pioneered in the 1970s and 1980s by the late John Lyle, professor of landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, and summarized in his 1994 book, Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. Both McHarg and Lyle advocated that designed systems should replicate the ecological performance of natural systems. A good example of this would be bioswales constructed like natural wetlands in order to detain, cleanse, and infiltrate runoff—mimicking the performance of natural wetlands.

• Support a living process. Implement a process that is open to continuous reevaluation of assumptions and values and is adaptive to demographic and environmental change over time. • Use a systems thinking approach. Understand and value the relationships in an ecosystem and use an approach that reflects and sustains the contributions of ecosystem services; reestablish the integral and essential relationship between natural processes and human activity. • Use a collaborative and ethical approach. Encourage direct and open communication among colleagues, clients, manufacturers, and users to link long-term sustainability with ethical responsibility. • Maintain integrity in leadership and research. Promote the evaluation and sharing of knowledge by implementing transparent and participatory leadership, developing research with technical rigor and communicating new findings in a clear, consistent, and timely manner.

The Status The Standards and Guidelines: Preliminary Report for Sustainable Sites, which was released for public comment by the Sustainable Sites Initiative three lead partners—the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the U.S. Botanic Garden—in November 2007, featured more than 200 recommendations for the design and construction of sustainable sites. The report has been greeted with significant support as well as constructive criticism. It was downloaded from the web (www.sustainablesites.org) some 15,000 times between November and January 2007, and 450 substantive comments were received by the Initiative staff. The feedback from the public comment period, as well as additional research into the metrics of success, is currently being incorporated into the Standards and Guidelines. In addition, case studies that demonstrate and document specific sustainable landscape techniques are being assembled. A revised draft will be published at the end of this year, at which point it will be available for another public comment period. A report on the final standards and guidelines will be published in late spring 2009. A rating system, which will provide weighted credits in order to allow for project evaluation, comparison, and recognition, is expected to be ready in the spring 2011. At that point, the USGBC anticipates that it will incorporate the Standards and Guidelines for the Sustainable Sites Initiative into future versions of the LEED rating system.

Platform • 1 7

Green Roof Myth-Busting By Steve Windhager, Mark Simmons, Jeannine Tinsley, and Brian Gardiner In some circles, vegetated or “green” roofs are being touted as having almost mystical properties—of providing increased thermal efficiency and stormwater detention, reducing the urban heat island effect, and even serving in as a wildlife habitat in highly urban environments. Green roofs seemed too good to be true, and so the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and Austech Roof Consultants set out to test the accuracy of all the claims and see if green roofs in Central Texas could live up to the mythology that had built up concerning them. Of particular relevance to this study is the fact that Austin’s climate is significantly drier, hotter, and more prone to flash flooding than those areas where green roofs have been studied and installed to date. 1.

Pl at f orm • 1 8

The research at the Center compares water use, water retention, water quality, plant success, and thermal gradients on six different extensive green roof products to a “cool” roof and a traditional

blacktop roof (each roof type has 3 replicates). The study takes place on hot tub-sized mini roofs (each 30 square feet) at a publicly accessible research site at the Wildflower Center. Each test rooftop is planted with the same 18 native plants and provided the same volume of water for irrigation. The study involves six different manufacturers in order to determine whether all green roofs are created equal or if some might be better at achieving the multiple benefits ascribed to green roofs. As indicated in the graphs, there is wide variation in performance between roofs made by different manufacturers on everything but thermal loading. Some roofs have nearly no adverse effect on water quality, while others are worse than the typical suburban lawn (which itself is much worse than a golf course). As you might guess, plant performance, in general, was inversely related to initial water quality. The more fertilizer that is in the planting

media, the faster the plants will grow, but the more fertilizer will also run off with the water leaving the roof. After the first growing season, water quality dramatically improves and begins to show lower levels of some pollutants—for example, nitrates— than that draining from conventional roofs. Some roofs were indeed capturing a significant amount of water (80 percent of a 0.5-inch rain event; 40 percent of 1-inch and 2-inch rain events), while others were not significantly different from the cool or blacktop roofs. No one manufacturer excelled at all the features that green roofs are promoted as providing, and this has clear implications for design. This is not surprising as many of the values tested, such as plant success and water quality, are inversely related. Critically important when considering whether to incorporate a green roof into the design is to first determine WHY a green roof is desired. Talk your client through the potential benefits

that a green roof might provide and prioritize those desires. Work directly with a manufacturer and a roof consultant who has experience with green roofs to ensure that the green roof you are designing will achieve these goals. Most manufacturers will be able to modify their green roof media to provide the attributes that your client is most interested in, so long as they know what the target is. Also, be sure to ask manufacturers for potential trade-offs in achieving these goals—the more water that the roof holds back, the heavier the roof; the better the plant growth, the worse the water quality. Take this information back to the client and ensure that their expectations are realistic and achievable, and your roof design is likely to be a success.

Images 1. View from inside Starbuck's looking onto the Escarpment Village green roof designed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Photo by David Hopman. 2. Water quality measurements immediately after installation and one year later. 3. Blackfoot daisy and four-nerve daisy bloom on Wildflower Center test roofs. Photo by Brian Gardiner. 4. The percentage increase in above ground plant growth on six different manufacturers’ green roof media by various types of plants.

For additional information about the green roof research at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, see www.wildflower.org/ greenroof/.

5. The Escarpment Village green roof designed by the Wildflower Center was the first extensive green roof in Austin. 6. Individual green roof test plot at the Wildflower Center. Photo by Mark Simmons. 5.

7. Green roof research array at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 8. Precipitation (black bars at the bottom) and runoff from test roofs during a single storm event.

Platform • 1 9

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS As alumni of the School of Architecture, you serve as diplomats and advocates in the communities where you live and work. Your support— through volunteerism, participation, and financial contributions— helps maintain a sense of unity among alumni, students, faculty, and friends.

The UTSOA Career Services Center hosted a “Meet & Greet” on April 1, 2008, at the historic Bohn House in Austin (at right) in support of the Historic Preservation Program’s student networking opportunities. Skip Bohn regaled the crowd of over 50 people who attended the event with stories of growing up in the house. Wayne Bell, FAIA, and Dr. Michael Holleran used the Bohn House as a site in their fall 2007 Preservation Studio.

Upcoming Alumni Events • 50-Year Alumni Reunion in Austin, April 30 – May 2, 2008 • AIA Alumni Reception in Boston at Exchange Conference Center – Thursday, May 15, 2008 • Houston Alumni Reception at The Grove Restaurant – Thursday, October 9, 2008 • TSA Alumni Reception in Fort Worth – Thursday, October 23, 2008 Check out our alumni page on the UTSOA web site for event and reception details: soa.utexas.edu/alumni/intro. We also invite you to join our lectures, exhibits, and continuing education opportunities. Visit our calendar page on the School of Architecture’s web site for the latest schedule, descriptions, and more information. Career Services The Career Services Center actively supports our alumni’s recruiting efforts of current students and recent graduates. Recruiting events are scheduled throughout the academic year, including the Career EXPO, AIAS Mentor Events, and Networking Receptions. An online job posting system is also available, where employers may conduct résumé searches and post opportunities. In addition, the Career Center welcomes the opportunity to support the career development of alumni. To get started, visit soa.utexas.edu/careerservices or contact Career Services Director Carrie O’Malley at carrie.omalley@austin.utexas.edu or 512.471.1333.

New UTSOA Endowments The School of Architecture is pleased to announce the following endowments created between September 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008. Endowment Architexas Endowed Scholarship

Amy Dryden Endowed Scholarship We Want to Hear from You! The School of Architecture is continuing its effort to find and maintain the most accurate contact information for all of our alumni. From young alumni receptions to 50-year reunions, and everything in between, we hope you will stay in touch. Would you like to mentor a student? Do you need to hire a fellow Longhorn? Looking for networking or continuing education opportunities? We can help, but we need to know how to reach you! We know you are doing great things, and we rely on you to not only share your stories, but to also keep us up-to-date on your contact information so that we can share our stories with you. Send your news and contact updates to our new Associate Director of Constituent and Alumni Relations Stacy Manning at smanning@austin.utexas.edu.

2007-2008 Bartlett Cocke Scholarship recipient Meghan Kleon with Bartlett Cocke, Jr. [BBA ‘53]. Since 1990, the Bartlett Cocke Scholarship has provided financial support to graduate students for the advanced study of architecture.

Pl at f orm • 2 0

Roger Fullington Fellowship in Architecture * Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Interior Design ** Barbara and Donald Pender Endowed Scholarship

Designation Undergraduate students with an interest in historic preservation or urban design Undergraduate students in architecture M.Arch., 1st Professional Degree Interior Design Undergraduate students

* To be funded through a bequest. ** Gift upgraded Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Professorship for Interior Design into an endowed chair. You can learn more about establishing endowments in the School of Architecture by contacting Julie M. Hooper, CFRE, Assistant Dean for Development, at 512.471.6114 or jhooper@austin.utexas.edu.

Kendra Horn and Kayla Lyssy, recipients of the first Clarke Endowed Presidential Scholarships, flank plaques acknowledging the Fred W. Clarke Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Architecture honoring Alan Y. Taniguchi and the Fred W. and Laura Weir Clarke Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Architecture honoring Carl Bergquist.

ALUMNA PROFILE: Ilse Frank [B.Arch. ‘02] After receiving a bachelor of architecture degree from The University of Texas at Austin and masters’ degrees in landscape architecture and city planning from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Frank recognizes that life doesn’t always move in big leaps, but in smaller, incremental steps.

“The first day of class he kept jumping from his chair as he tracked the movement of a shadow on Goldsmith Hall, which was across from our classroom in Sutton Hall, on the window pane with pieces of tape,” said Frank. “This man, my professor, was telling us to watch a shadow. Something so simple became so interesting when observed–it moved, it changed in it’s hue and intensity.”

“If I was where I imagined I’d be at the time of graduating from UT, I think I would have designed a few buildings, traveled extensively, and lived someplace that radiates energy, like New York City,” said Frank. “The New York part came true. But instead of being an architect designing my buildings, I’ve spent my time working to understand how it is that I want to be an urban designer through education and practice. And in the path that emerged, I became a landscape architect.” Working in New York, Frank often finds herself explaining what a landscape architect or landscape designer does in a dense, urban environment. “Perhaps the title of landscape urbanist is most appropriate and indicative of where my interests lie and how I view my work.” said Frank. “Whatever title you put to it, it is an occupation that is at the cusp of many disciplines, which I find very rewarding.”

“What he was getting at—that architecture is made of changing moments, is what I embrace and love most about landscape architecture. A landscape is constantly changing—who uses it, how they use it, what is growing, what is blooming, what is dying, the colors, the scales, the vistas and perspectives—I can never grow bored with such a varied palette of things to consider and learn about.”

“Many of my mentors are professional women 40+ years old, balancing their families with their professional dedication,” said Frank. “They taught me to be an innovative designer and to be committed to the environment, while maintaining a balance with family and personal life.”

Frank’s interest in urban design and landscape came at an early age—her father was a structural engineer and her mother nurtured Ilse’s interest in travel with family vacations to foreign cities, encouraging a lifetime interest in travel and living abroad. It was during these trips that Frank was exposed to historic and contemporary architecture. When she came to UT, her interest was peaked by the rather unorthodox, yet inspiring, antics of lecturer John Blood, in her first studio.

Frank lives in Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, walking distance from butchers, boutiques, and an industrial canal known as Gowanus. Experiencing the city by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, strolling in Prospect Park, and soaking up the creative energy and richness of the city are part of day to day life. Frank returned to UT this semester to teach a second-year landscape studio. She is excited about the landscape architecture program itself, since it did not exist when she attended UT.

Ilse Frank

Left: Conceptual diagram and 3D rendering of the Grand Plaza in the Zona Rental of Caracas, Venezuela. Ms. Frank, along with three other classmates from Penn, won an international competition for the plaza in 2004. The physical attributes of the surrounding areas formed the design basis. By pulling key elements from the disparate surrounding areas, sets of dynamic relationships establish a vibrant plaza that reconnects this space to its environs.

—Amy Maverick Crossette

The major thrust of the proposal was of connectivity. Spanning the Guaire River, a bridge connects the Ciudad Universitaria to Los Caobos Park to the city and augments the existing dynamic situation created by the convergence of three metro lines and the busy open-air markets. The symphony of envisioned infrastructure orchestrates movement to and through the plaza, enabling the Plaza Zona Rental to re-anchor the city and give it an iconic presence.

Platform • 2 1

ALUMNUS PROFILE: Jamie White [M.L.A. ‘06] I received a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from UT Austin. Initially inspired by sustainable development policy in Southeast Asia, I pursued the study of law, receiving a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law and then an LL.M. from the University of Hong Kong in international investment and development. After around six years of practice in the United States and Japan, I found that the practice of landscape architecture played a critical advocacy role in the vision, design, and stewardship of both the developed and undeveloped landscape, “natural” and urban, and that my training as an advocate could play an important role in realizing that.

Jamie White

Upon graduation from UTSOA, I moved to San Francisco to work with Marta Fry Landscape Associates (MFLA ). San Francisco was a logical choice to begin a career in landscape architecture—not only did I serve an internship with Peter Walker and Partners in Berkeley, but it was here that the practice had some of its greatest proponents from within the United States. My interests in landscape architecture were closely tied to the broad portfolio of MFLA’s work, which challenges and pushes the edges of what the practice is. MFLA is a landscape architecture studio whose practice encompasses the larger physical scales of urban design and master planning, to commercial, hospitality, park, and residential design to temporal urban, retail rebranding, and product design.

My interest in sustainable development policy, while initially rooted in the developing world, remains strong, although I find that its application in urban environments in the United States is equally critical to issues facing the increasingly urban character of the country and the crisis of identity that plagues many communities. The challenges are similar.

So many people at UTSOA had influences on how I approach my work now. Undoubtedly, Simon Atkinson instilled, if not reinforced a boldness in our approach not only to scope but also to the imperative visionary roles landscape architecture does and must play in our culture and society. Hope Hasbrouck ensured that we ask the right questions and that we ask and answer them well. This was a critical point of connection for me in my advocacy training as

an attorney, and translating that to the language of design and its choice making continues to be invaluable. Fritz Steiner imbued me with the understanding of our profession as a true threaded community. I see that each of us plays the role of mentor to others and that our decisions have cascading effects—they impact the course of events and potentially valuable legacies in society and culture.

2. Pl at f orm • 2 2

area, while making the streets more inviting for walking and biking. To accomplish this, we aimed to develop the most advanced streetscape concepts that melded sophisticated design with sustainable strategies. Ultimately, the intent was to create a unique identity for the Transbay neighborhood visible in the design of its public sidewalks, parks, and alleyways.

Differing in scale, projects I have been a part of have presented different kinds of challenges. Our work in crafting the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area Streetscape and Open Space Concept Plan in collaboration with the San Francisco Redevelopement Agency and Planning Department is a good example. The collapse of much of the raised freeway network in downtown San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 provided the city with an

unprecedented opportunity to redevelop approximately 40 acres south of Market Street. The goal of the Concept Plan was to guide critical public realm improvements to what is to be the city’s densest emerging urban neighborhood. Once realized, the streetscape and open space improvements will fulfill a critical function of knitting together a mix of architectural project types and dominant transportation infrastructure elements that occurs across the twenty block

Another interesting project is the redevelopment of the decommissioned military post at Fort Baker, which sits at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. In collaboration with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, we are participating in restoring this urban national park, specifically its beachhead, surrounding habitat, and recreational facilities. This project will serve to complement the new Lodge and Institute at the Golden Gate, whose mission will be to advance the health, sustainability, and protection of the environment. Our intent in this project is to marry habitat restoration with the cultural legacy of Fort Baker as a military outpost and the need to serve an active Coast Guard presence on-site. Of particular interest to me has been the role of the landscape architect in the incremental funding process that these redevelopment initiatives are dependent on. We play an important role in crafting strategy and vision in garnering both public and private support for these long term endeavors. At a very different scale, our partnership with Old Navy in its rebranding effort has been exciting. Collaborating with HMKM, an architectural practice based in London, we were asked to craft a

strategy to introduce an interior “garden” into the new concept for Old Navy stores. Our approach was to develop synergistic scenarios where the garden took on different forms depending on qualities of light, exposure to exterior climate, and spatial variation, while retaining a coherent set of attributes that would reinforce brand identity. Working toward a national rollout of these concepts on over 1,400 locations has required innovative solutions, and the design process has morphed back and forth multiple times and continues to change as the concepts are tested in prototype locations across the country. Interestingly, I am often asked what retail rebranding has to do with the practice of landscape architecture. I explain that all sites possess a layered narrative that forms the basis of identity, whether or not it is manifested in legible forms, processes, or phenomena. Rebranding is a recharacterization, reorientation, or rereading of this narrative that speaks to its social and temporal context.

Images 1. Atherton Residence Project, Atherton, California; Marta Fry Landscape Associates. 2. Transbay Redevelopment Project; San Francisco, California, Marta Fry Landscape Associates. 3. Mission Creek Park Project, San Francisco, California; Marta Fry Landscape Associates. 4. Detail, Montalvo Memorial Meadow Project, Saratoga, California; Marta Fry Landscape Associates.

The biggest challenge for landscape architecture today is the same as it was 100 years ago— resource management. Today’s challenge, designing within the context of scarce oil and water resources, is more acute than it was in the past, however, and requires more than coping strategies or “green” design where development is inappropriate. Today we must all be advocates for crafting intelligent policy and development principles. ASLA has made great strides through its Advocacy Network. Support of that and similar initiatives is essential if we are to create a viable map for the future.

Platform • 2 3

ALUMNUS PROFILE: John S. Chase [M.Arch. ‘52] On June 7, 1950, John Saunders Chase made history when he enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin. Just two days prior, the United States Supreme Court had voted in favor of desegregation of graduate and professional schools and The University of Texas at Austin became the first major public university in the South to open its doors to African Americans. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, Chase received a bachelor of science degree in architecture from Hampton University in 1948.

Right: Two days after the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of desegregation of graduate and professional schools, John Saunders Chase enrolls at The University of Texas at Austin to pursue a master’s degree in architecture. Photo taken June 7, 1950. Photo: Center for American History, UT Austin. Source: UT Texas Student Publications, Inc. Photographs.

In 1980, an appointment by President Jimmy Carter made Chase the first African American to serve on the United States Commission of Fine Arts.

“After graduating from Hampton I took a job in Philadelphia as a drafter,” said Chase. “It was at that time that I began to realize just how few black architects there were. Almost all of them were either in New York City or California.

In 1992, Chase was honored as the first African American to receive a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the university’s Ex-Students’ Association (now referred to as the Texas Exes). Just six years later, and almost a half-century after his historical acceptance into the university, Chase made history yet again by becoming the first African American to serve as president of the association.

“When I was offered a job in Austin at the Lott Lumber Company, which was owned by an African American family, I jumped at the opportunity,” said Chase.

In 1994, his lasting presence became immortalized in concrete at the ribbon cutting of the $7.4 million, 750-car garage he designed and built on the university campus, at 25th and San Antonio streets.

Realizing his only hope to become an architect lay in earning a graduate degree, Chase enrolled at the university and two years later became the first African American to graduate from the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin.

Over the years, Chase has earned numerous awards and honors, including Fellow of AIA (1990), the AIA Whitney M. Young Citation for Significant Contributions to Social Responsibility (1982), the Distinguished Black Alumnus Award from the UT Black Alumni Task Force (1989), and the NOMA Design Excellence Awards four years in a row (1984-1987).

Upon receiving his master’s degree in architecture, Chase was offered a position as an assistant professor at Texas Southern University (TSU) in Houston. He and his wife, Drucie, moved to Houston with great expectations of seeing his career as an architect blossom into a reality. John Saunders Chase, in front of the San Antonio Garage at 25th and San Antonio streets during the dedication of the $7.4 million structure designed by Chase. Photo: Office of Public Affairs.

In 1971, after the national convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Chase and twelve other African American architects founded the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), which has chapters in 18 states.

However, in interview after interview at architectural firms, Chase was denied employment. When he showed up, résumé in hand, to apply for a job, he was told there were no available openings. So he started his own business. “I passed the state examination and in 1952 founded my own architectural firm. I didn’t know anything about bookkeeping or tax laws or how to coordinate designers, draftsmen, and engineers. Basically, I didn’t know a darn thing about running a business.” However, in just a matter of years, Chase achieved a number of impressive “firsts.” Chase became the first African American to practice architecture in Texas. He became the first African American to be accepted into the Texas Society of Architects. And he became the first African American to be accepted into the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In the 1960s, Chase helped lead efforts to expand TSU. He designed several buildings on the TSU campus, including the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, the Education Building, several dormitories, the Martin Luther King School of Communications, and the student center.

Left: Wiley College Chapel, Marshall, Texas, designed by John Chase. The subject of Chase’s master’s thesis was progressive architecture for churches. “Churches were also still segregated,” he said. “I realized that, if I wanted business, I needed to approach the African American community. And the best way to do that was to attend church.” Within months, after dozens of visits to local churches, Chase had more business than he could handle. Determined to open the door for other African Americans, he began to hire additional engineers, architects, and draftsmen. Right: Model of U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia; designed by John Chase Architectural firm, 1992. Pl at f orm • 2 4

—Amy Maverick Crossette

ALUMNUS PROFILE: Scott Polikov [M.S.C.R.P. ‘02] The “Texas Triangle” megaregion (Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin) is expected to grow by 10 million people over the next 40+ years. That’s a lot of people. How will issues such as urban design and planning, transportation, and sustainability be addressed? Ask Scott Polikov. He knows the answers. Polikov is a town planner and transportation consultant with Gateway Planning Group in Fort Worth. His firm works in downtown redevelopment plans, formbased codes, plans for urban villages and transit-oriented development, and advising transit systems on leveraging urban village opportunities. They also create context-sensitive design for streets and toll roads in urban projects and advise fast-growing communities on how to expand judiciously. “After getting my Masters of Community and Regional Planning from UT, I was based out of Austin,” said Polikov. “However, I was spending several nights a week in Fort Worth serving as the Outside Deputy Project Manager for the City of Fort Worth to implement the Southwest Parkway Tollroad with the city’s partners, TxDOT and the North Texas Tollway Authority. I eventually moved to the Metroplex in 2005.”

Polikov believes the key to harnessing sustainable growth is integrating urban design back into master plans, local land development codes, and restrictive covenants. He also promotes linking land use with a systematic regional mix of roads and rail transit. “One of our projects is serving as town planner for Verano, a 2,000-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) in San Antonio,” said Polikov. “It will be a university community (based on a new four-year Texas A&M campus), with four surrounding neighborhoods, a town center, a commuter rail station linked to the AustinSan Antonio commuter rail line, a healthcare complex, and a technology research center.”

Polikov’s two biggest role models are Andres Duany and Neal Peirce. According to Polikov, Duany almost single-handedly put New Urbanism on the map of popular culture, and Peirce did the same for regionalism. As for his aspirations following graduation, Polikov said that he wanted to create neighborhoods that would exist 100 years from now. He said that he pinches himself everyday knowing that he is doing exactly that.

Polikov is working on a number of projects across Texas and in the Austin area, including drafting a downtown redevelopment plan and rail transit station for McKinney and Duncanville in North Texas, designing a 100acre urban master plan for the new Texas State University campus in Round Rock, and leading the planning and implementation of a transit-oriented development (TOD) in Leander, Texas.

“I think the biggest challenges we face are also are biggest opportunities,” said Polikov. “We have the opportunity to convince community leaders, developers, and politicians that creating great urban spaces—both downtown and in the suburbs—provides not only wonderful places to live, but also more profit and tax base, depending on your private or public sector perspective.” —Amy Maverick Crossette

Scott Polikov

“We utilized a calibrated SmartCode for the TOD, the first use of the SmartCode in Texas,” said Polikov. “It also won the inaugural Driehaus FormBased Code Award for best in the country, awarded by the Form-Based Code Institute.”

Left: Verano Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Project, San Antonio. Above: Verano conceptual master plan, draft.

Platform • 2 5

DONOR PROFILE: John Greene Taylor Although John Greene Taylor lives in Cowboy territory, he’s a diehard Longhorn fan.

His work was recognized in an exhibition at the Architecture and Planning Library in 2005.

Taylor, born in Dallas 82 years ago, lives there still. However, he visits Austin every chance he can get and supports his burnt orange with pride.

“I have always been very proud of my grandfather’s accomplishments,” said Taylor. “As a child, I enjoyed drawing houses and designing things and I suppose I could have been a contractor. Instead I ended up following my father’s path and entered the insurance field.”

Taylor received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree from the university in 1948. Other than the years he devoted to his degree and a three-year term spent in the navy, he’s lived his entire life in the Big D.

University of Texas Libraries ViceProvost Dr. Fred Heath and Dean Fritz Steiner presenting Mr. John Greene Taylor (at right) with a framed invitation to the exhibit reception in recognition of the establishment of the John Greene Taylor Endowment for Collections Enhancement. Photograph by Charlotte Pickett. The exhibit, "The Architectural Legacy of Herbert Miller Greene," was a collaborative effort by the Alexander Architectural Archive, the Architecture and Planning Library, and the School of Architecture's Visual Resources Collection. It focused on Herbert M. Greene's Dallas architecture, his Masonic commissions, and the University of Texas buildings he designed.

“I’ve always lived in Dallas and my lovely wife spent the majority of her life in Dallas after being born in New York City,” said Taylor. “We spent 20 years together raising her daughter and three female grandchildren before her passing in August of 2005.” While Taylor was working on his business degree at UT, he accrued many hours in engineering courses, following his lifetime interest in building and construction. But his true interest was—and still is— architecture.

In memory of his grandfather, Taylor established the Herbert M. Greene Centennial Lectureship in Architecture in 1982. He subsequently funded the John Greene Taylor Endowment for Collections Enhancement and the John Greene Taylor Family Graduate Fellowship in Architectural History. “I am proud of my heritage and I am proud of my Longhorn roots,” said Taylor. With a chuckle in his voice, he adds, “When I served in the navy, I was stationed aboard the USS WASP. I hope someday to acknowledge my life with a headstone big enough to read ‘Here Lies A White Anglo Saxon Protestant Texas Longhorn.’”

“My grandfather was my idol,” said Taylor. “I’ve been an independent insurance agent for over 55 years, even though, as a youth, I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become an architect.” Taylor’s grandfather, Herbert Miller Greene, also a long-time Dallas resident, founded one of the oldest continuously operating architectural firms in Texas. He designed over 90 projects throughout Texas and is recognized in Dallas for such works as the original Dallas News Building, the Scottish Rite Cathedral, the Titche-Goettinger Store, the A.H. Belo Mansion, the Westminster and Oak Cliff Presbyterian churches, and the Neiman-Marcus Building. In 1922, Greene received a ten-year contract from The University of Texas at Austin to succeed Cass Gilbert as the university architect. Along with Edwin B. LaRoche and George L. Dahl, he designed over fifteen Mediterranean-influenced Beaux-Arts style buildings on campus, including Texas Memorial Stadium, Garrison Hall, Littlefield Dormitory, Gregory Gymnasium, the Biology Building, the Chemistry Building, and Waggoner Hall.

Portrait of Herbert Miller Greene courtesy of John Greene Taylor. The photo was included in "The Architectural Legacy of Herbert Miller Greene" exhibition featuring architectural drawings and archival material highlighting the legacy of the architect.

Pl at f orm • 2 6

—Amy Maverick Crossette

UTSOA Advisory Council: Letter from the Chairperson Sustainable City: San Francisco as a Model for the 21st Century My service as chairperson of the Advisory Council comes to an end this August, at which time Kent Collins [B.Arch. ’81] will step in as our chairperson for 2008-2010. During my tenure, the council’s most important accomplishments have been to prioritize the School of Architecture’s goals for the next capital campaign and to focus on helping Dean Steiner achieve his vision for the school. One of the themes that emerged throughout this process is the interest across disciplines in sustainability, indeed, a popular term these days. Our students are very interested in sustainable practices—so much so that last spring, almost all of our 4th-year interior design students undertook the process for LEED accreditation—and all passed the exam—thereby leaving the School of Architecture as LEED accredited professionals! With the topic of sustainability in mind, I’d like to say a few words about the city closest to my heart. Although Austin is building a comprehensive sustainable movement, perhaps no other city in the United States epitomizes the emphasis on sustainability more than my hometown, San Francisco.

The new Federal Building in San Francisco embodies the “greening” of the urban landscape. The aesthetic of this building is derived from the desire to fulfill particular design aspirations, including urbanism, resource conservation, and the workplace culture. The building was designed to promote innovative technologies that use natural light and ventilation. The studio-style floor plan and building circulation encourage open communication and collaboration. Social interaction is particularly well articulated in the much lauded renovation of the Ferry Building, which has been renewed as a cultural center. The building reflects the values and aspirations of area residents. The restoration incorporates environmentally friendly features such as natural lighting and creative reuse of existing materials, but the heart of the landmark is the marketplace and its fabled farmer’s market, reserved exclusively for local vendors and businesses. Not only does the marketplace promote a connection to local culture, it also strengthens local agricultural and economic growth.

There are countless other examples of San Francisco’s progressive move towards sustainable urban development. The Orchard Garden Hotel is one of America’s first LEED certified hospitality properties, and the Academy of Sciences is expected to be the largest LEED certified building in the world. The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association’s Urban Center currently under construction and the proposed redevelopment of Treasure Island are two significant projects in the Bay Area that exemplify sustainable systems. San Francisco has recently begun taking steps to codify sustainable ideals into guidelines for future growth. Proposed ordinances would require LEED certification for high rises and commercial development. “Congestion pricing” is being explored as a means to reduce roadway congestion and air pollution. The city has even banned plastic shopping bags, Styrofoam food containers, and bottled water in government offices to reduce waste from plastic. In addition, the city has commenced its own sustainability campaign called, “Let’s Green this City.” The goal is to educate residents on numerous topics dealing with lifestyle and the environment and to respond to the growing interest in environmental stewardship and energy conservation.

Progressive initiatives such as these set an inspirational precedent and establish the city as a showcase of what can be achieved through placing a premium on responsible, sustainable growth. As the city continues to grow and thrive, the successes can, and hopefully will, inspire other municipalities to invest in the future by maximizing resources, relationships, and local culture. As our students leave the School of Architecture in Austin, it is crucial that our graduates focus their thinking on new strategies—strategies that will improve our quality of life while minimizing negative effects on our planet, our environment, and the health of our communities. With our support as alumni and friends of this great institution, we can ensure that the resources they relied on while students continue to be made available throughout their lives. It has been my pleasure to serve the School of Architecture and The University of Texas at Austin. I want to thank Dean Steiner and the members of the Advisory Council for this great opportunity, and I wish my colleague Kent Collins the very best during his forthcoming term.

Michael J. McCall, AIA [M.Arch. ‘80], Advisory Council Chairperson.

Sincerely,

Far left: California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. Architect Renzo Piano, working with the Genoa-based Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), in collaboration with the San Franciscobased Chong Partners, has created one of the city’s greenest buildings. Left: Federal Building, San Francisco, California, designed by architectural firm, Morphosis.

Platform • 2 7

FRIENDS OF ARCHITECTURE Become a Friend Today! Friends of Architecture (FOA) is an annual giving program within the School of Architecture with a mission to increase knowledge and awareness of superior architecture, planning, and design and to advance quality education for future generations. Our members are current students, faculty, alumni, patrons, practitioners, and aficionados who believe in the significance of the built environment and are looking to take part in shaping its future by supporting excellence within the School of Architecture. How to Join As of September 1, 2007, all donors to the Annual Fund Program who direct their gifts in the amount of $50 or more to the School of Architecture automatically receive a one-year membership to Friends of Architecture. Make your gift today at www.giving.utexas.edu/supportut/annualgiving. Click on “School of Architecture” in the right-hand menu to make your donation and start receiving your FOA benefits! You may also make a contribution directly to FOA online at www.friendsofarchitecture.org. Log on to our web site to join online, learn about member benefits, and get information about upcoming tours and events. Making a Difference Your contribution to FOA and the Annual Fund Program makes a difference for our students and faculty every day. FOA provides broad support for the school by providing flexible funding for critical needs such as student activities and publications, faculty recruitment, and outreach initiatives.

Thanks to the support of our members and Annual Fund donors, FOA has most recently contributed funds to support: • Graduate Student Recruitment Day This spring, the School of Architecture held its first open house for prospective graduate students admitted to graduate programs in architecture (including the professional programs, the master’s programs in sustainable design and urban design, historic preservation, and architectural history) and landscape architecture. Fifty-nine prospective students, parents, and spouses attended the day-long event that included presentations of research and professional practice by faculty, a panel-discussion led by current graduate students, lunch with faculty, visits to studios and SOA facilities, and a closing reception with faculty and current students. In addition to helping students choose UT for graduate study, the open house provided an opportunity to spread the word about the university and the school. The lunch and reception made possible by the generosity of the FOA offered important opportunities for informal conversation. • ISSUE This student publication serves as a published archive and a permanent showcase for the diverse design work produced each year by School of Architecture students. FOA is a major underwriter of this publication. • Alpha Rho Chi Alpha Rho Chi is the national professional co-ed fraternity for architecture and the allied arts. The UT-Austin Chapter of Alpha Rho Chi has received the 2008 George “So” Whitten Scholastic Achievement Award, which recognizes the active chapter that has demonstrated the most outstanding academic accomplishment of the school year. Funds from FOA helped send seven students to the national conference in Reno, Nevada, at which they won several awards. • Summer Academy 2008 Scholarships This outreach initiative offers two intensive introductory programs, one for young scholars aged 15 to 17 and one for aspiring architects ages 18 and up. These programs are designed to introduce the basic principles of drawing and model construction, studio assignments, and portfolio preparation. Making Design Accessible FOA also provides enriching educational and involvement opportunities that offer our members a better understanding and appreciation of architecture, planning, and design. We connect our members to the School of Architecture through publications, lectures, and exhibitions and open the doors to significant architecture and design throughout the world with our exclusively designed tours. The Palm Springs tour offered a complete immersion into the desert landscape and the mid-century modern architects who used the area as their laboratory, creating an oasis of progressive design. Highlights of

Pl at f orm • 2 8

Opposite page, left: View from William Holden’s mid-century modern style hilltop home in Palm Springs. Photo by Laurent Le Gourrierec.

the trip included private tours of homes designed by Albert Frey, William F. Cody, E. Stewart Williams, Donald Wexler, John Randolph McDonald, and William Krisel among many others. Houses by Richard Neutra and John Lautner were tantalizingly close at hand. Robert Imber, a local architecture aficionado and colorful character, provided guided tours of many of the homes and neighborhoods. Steve Nash, the Executive Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum, offered members a private tour of the museum and a preview of the Julius Shulman photography show. Evenings were spent enjoying cocktails, conversation, and the company of one another while taking in the clear desert air. Tours in the Works Friends of Architecture invites you to join our one-of-a-kind tours of museums, historic buildings, and remarkable private residences. We work hand-in-hand with expert guides to take our members behind the scenes of significant public masterpieces and offer exclusive access to new and amazing private spaces. FOA offers a unique environment for refining your appreciation for art, architecture, and design and promises a well-rounded experience filled with fascinating, in-depth information.

Opposite page, right: Robyn and Michael Siegel overlooking Smoke Tree Ranch. Photo by Louise Harpman. This page, left: FOA participants cooling their heels at Frank Sinatra’s house (1947), designed by Stewart Williams. From left: Milinda Hall, Molly Hatchell, Lynnda Carter, Cindy Schwartz, Bibi Dykema, Emily Summers, Louise Harpman, and Robyn Schwartz Siegel. Photo by Fritz Steiner. This page, top right: View of Donald Wexler’s prefabricated house (1957) epitomizing minimal modernism. Photo by Louise Harpman.

TO JOIN Online www.friendsofarchitecture.org Phone 512.471.0617 FAX 512.471.0716 Mail

Stacy Manning Associate Director of Constituent Relations The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture 1 University Station B7500 Austin, TX 78712-0222

For additional information, please don’t hesitate to contact Stacy Manning at smanning@austin.utexas.edu or 512.471.0617.

This page, lower right: Steve and Emily Summers in front of William F. Cody’s house. Photo by Louise Harpman.

We are now accepting deposits for advance registration for the following tours: • Seattle, Washington, with Professor Larry Speck – July 17 - 20, 2008 (The deadline for full refund on deposit is May 14.) • San Antonio, Texas – February 2009 • Chicago, Illinois – June 2009 Reserve your space on our Seattle trip now! Log on to the Friends of Architecture web site for more info. and registration: www.friendsofarchitecture.org.

Abernathy House, Palm Springs, California, late afternoon poolside. Photo by Laurent Le Gourrierec.

Platform • 2 9

FRIENDS OF ARCHITECTURE * Membership As of September 1, 2007, all donors to the Annual Fund Program who direct their gifts in the amount of $50 or more to the School of Architecture automatically receive a one-year membership to Friends of Architecture.

Corporate Silver Members Friends of Architecture is pleased to announce that Curtis & Windham Architects of Houston and Lucifer Lighting of San Antonio are the inaugural donors to our Corporate Silver Member level. We extend our sincere thanks to both firms for their generous support. Curtis & Windham Architects is an awardwinning, inter-disciplinary firm founded in 1992 by William Curtis [B.Arch. ‘81] and Russell Windham. In 2005, Sarah Newbery became a partner in the firm to further develop the integration of complimentary landscape design. Working from a foundation of traditional and classical architectural principles, the 30-person firm of architects, interior designers, and landscape architects seeks to integrate all aspects of design. To learn more about the work of Curtis & Windham Architects, please visit their website, curtisandwindham.com. Just over a quarter century old, Lucifer Lighting (luciferlighting.com), is a family-run company widely recognized as a lighting innovator. The company develops high-end lighting fixtures favored by interior designers and architects throughout the world. Lucifer Lighting has been a longtime supporter of the School of Architecture, and CEO Gilbert Mathews serves on the School of Architecture Advisory Council as a life member.

For more information on joining Lucifer Lighting and Curtis & Windham as Corporate Silver Members of FOA, please contact Associate Director of Constituent and Alumni Relations, Stacy Manning, smanning@austin.utexas.edu or 512.471.0617.

Pl at f orm • 3 0

$2500+ Curtis & Windham Architects Lucifer Lighting Company $1000 – $2499 Mr. Lexa M. Acker, AIA Emeritus Mr. Frank M. Aldridge III Amy Shelton McNutt Charitable Trust Mr. Phillip Arnold, ASLA AT&T Inc. Foundation Mr. Ronald L. Bailey Mr. David B. Barrow, Jr., AIA Mr. Myron G. Blalock III Mr. Bill C. Booziotis, FAIA Brent Redus Interests Mr. Richard H. Bundy Mr. Michael J. Burke Ms. Diane Cheatham, Urban Edge Developers, Ltd. Ms. Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA Mr. G. Kent Collins Mr. Tommy N. Cowan, FAIA Dan Shipley Architects Mrs. Bibiana B. Dykema, AIA Mr. H. M. Favrot, Jr. Mr. Terry N. Forrester, AIA John J. Grable, FAIA Ms. Karen T. Hawkins Ms. Diana W. Keller Ken Bentley & Associates Mrs. Ellen U. King Lake/Flato Architects, Inc. Mr. Michael J. McCall, AIA Ms. Jana M. McCann Mr. Laurin McCracken, AIA Mr. John V. Nyfeler, AIA Overland Partners, Inc. Mr. Howard E. Rachofsky Mrs. Gay K. Ratliff R.E.P.M.T. L.L.C. Mr. Fred D. Roberts Mrs. Evelyn P. Rose RTKL Associates Inc. Mr. Lawrence W. Speck, FAIA

Mrs. Lenore M. Sullivan Ms. Emily R. Summers Mr. Jerry S. Sutton, AIA Mr. John G. Taylor Texas Gas Service Company Mrs. Laura L. Toups, P.E. University Co-operative Society Gordon L. White, M.D. Mrs. Coke Anne M. Wilcox $500 – $999 Ms. Martha L. Bennett Ms. Susan R. Benz, AIA Corplan Corrections, Ltd. Escobedo Construction, LP Mr. Guy L. Hagstette Mr. Morris W. Hoover Mr. Reed A. Kroloff, AIA Ms. Suzanne C.H. Lee Mr. Richard R. Lillie, FAICP Mr. Hudson C. Lockett III Mr. Gregory S. Papay Mr. Charles A. Phillips, AIA Mr. James I. Powell Ms. Helen L. Thompson Ms. Karen S. Walz, FAICP Mr. Richard S. Weiss Mrs. Melba D. Whatley Mrs. Janet W. Wright $200 – $499 Ackerman & Savage, LLP Austin Canyon Corporation Mr. Marvin E. Beck, AIA Emeritus Ms. Melissa M. Bogusch Mr. Jay M. Brotman Mr. Michael W. Campbell Mr. George W. Cape, Jr. Ms. Amber M. Carroll Mr. Christopher D. Cecchine Ms. Tamara K. Chambless Ms. Pauline Conger Mr. Leopold P. Danze Mr. Richard D. Davis Mr. Charles W. Eggert, Jr. Mr. Winston L. Evans Ms. Terry N. Evers

* These Friends of Architecture members made gifts to the School of Architecture between September 1, 2007, and February 29, 2008.

Mr. David R. Stanford Tahoe Architect, Inc. Mr. Walter A. Vackar Ms. Ann K. Yoklavich Mr. Eric L. Zobrist

Ms. Lauren P. Ford Mr. Michael T. Fries Mr. Geoffrey L. Gibson Ms. Molly H. Hatchell Mr. Robert H. Heiser, Jr. Mr. Steven J. Hooker Jerry L. Hopson Mr. Montgomery W. Howard Mr. Tony Joseph Mr. Elliot H. Johnson Mr. David R. H. King, FAIA Mr. Charles E. Lawrence, FAIA Ms. Emily C. Ledbetter Mr. Graham B. Luhn, AIA Mr. Raymond H. Martin Mr. Don B. McDonald Jorge L. Menendez, M.D.

$50 – $199 Mr. Kenneth L. Aldrich Mr. Jerry A. Alexander Ms. Laurie I. Dwyer Ansley Ms. Susan M. Appleyard Mr. Robert W. Arburn Ms. Martha A. Arosemena Mrs. Temple W. Ashmore Austin Community Foundation Mr. Robert E. Ayers Mr. Olayemi A. Badmus Mr. Philip K. Bailey

Mr. Robert L. Miars Mr. Clayton L. Morgan Ms. Aida Pollard Ms. Olga Z. Popova Dr. Jane C. Powell Rainier Management, Ltd. Mr. Van B. Ramsey Mr. William A. Reynolds Robert R. Coffee Architect and Associates Mr. Richard W. Robinson, Jr. Mrs. Marta M. SalinasHovar Severson Studios, LLC Mr. Dan M. Sharp Shiflet Group Architects, Inc.

Barbutti & Associates Architect Mr. A. Ted Barclay, III Mr. Paul T. Barr Ms. Linda A. Bayer Mr. Alexander K. Berghausen Ms. Hilary K. Bertsch Black + Vernooy Architects Mr. John T. Blake Mr. Peter J. Boes Ms. Teresa H. Bogatto Mr. Tom Bond Mr. Ernest R. Breig Mr. Bob T. Brendle Mr. John R. Brown Mr. Eric B. Buck Deborah Bullock

Mr. Richard J. Burnight Mr. Matthew D. Burton Mr. Salvador Cardenas Carl Daniel Architects Mr. Henry R. Carranco Centre Canadien d’Architecture Mr. Thomas A. Cestarte Childress Interiors Inc. Ms. Jacquelyn B. Chuter Mr. D. Sherman Clarke Ms. Judith S. Cohen Ms. Phebe Connolly Mr. Michael C. Connor Mr. David M. Cooperstein Professor R. James Coote Mr. O. Neal Corbett, AIA Ms. Patricia L. Cornelison Mr. Herman L. Coronado, Jr. Mr. Jack B. Cox Mr. Juan G. CreixellDiaque, Sr. Mr. Roy C. Crenwelge Mr. Thomas A. Curiel Ms. Susan K. Daniels Mr. Patrick B. Davis, Jr. Mr. Charles C. Dickson Mr. David A. Dillard Mr. Robert J. Donaldson Mr. David L. Dowler Mr. Caleb Duncan Mr. Frank E. Dunckel Mrs. Leisa J. Durrett Mr. Thomas G. Earnest Mr. Casey England Mr. Christopher D. Ernst Mr. John B. Everin FAB Architecture Mr. Allen R. Faries Clarence E. Feagin, Jr., Ph.D. Mr. Linmor B. Feiner

Mr. Daniel L. Fields Mr. Lewis S. Fisher Mrs. Susan K. Fisher Ms. Mary S. French Mr. Hector R. Garcia Mrs. D. Kay Gerfers Mr. Dennis L. Gerow Mr. Richard A. Geyer, Jr. Mr. Ali Gidfar Mr. Gordon K. Gilmore Ms. Diana S. Goldberg Mr. Enrique S. Gonzalez, C.P.A. Mr. Laurent E. Le Gourrierec Grace Johnston & Associates Mr. Stanley S. Graham, Jr. Mrs. Nonya S. Grenader Mrs. Vicki G. Hamilton Mr. Stephen H. Harris Mr. Craig G. Hausman Mr. Noel Hernandez Mr. J. Brantley Hightower Mr. Mark L. Hilles Mr. Tom E. Hinson Mrs. Consuelo Z. Hoff Mr. Chester R. Hollis, Jr. Mr. David E. Holloway Mr. Joseph A. Hoover Mr. Leland C. Horstmann Mr. Thomas N. Howe Mrs. Elizabeth S. Hunter Mr. Graham C. Hunter II, AIA Mr. Robert S. Husmann Ms. Patricia E. Jackson Mr. Rice R. Jackson III Ms. Lynnis E. Jameson Mr. Lloyd W. Jary, Jr., FAIA Mr. Hans C. Jensen

John Watson Architects, Inc. Ms. Linda S. Johnston, AIA Ms. Susanna Y. Kartye Mrs. Wendy R. Kilcollin Mr. Charles N. Killebrew Mr. Orion Knox, Jr. Mr. Robert D. Kuzelka Mr. Lyman M. Labry Mr. Patrick F. Lempka Mr. Jack L. Levin Mr. David H. Lidsky Mrs. Sandra D. Lucas Ms. Alice A. Lynch Mr. Kelly W. Mahan Mrs. Christine W. Marcin Mr. Warren W. Martin Mr. William J. Martin Mr. Ruben Martinez Mr. Ross P. Matthews Mr. John M. Mayfield, AIA Mr. Kyle S. McAdams Mr. Scott W. McCrary, Jr., AIA Mr. David C. McDurmitt Mr. Phillip G. Mead, AIA Mr. Paul C. N. Mellblom Mr. Gary R. Meyer Mr. Dwight B. Micklethwait Mikiten Architecture Inc. Mr. G. Frank Mills, Jr. Ms. Adrienne Montare Mr. Charles B. Moore, Jr. Ms. Sallie B. Moran Mr. Frank L. Moreland Mr. James B. Moses Mr. L. Kendall Mower, Jr. Mr. Robert L. Nash Mr. Charles L. Nelson Mrs. Suzanne Neufang Colonel Michael Neveu

Mr. Larry D. Nichols Mr. Jim R. Nix Mr. Dale C. Norton Mr. Allan H. Nutt Mr. Jerome J. O'Sullivan Ms. Diana B. Osterfeld Mr. James H. Overton Mrs. Carolyn K. Panak Ms. Ann L. Patterson Mr. Bradford C. Patterson Mr. A. Ray Payne, AIA Ms. Laura C. Peeples Ms. Patti Peressini Ms. Sarita S. Peterson Mr. David R. Petro Ms. Julie L. Howard Pherivong Ms. Mary K. Piette Mrs. Melinda K. Poss Ms. Diane R. Procter Mrs. Caren H. Prothro Mr. Adam A. Pyrek Mr. Rene D. Quinlan Mr. Hugh J. Randolph Mr. Paul J. Rash, Jr. Mr. Elmer W. Reichert, III Mr. Robert J. Reid Marcela A. Rhoads, AIA Mr. James P. Richardson Mr. Paul J. Rielly, P.E. Robert H. Clark Inc. Mrs. Anna B. Roeder Mr. Ronald C. Roeder Mr. David C. Romine Mr. Daniel D. Roush Mr. Justin M. Sabatini Ms. Fern Santini Ms. Nancy W. Scanlan Ms. Catherine M. Shaw Mr. A. Barry Simon Ms. Sandra Bearden Smith Mr. Philip B. Southwick Mr. Jerry M. Sparks Mr. Stephen C. Springs Mr. E. Duke Squibb Mr. Charles F. Stahl Ms. Shelley A. St Clair Ms. Sharon D. Steiner Mr. James H. Stewart, Jr. Ms. Sally B. Strickland Mr. Rommel A. Sulit Mr. Rodney D. Susholtz Mr. James C. Susman Ms. Martha V. Suzuki

Mrs. Lisa L. Swift Mrs. Cheryl G. Taylor Mr. Howard L. Templin Ms. Claudia B. Thiem Mrs. Margot K. Thomas Ms. Toni M. Thomasson Mr. Charles W. Thweatt Mr. Lee E. Treadway, Jr. Mr. Bruce E. Turner Mr. John C. Tyler Urban Edge Developers, Ltd. Mr. Michael K. Uyeda Ms. Paula H. Vance Mr. Constantine D. Vasilios, AIA Mr. Michael W. Vela Mr. D. Andrew Vernooy Mr. Gregory C. Vessels Grant H. Wagner, M.D. Ms. Cynthia Y. Walston

Mr. Zhe Wang Mr. Floyd T. Watson, Jr. Mr. C. Rick Weatherl Weatherl & Associates Mrs. Susan G. Weaver Webber + Hanzlik, LLC Mr. John R. Wettling Mr. Leon A. Whitney Mr. Alan L. Whitton Mr. Joseph R. Williams Mr. John F. Williams Mr. Lawrence E. Wilson Mr. Richard D. Wilson Ms. Janice F. Winters Mr. H. H. Wommack, III Mr. Jeffrey S. Wood Mr. Geoffrey C. Wright Ms. Canan F. Yetmen Mr. Travis G. Young Mr. Christopher V. Yurkanan

Opposite page: “At Home in Austin” tour participants converse in the Green Residence. Photo by Laurent Le Gourrierec. Top left: The Floating Box House by Peter L. Gluck & Partners. Photo by Rice Jackson. Above: Tour members gather beneath the dome of the Crowell House. Photo by Laurent Le Gourrierec.

Opposite page, left: FOA’s “At Home in Austin” tour participants visited the Stonehedge Residence, designed by Miró Rivera Architects. Photo by Paul Finkel, Piston Design. Left: Milinda Hall, Tom Green, and Anne Edwards take in the koi pond at the Green Residence in Austin. Photo by Stephanie Palmer.

Platform • 3 1

UTSOA Advisory Council Chair Michael J. McCall, AIA Vice Chair Kent Collins Past Chair Susan Benz, AIA Executive Committee Bill Booziotis, FAIA Diane Cheatham Gary Cunningham, FAIA Diana Keller John Nyfeler, FAIA Dan Shipley, FAIA Faculty Representatives Elizabeth Danze, AIA Juan Mir贸, AIA Members Lexa M. Acker, AIA Emeritus Frank M. Aldridge, III Richard M. Archer, III, FAIA Phillip Arnold, Hon. ASLA John Avila, Jr. Bobbie J. Barker David B. Barrow, Jr., AIA, ASID Marvin E. Beck, AIA Emeritus Ken Bentley, AIA Myron G. Blalock, III Hal Box, FAIA Dick Clark, III, AIA Tommy N. Cowan, FAIA H. Hobson Crow, III, AIA Donald R. DeBord, Jr., AIA Bibiana Bright Dykema, AIA Darrell A. Fitzgerald, FAIA Robert Lawrence Good, FAIA John Grable, FAIA Charles E. Gromatzky, AIA R. Jay Hailey, Jr. Karen Hawkins Christopher C. Hill Kenneth H. Hughes Ellen King Reed A. Kroloff, AIA David C. Lake, FAIA Alan Lauck Charles E. Lawrence, FAIA

Graham B. Luhn, FAIA Patricia R. Mast Gilbert L. Mathews Jana McCann Laurin McCracken, AIA Judith R. Pesek, IIDA Charles A. Phillips, AIA Boone Powell, FAIA Leilah H. Powell Howard E. Rachofsky Gay Ratliff Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA Deedie Rose Lloyd Scott Cyndy Severson William Shepherd, AIA Madison Smith Lenore Sullivan Emily Summers Jerry S. Sutton, AIA Helen L. Thompson Laura L. Toups, PE Karen S. Walz, FAICP David H. Watkins, FAIA Terrance R. Wegner Michael I. Wheeler Gordon L. White, M.D. Coke Ann M. Wilcox Kathy Zarsky The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture 1 University Station B7500 Austin, Tx 78712-0222

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Austin, Texas Permit No. 391