Year 38, Issue 2 | Summer 2014
Contents
CONFERENCE AND PAPER CALLS
ARCC 2015 Conference
Research in architecture, design and the built environment is currently diversifying and reaching new directions. Technological changes, such as new materials, construction techniques and design representations, have accelerated the need for research within design disciplines. Today, research is more important than ever and it is also becoming an integral component in the design practices. The theme of ARCC 2015 Conference, the FUTURE of Architectural Research, will address these aspects and will be a primary event for researchers, faculty members, design professionals, and policy makers to discuss and set the course for the future direction of architectural research. Today, interdisciplinary research approaches that address advanced materials, building technologies, environmental and energy concerns, computational design, automation in construction, design delivery methods, and project management are essential for advancing the state of knowledge relating to the design of built environment. This conference will address these topics, and will also aim to define the future course of architectural research.
Detailed Schedule, Conference Themes and deadlines can be found at the conference website:http://www.arcc2015.com/
ENQUIRY/The ARCC Journal Architectural Research
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
ENQUIRY,/The ARCC Journal Architectural Research extends a call for submissions for the 2014 edition of the journal, Vol 11, No 1 (2014).
The submission deadline is August 1, 2014.
Full details at:
ENQUIRY Call for Submissions
CALL FOR JOURNAL EDITOR
ENQUIRY/The ARCC Journal of Architectural Research has several open editorial positions including Managing Editor and Associate Editor. Interested parties will find full details at:
ENQUIRY Call for editors
NEW GRANTS and RESEARCH PROJECTS
Montana State University
College of Arts and Architecture Research and Creative Activity Symposium
This spring the College of Arts and Architecture at Montana State University hosted the second annual faculty symposium to discuss the current research and creative activity of the College. The symposium was developed and curated by Associate Professor Zuzanna Karczewska and Assistant Professor Bradford Watson, both in the School of Architecture. The symposium consisted of four sessions with seventeen faculty representing all four schools (Architecture, Art, Film and Photography, and Music) presenting and discussing their ongoing work to an audience of students and faculty from the College. The presentations ranged from theoretical propositions and commentary on the current discourse in the field of study to pedagogical methodologies being implemented on campus. Works in progress included excerpts from film, in process live performances and critical discourse on the trajectory for new exploration based on the current body of work. There was also a panel discussion amongst the four Directors hosted by the Dean of the College, Nancy Cornwell, which centered around the value of research and creative activity in the arts. The panel addressed significant questions about the importance of the research and creative activity the faculty are currently engaged in, its impact on the pedagogy of the College and its engagement with the community at large. The discussion was highly focused on the value of thinking and provocation created by the College of Arts and Architecture situated in a land grant university focused on growing within the STEM fields. It ultimately culminated in a challenge for the College to instigate more interdisciplinary activity with the other colleges on campus.
The third installment is being planned for the spring of 2015 and will include a multi-venue exhibition of faculty work representing the diversity of research and creative activity in the College.
University of Kansas
MoCoLab
This fall a team that includes associate professors of architecture Shannon Criss and Nils Gore received a $29,000 Tier II Research Grant from the Office of the Provost to build what they call a Mobile Collaboratory for Civic Engagement, or MoCoLab. KU’s Research Investment Council made the award. A used Airstream trailer purchased in September is the starting point for the project. During the spring semester Department of Architecture students will transform it into a community-room on wheels to “take scholars to the people.” The MoCoLab will be a resource that researchers and faculty can check out for specific projects, and driven to and set up in Kansas communities for any number of purposes: needs assessments, the seeking of opportunities, or to devise and initiate projects that hopefully will prove to be transformative.
Resilient Lifestyles Lab
The Resilient Lifestyles Lab, a collaboration of the School of Architecture and the Gerontology Center at the University of Kansas led by Associate Dean Keith Diaz Moore, has recently received two grants. One, from the Alzheimer’s Disease Center, is to retrospectively examine the correlates between objective characteristics of neighborhood and selected health outcomes in older adults that are pre-clinical dementia. The other is a grant from the Reeve Foundation to develop an informational tool to enhance visitability in residential environments. The Lab is also spearheading an international collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, the Centre on Ageing and Supportive Environments at the University of Lund and the Institute on Gerontology at Simon Fraser University to examine residential accessibility and its disparate impact on health outcomes in minority populations.
Mississippi State University
A+CA Grant Award $10k
School of Architecture Assistant Professors Hans C. Herrmann and Emily M. McGlohn, along with Building Construction Science Assistant Professor Michele M. Herrmann, were recently awarded a $10k grant from the Architecture + Construction Alliance (A+CA) for their proposal titled “Integrated Project Delivery Theater: A Symposium Designed to Facilitate Learning from Experts.” The award (Dec 2013) was in response to a request from the A+CA Board of Directors for proposals that address collaborative teaching/learning between architecture and building construction programs. This winning proposal centers on conducting a symposium (in the next academic year) in which industry professionals experienced in Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) discuss and demonstrate collaboration techniques and strategies. Thus enabling students (including faculty and practitioners) to gain an understanding of the individual’s role in the larger collaborative effort of Integrated Project Delivery in the construction industry.
MBCI Design/Build Bus Shelters on Tribal Lands
School of Architecture Assistant Professors Hans C. Herrmann, Alexis Gregory, Emily M. McGlohn, and Lee Carson along with Building Construction Science Assistant Professor Tom Leatham, were recently awarded a $10k grant from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MCBI) in Oct. 2013 for their proposal to construct two “Transit Bus Shelters” on Tribal Lands. The ‘shelters’ were fully designed and permanently installed by the students at the conclusion of Fall 2013 semester by the 2nd Year Tectonic Architecture Collaborative Design Studio w/ Building Construction Science.
MSU Collaborative Research
Assistant Professor Alexis Gregory, AIA is collaborating on “Sustainable Solutions to Food Insecurity in the Urban South” with Dr. Joseph Witt - Department of Philosophy and Religion, Dr. Becky Schewe - Department of Sociology, and Dr. April Heiselt - Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology and the Center for the Advancement of Service-Learning Excellence (CASLE). The research will link food insecurity and agricultural sustainability through research, service-learning academic coursework, and co-curricular programming, all of which will in turn seek to implement innovative and sustainable solutions to food insecurity.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Assoc. Prof. Lynne M. Dearborn’s research in four Hmong villages in Thailand and Hmong-focused development projects in the Midwestern US, examines the role of Hmong Heritage in cultural tourism, agricultural and craft-based initiatives. Her examination of the role of Hmong Agricultural Heritage in four of Thailand’s 28 Royal Agricultural Stations will be featured in her forthcoming book Living Heritage as Economic Development: Entanglements of Hmong Modernity in Rural Thailand and the Diaspora, published by Left Coast Press.
Ball State University and Valencia College
Chevrolet Pays U.S. Colleges for Going Green
New carbon methodology monetizes campus energy-efficiency efforts.
Ball State University in Indiana and Valencia College in Florida have pioneered the application of new performance methodologies for greenhouse gas reductions with pilot projects, confirming that such funding is strategic to the realization of their greenhouse gas reductions. Ball State’s pilot involves installation of the largest geothermal system at a U.S. college. Valencia College is using the methodology for its energy efficiency program and efficient building construction. Ball State estimates an 8 to 10 percent return on incremental capital over a 12 year span. Valencia estimates a 7 to 14 percent return on incremental capital over a 10-year span. Integrated with its piloting effort, Ball State University will provide a longitudinal (three-year) Carbon Market Study of its experience using the performance methodology to leverage deeper carbon reductions as it works to help Chevrolet meet its goal.
U.S. college and university campuses can now receive money to support their clean energy-efficiency initiatives by using first of their kind carbon-reduction performance methodologies penned by Chevrolet. With 675 campuses pledging to go carbon neutral, the money can help deliver even more aggressive performance to help them reach their goals.
If a college’s LEED-certified building or campus-wide energy efficiency performance qualifies, their beyond-business-as-usual greenhouse gas reductions are verified as voluntary carbon credits. Chevrolet then pays campuses for these certified reductions and permanently retires them to benefit the climate.
Established in 2010, the voluntary goal of its Carbon-Reduction Initiative (CRI) is to prevent up to 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the earth’s atmosphere. To achieve this, the brand has supported many carbon-reduction projects, from helping a landfill heat a hospital with methane gas to helping truckers avoid idling.
Building on its leadership as the largest U.S. corporate buyer of voluntary carbon credits by volume for the last two years according to the nonprofit Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace, Chevrolet hopes to spur even more carbon-reduction activities that positively impact communities, jobs and now students and their campuses.
“For cars like the Chevrolet Volt and Spark EV to fully live up to their potential, they need to run on a clean-energy infrastructure,” said GM Director of Sustainability David Tulauskas. “The Chevrolet Carbon-Reduction initiative is about supporting the ingenious ways people are reducing their footprint, like the leaders driving the higher education sustainability movement.”
To develop the performance methodologies, Chevrolet worked with an advisory team led by the Climate Neutral Business Network with support from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the U.S. Green Building Council and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. These performance methodologies are pending certification through the Verified Carbon Standard.
Robert Koester, professor of architecture and chair of the Ball State University Council on the Environment said, “Without such third party financing of this type, most colleges and universities would not be able to capitalize the more significant investments needed to bring down their carbon load on the atmosphere.”
In addition to financial benefits for the participating colleges and universities, students also gain valuable experience and insights from initiatives such as these. They get to learn first-hand how a complex institution can make positive change, how to share such improvements with the members of their academic community and even participate in real-time academic research associated those achievements. Certainly, as they graduate and become sustainability leaders in their own communities, the far-reaching effects of these initiatives will be multiple.
Visit Chevrolet’s website for more information about the carbon reduction initiative.
NEW BOOKS
Karen M. Kensek, LEED AP BD+C, Assoc. AIA
Technical Design Series: Building Information Modeling, Routledge – May 2014
Provides an overview of BIM in the profession at an introductory, but comprehensive level. This book addresses many key roles that BIM is playing in shaping professional offices and project delivery processes. The book is divided into two parts: Fundamentals (BIM overview, stakeholders and BIM’s many roles, data exchange and interoperability, BIM implementation, and beyond basic BIM) and Application case studies. From the neophyte to the BIM-savvy, this book, from defining fundamental concepts and exploring new innovations, encourages everyone to learn more about building information modeling.
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415717748/
Karen M. Kensek, LEED AP BD+C, Assoc. AIA
Douglas E. Noble, PhD, FAIA
Building Information Modeling: BIM in Current and Future Practice, Wiley,June 2014
This edited compilation of provocative essays providing a forum for these leadership voices in the marketplace of ideas about building information modeling in architecture. They provide clarity and direction for thinking about the current practice and the future directions of BIM, instigating commentary by foremost thinkers about both research about BIM and speculation into the future of BIM. The 26 chapters are grouped together thematically in six sections that present both complementary and sometimes incompatible positions: Design Thinking and BIM, BIM Analytics, Comprehensive BIM, Reasoning with BIM, Professional BIM, and BIM Speculations.
In addition, full-color digital material (PDFs, PowerPoint slides, animations) is available for professors to augment the use of this book in their classes, including case studies by architecture firms an engineering firm, and contractors; two faculty bonus papers; and sample teaching material.
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111876630X.html
Richard L. Hayes, Ph.D., CAE, AIA, Editor-in-Chief
The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice, 15th Edition John Wiley and Sons
The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice continues to be the essential business reference for every architect who must meet the challenges of today’s marketplace with insight and confidence. Substantially updated in the 15th edition, this indispensable resource covers all aspects of architectural practice with contributions by over 120 authors. Of special note for ARCC members is Chapter 14: Research and Practice containing essays on Research in Practice, Research Methods, Research and Practice, Evidence-Based Desig
Chapter 14 can be purchased and delivered electronically via the AIA Bookstore.
Therese F. Tierney. Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Public Space of Social Media: Connected Cultures of the Network Society, Routledge, 2013.
Social media is restructuring urban practices–through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software development, and communities of participation. This book is the first to consider how practices contained within social media are situated within a larger genealogy of public space, one that includes communal identity, civitas and democracy, the fete, and self-expression.
Lee W. Waldrep, Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Becoming an Architect, 3rd edition, Wiley & Sons 2014.
Starting a career as an architect is an exciting prospect, but it’s important to do your research before you take the plunge. The third edition of Becoming an Architect is an update to the best-selling guide and highlights the risks and rewards on the path to a career as an architect.
Michelangelo Sabatino, Ph.D., of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture of the University of Houston co-edited a new book entitled:
Arthur Erickson: Layered Landscapes – Drawings from the Canadian Architectural Archives (2013) published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Nickel Galleries of the University of Calgary.
Michelangelo Sabatino, Ph.D.,
Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition was recently published in Italian translation by Edizioni Franco Angeli of Milan (2013).
Two of Sabatino’s previously published essays appeared in Andrew Peckham and Torsten Schmiedeknecht eds., The Rationalist Reader: Architecture and Rationalism in Western Europe 1920-1940 / 1960-1990 (London: Routledge, 2013). Sabatino recently launched a new publication series entitled Canadian Modern for the Dalhousie Architectural Press in Halifax. www.michelangelosabatino.com
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
AIA Upjohn Research Program.
The AIA has released the call for the 2014 Upjohn Research program.
The AIA seeks proposals for research projects to be completed in an ~18-month period beginning December 1, 2014. The AIA will award up to six grants, between $15,000 and $30,000 each, for selected projects (awarded funds must be hard-dollar matched; a maximum of 10 percent of funds may be used for overhead). This grant qualifies recipients to have their findings and outcomes published both electronically and in a nationally distributed publication.
Information about AIA past Upjohn research and The 2014 Upjohn poster is posted to the AIA Research Page. http://www.aia.org/practicing/akr/AIAB102107
ITEMS MAY BE SUBMITTED DIRECTLY TO THE EDITOR FOR CONSIDERATION FOR THE NEXT NEWSLETTER AT stallmyr@illinois.edu.
