FRIENDS OF ARCHITECTURE UNVEILS NEW WEBSITE

Friends of Architecture's Bright Lights, Big "D" tour, is sold out! On February 3 & 4, Professor Larry Speck will lead members on a private tour of a variety of Dallas' most stunning residential architecture. If you would like to join the waiting list, please contact FOA Director Stephanie Palmer at stephanie.palmer@friendsofarchitecture.org.

We hope you won't miss out on Friends of Architecture's next exciting adventure! We are proud to announce the unveiling of our new website, http://www.friendsofarchitecture.org, complete with the most up-to-date information on all Friends of Architecture activities. Through exclusive tours of architecture and design, Friends of Architecture members have the opportunity to advance their architectural appreciation and knowledge, while directly supporting excellence at the School of Architecture. We invite you to visit us online, where you can sign up for membership, read about previous Friends of Architecture excursions, and register for upcoming tours--including Rebuilding New Orleans, Modernist Palm Springs, and San Antonio. We would also like to express our thanks and appreciation to the sponsor of our new site, Friends of Architecture Chairperson, Diana Keller.

Events

BOOK SIGNING

Wednesday, January 24
Book People
6th & Lamar Streets, Austin
7:00 p.m.

At 7:00 p.m., on Wednesday, January 24, Book People will host a book signing by Dr. Steven Moore to celebrate the appearance of Alternative Routes to the Sustainable City: Austin, Curitiba, and Frankfurt (Rowman & Littlefield). Professor Moore will read from his narrative of Austin's development as a "sustainable" city and respond to questions.

EXHIBIT

January 16 - February 14
2X2: ALTERNATE ANATOMIES
PATTERNS and ACRONYM
Mebane Gallery, Goldsmith Hall
Sponsored by the McCall Design Group Press

EXHIBIT

Through February 2007
Architecture & Planning Library
Battle Hall

"Landscape Representation and the Education of Landscape Architects"

Selections from the collections of Associate Professor Mirka Benes and the Architecture & Planning Library's Special Collections.

SYMPOSIUM

March 2, 2007
Sanctioning Modernism:
A Symposium on Post-WWII Architecture

Keynote Speaker
Dennis Doordan
Professor and Chair, Department of Art,
Art History and Design
Professor, School of Architecture
University of Notre Dame

The history of modernism in architecture has been told many times over. While reductive partisan histories have been subjected to rigorous critique, a fuller picture has emerged only to result in a multiplication of modernisms--canonical, alternative, regional, and otherwise. The very conception of modernism as a historical phenomenon remains unclear. Ever present, however, is the issue of identity.

It is our conviction that the interrelation between modernism and identity--including the production, development, and interpretation of each--is in need of focused and systematic study. The years following the Second World War constitute a distinctively rich period for such study.

The symposium will address three specific settings of sanctioning modernism:

• political appropriation of modernism in official institutional architecture
• religious appropriation of modernism in ecclesiastical architecture in light of liturgical reform and theological modernism
• consumer appropriation of modernism in middle class residential architecture and furnishings

The symposium will be free and open to the public. For more information, visit: http://soa.utexas.edu/sanctioningmodernism or contact Timothy Parker at tkparker@mail.utexas.edu.

Co-sponsored by AIA Austin, all lectures and symposia will be eligible for continuing education learning credits.

FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP

UT-Austin President Bill Powers has recommended to the Board of Regents that Elizabeth Danze be promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Pending Board approval, the promotion will be effective at the beginning of next academic year.

Miró Rivera Architects was one of three winners selected for the 2006 AR Awards for Emerging Architecture by The Architectural Review in London. The award is considered the largest and most prestigious of its kind (architects under 45 years of age). Competing against 462 submitted entries from 57 countries, the "Pedestrian Bridge" was selected as one of the winning projects. Each of the three winning projects received a $10,000 prize at a ceremony celebrated at the Royal Institute of British Architects on November 30.

Catherine Slessor, writing in the December issue of The Architecture Review, provides some background on the history and tradition of the awards: "Since 1999, the program has celebrated and nurtured talent of an emerging generation of architects from all over the world." She continues, "Projects had to demonstrate a clear commitment to improving human life and should not merely be preoccupied with form and the simplistic notion of architecture as an autonomous art."

The firm's work will be exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London through the end of February. In addition, Professor Juan Miró and Miguel Rivera will be back in London in February 2007 to lecture in the Emerging Architecture Series 2007 at the RIBA.

GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS

Stephan A. Awoniyi, in his final year of the first professional masters degree program, submitted images from his "South Point, Roosevelt Island Competition" project to the 3-D modeling and rendering software company, form*Z. Two parts of his dramatic night view, a long elevation with Manhattan in the background, were published in their 2007 Calendar--one on the cover (the Ferry Terminal part of his project) and the other ("Theater on the River") on the December 2007 page. The competition was originally done in Professor Richard Swallow's fall 2005 Advanced Design-Competitions studio.

Ahmed Abukhater, a 29-year-old doctoral student in the Community and Regional Planning Program was the first Palestinian to compete in the World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters World Championships, held at at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas this past November. At the competition, Ahmed benched 407.7 pounds, a national record for Palestine. Ahmed was 14 when his father first introduced him to weightlifting in his neighborhood in Rafah. Devoting hours every day to the gym helped him to temporarily distance himself from the violence and upheaval that surrounded him. After coming to the United States in 2001, Ahmed attended the University of Illinois, where he set a bench-press record for the state of Illinois and won first place in a national competition.

ALUMNI NEWS

The architectural firm, Bercy Chen Studio (http://www.bcarc.com), which is led by graduates Thomas Bercy [B.Arch. '00 and B.S. Arch.Eng. '00] and Calvin Chen [B.Arch. '98], has been named among the 2006 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record magazine. This annual feature recognizes 10 emerging firms worldwide considered to be at the forefront of architectural practice. Bercy Chen is one of four American firms named in a list that includes offices from the Netherlands, Chile, Spain, Korea, and Japan. Thomas Tornbjerg Lessel [M.Arch. '05, B.S. Arch.Eng. '98] is also a member of Bercy Chen Studio whose work encompasses design and construction of commercial and residential projects.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER REVAMPS PLANT INFORMATION NETWORK WITH GARDEN PLANNING IN MIND

The Native Plant Information Network (NPIN), already one of the most comprehensive online resources for native plant information, is now much more useful to landscaping professionals and home gardeners, thanks to a total redesign introduced this month by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

By clicking on “Explore Plants” at http://www.wildflower.org, visitors can access NPIN, which contains 16,000 plant images and information on more than 6,000 native plant species.

The redesign allows gardeners to build a native plant list by a combination of search criteria, including bloom time and color, and growing conditions such as location, soil type, and light requirement. The list generated includes links to more detailed descriptions of the plants and an image gallery. Visitors can also search by a plant’s common or scientific name, genus, or family. A dropdown menu prompts visitors who may not know the exact name or spelling of the plant for which they are searching.

“Native plants are a wonderful asset in the garden because they’re not only beautiful, but hardy and well adapted to local conditions,” said Dr. Damon Waitt, director of NPIN at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. “We wanted to make it easier for people all over North America to find out about native plants in their area.

“We also think our Web visitors will appreciate the improvements in speed and reliability thanks to upgrades made courtesy of our new affiliation with The University of Texas at Austin.”

Dean's Journal

The fall semester ended with studio reviews and final examinations. We benefited from an exciting roster of external reviewers, including noted practitioners Eric Bunge of nArchitects in New York and Kristin Cory from William McDonough and Partners in Charlottesville, Virginia. (See complete roster of reviewers below.) A personal highlight for me was Sergio Palleroni's Katrina Furniture Project Studio. Sergio is collaborating with several other universities including MIT, Tulane, Kansas State, and the Art Center College of Design on the use of waste created by the storm. The concept is to recycle wood as furniture. Three prototypes have been developed for church pews, tables, and boxes.

The Katrina Furniture Project has received broad support and seeks to reuse three to five percent of the wood waste. If successful, this will generate enough to supply eleven furniture workshops for 20 years. Each workshop will have two shifts of five people in each workshop, resulting in over 100 jobs.

Sergio's students designed prototypes for these workshops. In addition, graphic design students from Art Center College presented their ideas for a graphic identity for the Katrina Furniture Project.

Over the holiday break, I drove from Austin to Dayton to visit my family. The drive was relaxing, and I enjoyed seeing Texarkana, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati from the ground.

At the beginning of the new year, UT-Austin President Bill Powers announced the appointment of Pharmacy Dean Steve Leslie as the new University Provost. Provost Leslie will bring a strong understanding about professional education and the University to his position.

On January 4, I flew to San Francisco to work with EDAW. They are preparing a monograph to be published by Edizioni. EDAW enlisted my involvement in editing and writing the monograph. While in San Francisco, I met with several leaders of firms, as well as alumni.

Back in Austin on January 8, the Deans Council met with President Powers, Interim Provost Steve Monti, and new Provost Leslie. We discussed progress on the core curriculum, as well as the Commission of 125's second strategic initiative, that is, the strengthening of "departmental" leadership. The focus of this initiative will be on academic disciplines. In addition, the deans discussed ongoing strategic planning for enrollment, space, and facilities. President Powers also provided reflections on the faculty promotion process, which had occurred at the end of the fall semester.

As an ice storm disrupted Central Texas on Martin Luther King Day, the presidents of the major landscape architecture organizations met in the Dean's Conference Room. I participated in the meeting, representing the Landscape Architecture Foundation. The other organizations included the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, the Council of Landscape Architecture Registration Boards, the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board, and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Highlights of the meeting include continued growth of the landscape architecture profession and continued salary increases.

On Tuesday, January 16, ice paralyzed Austin, closing the University. The first day of classes, including my Environmental Readings seminar, was cancelled. This year, 21 students from architecture, landscape architecture, and community and regional planning are enrolled in my class.

As the deep freeze continued, the University closed on Wednesday and most flights were cancelled leaving Austin. Yesterday, I flew to Washington, D.C., for a Sustainable Sites Initiative meeting at the ASLA headquarters. This initiative is being led by ASLA and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and involves diverse groups like the U.S. Green Building Council, the U.S. Botanic Garden, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Our goal is to develop LEED-like or LEED standards for sites. We are making considerable progress toward this goal.

—Fritz Steiner

FALL 2006 ARCHITECTURE FINAL REVIEWS

The following visited the School in December for final studio reviews.

• Carlos Jimenez, Carlos Jimenez Studio, Houston, Texas
• Gabriel Feld, RISD, Providence, Rhode Island
• Michael Rotondi, Roto Architects, Los Angeles, California
• Ashley Schafer, Ohio University, Columbus, Ohio
• Paul Shepheard, London, England
• Talmadge Smith, PageSoutherlandPage, Austin, Texas
• Peter Di Sabitino, Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, California
• Eric Bunge, nArchitects, New York City
• Jay Baker, FAIA, Jay Baker Architects, Houston, Texas
• Marta Fry, Marta Fry Landscape Associates, San Francisco, California
• Tomas Oslund, FASLA, FAAR, oslund.and.assoc, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Claudia Horn, Design Workshop, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Brantley Hightower, Lake|Flato Architects, San Antonio, Texas
• Kristin Cory, William McDonough and Associates, Charlottesville, Virginia
• Sam Sterling, Sam Sterling Architects, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Susan Fry, San Francisco, California
• Judy Pesek, Gensler, Dallas, Texas
• Brent Jones, American Realty Corporation, Austin, Texas
• A.J. Mistretta, Austin Business Journal, Austin, Texas

Contacts

UT-Austin School of Architecture
soa.utexas.edu

Dean's Office
512-471-1922, fax 512-471-0716

Center for American Architecture and Design
512-471-9890, christinewong@mail.utexas.edu

Center for Sustainable Development
512-475-8013, utcsd@mail.utexas.edu

Assistant Dean for Development
Julie Hooper, 512-471-6114, jhooper@austin.utexas.edu

Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs
Jeanne Crawford, 512-471-0109, jcraw@mail.utexas.edu

Graduate Program Coordinator
Rosemin Gopaul, 512-471-0134, gopaul@mail.utexas.edu

Publications Editor
Pamela Peters, 512-471-0154, p.peters@mail.utexas.edu

Friends of Architecture Director and Alumni Coordinator
Stephanie Palmer, 512-471-0617, stephanie.palmer@mail.utexas.edu

Career Placement Director
Carrie O'Malley, 512-471-1333, carrie.omalley@austin.utexas.edu

Materials Lab
http://soa.utexas.edu/matlab, 512-232-5969

Architecture and Planning Library
www.lib.utexas.edu/apl/, 512-495-4620

Director of Photography
Charlotte Pickett, c.pickett@mail.utexas.edu

Webmaster
Christopher Rankin, crankin@mail.utexas.edu, 512-495-4620

UTSOA Mailing Address
The University of Texas at Austin
School of Architecture
1 University Station B7500
Austin, TX 78712-0222