SIGNATURE COURSE: LIVING COLOR

On November 4, students in the "Living Color Signature" class built a colorful fresh produce mandala on UT's South Mall in the third annual Harvest Mandala Food Drive, a benefit for the Capital Area Food Bank, which provides food and grocery products to more than 350 partner agencies in 21 Central Texas counties. Advertising major Shawn Bueche performed a yeoman's job by developing a Harvest Mandala web site that allowed for increased visibility and involvement from many students across campus.

"Living Color: Light, Science, Art, Architecture & Culture," is a multi-disciplinary Signature Course offered by the School of Architecture through the new School of Undergraduate Studies and jointly taught by UTSOA interior design professor, Dr. Nancy Kwallek, and Instructor Luanne Stovall of the College of Fine Arts. The course investigates the interdisciplinary nature of the color field, including color as wavelengths of light, biology of color vision, psychology of color perception, and the function of color and light in art, architecture, film, branding, and popular culture. The Harvest Mandala is a less conventional, but more creative, way of teaching the color wheel—the order and system of understanding color relationships.

Students and volunteers began early in the day. The rainbow colored mandala was designed to celebrate unity through diversity and the natural bounty of the harvest season. In the center was Can Mountain, grown can by can from donations of canned food and nonperishable food items brought during the day. The major building blocks were contributed by the College of Pharmacy's professional fraternity, Phi Delta Chi. The colorful mandala ("circle" in Sanskrit) of fruits and vegetables took shape around Can Mountain as a one-day art installation. Artists, musicians, dancers, balloonists, magicians, and henna hand painters participated in this multicultural celebration. All donations will benefit the Capital Area Food Bank. Last year, the event collected over 1700 pounds. This year, 1975 pounds, consisting of 875 pounds of fresh produce and 1100 pounds of canned goods, were collected.

Signature Courses are the centerpiece of a curriculum reform that began with members of the Commission of 125 and was developed by a task force of faculty and students. Signature Courses begin UT students' academic experiences with top faculty teaching intellectually rigorous classes covering nearly every subject the university has to offer.

The courses are offered to freshman students in small-class formats. The university also encourages faculty to involve students in an Academic Service Learning opportunity where "service-learning incorporates community work into the curriculum, giving students real-world learning experiences that enhance their academic learning while providing a tangible benefit for the community."

Through Signature Courses, first-year students are able to choose from a myriad of subjects offered by faculty hailing from every college and school at the university. For students who are undecided about their majors, these courses offer a perfect means of exploring new academic avenues. For those who are sure of their majors, these courses offer classes outside of their major requirements, while still fulfilling a core requirement.

Dr. Kwallek and Instructor Stovall joined forces when both saw a need for more color theory and understanding of color to be taught in their respective studios. This recognition was the impetus for creating the joint Living Color course. Their hope is to strengthen the bridge between the two programs and to develop more undergraduate and graduate color theory courses.

SUPPORT UTSOA

IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO MAKE A TAX-FREE IRA GIFT IN 2009

Would you like to make a tax-free gift from your IRA to the School of Architecture without paying income taxes on the rollover? It's not too late to make a gift this year, but please contact us by December 1.

We are excited to let you know about the extension to the charitable rollover law that allows people 70½ and older to give directly to UT Austin from their IRA's—without having to report the amount as income. Gifts may be up to $100,000 per person in 2009—the last year the law is in effect. Now is the time to act; contact the Gift Planning office by December 1 to take advantage of the charitable rollover law for 2009.

Office of Gift Planning, University Development Office
Toll Free: 866.488.3927
Phone: 512.475.9632
Email: giftplan@www.utexas.edu

SUPPORT THE SCHOOL

Our school turns 100 in 2010, and as we celebrate our history and look toward our future, we are thankful for all the support from alumni and friends like you. Our faculty and students are committed to a high standard of excellence in their work. We need to support the efforts of current—and future—community planners, landscape architects, interior designers, architects, architectural historians, and specialists in historic preservation, sustainability, and urban design.

We encourage you to remember the School of Architecture this holiday season to ensure that we continue doing the best work possible by making your Annual Fund donation today. It is very easy to make your gift online, and you may designate your gift to a program of your choice.

Our students and faculty need your support to be able to create the best plans for our cities, communities, and environment.

We encourage you to be a part of this future by making your tax-deductible contribution to the School of Architecture by December 31.

FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP

Associate Professor Lois Weinthal received a University Co-operative Society Subvention Grant in preparation of her forthcoming book, Toward a New Interior, an interior design theory reader to be published by Princeton Architectural Press. The content for this book grew from a seminar course she teaches in the School of Architecture. The book frames interiors from the immediate scale of the body, such as clothing and furniture, to that of the city as a way to elicit a broader set of issues embedded in interiors. Case studies from the past and present, along with an interdisciplinary approach provide a basis for the book. It is one of the first publications contributing to the topic of interior design theory.

Associate Professor Elizabeth Danze, FAIA, is featured in UT's Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost's Gender Equity Blog in the November 5 posting. Read about her 2009-10 Dad's Association Teaching Award and many other accomplishments on the blog.

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

ALUMNI UPDATES

Victoria Trad, LEED AP [B. Arch. '05], accepted a 2009 AIA Dallas Design Award on behalf of the Gateway Park of Mississippi project team, Perkins+Will.

Carolyn S. Peterson, FAIA [Attended '57], of Ford, Powell & Carson, San Antonio, was awarded the Texas Society of Architect's 2009 Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Honor of Llewellyn W. Pitts FAIA. This honor recognizes a lifetime of distinguished leadership and dedication in architecture and community.

The TSA Honor Awards recognizing significant contributions to the architectural profession and the quality of the built environment were presented during the 70th Annual TSA Convention, October 22-24, in Houston.

TSA ALUMNI ADDRESS FROM DEAN STEINER

Alumni and friends gathered at The Grove Restaurant on Thursday, October 22, in conjunction with the Texas Society of Architects Convention in Houston. Fifth-year architecture student (and Houston native) Lauren Braud and Dean Fritz Steiner were the featured speakers of the evening. For those of you who were unable to attend our alumni gathering, Dean Steiner shared some difficult and exciting news:

"Thank you, Lauren, for that introduction, and thank you all for coming. We were here at The Grove last February to celebrate our alumni and friends in the Houston area, and now we're back for TSA, and so glad to see all of you here. I want to keep my remarks brief, so that you all have plenty of time to visit with each other. I will touch on a couple of big issues and share some exciting news."Economy & Budget Issues: I know that all of you are experiencing the effects of our recessed economy, and we at UT are feeling it, too. As many of you have probably heard by now, the university, and by extension, our school, is facing some challenging budget shortfalls, which have already resulted in the loss of some jobs on campus.

• It's a common misconception that the university's Permanent University Fund—or PUF—provides an endless pot of gold for the university. It doesn't. As a matter of fact, during the last fiscal year, the PUF only provided 7% of the university's overall budget. Seven percent. That's a small piece of the pie, and its use is narrowly constricted.
• Another piece of the pie comes from the state. However, what was once a significant contribution of 47% in 1984, our state funding has now dwindled to below 16% and continues to decline.

"Capital Campaign: As many of you have heard by now, The University of Texas at Austin has launched a $3 billion capital campaign. The Campaign for Texas began on September 1, 2006, and will run through August 31, 2014. Our school's portion of the campaign, called "Designing the Future," has a goal of $21.5 million. That figure represents necessary funding for vital areas in which we MUST excel in order to maintain our leadership among the top architecture schools in the nation and the world.

• Our campaign focuses on people, programs, and place:
  • People — faculty (recruitment and retention) and students (namely, graduate student support and financial incentive packages)
  • Programs — academic programs, and especially our Center for American Architecture and Design and our Center for Sustainable Development, cannot operate without a high-level of support from alums and donors like you
  • Place — Battle Hall turning 100 in 2011
• I know these are unsure economic times. While we are sensitive to today's challenges, which impact all of us, we know that our goals extend over many years. I want you to also know that gifts of all sizes make a difference to our school.
• I want to share the great news that as of today, we have raised over $5 million for the School of Architecture's campaign!

"100th Anniversary: Our other exciting news is the upcoming celebration of our school's 100th anniversary.

• Next fall, the School of Architecture will celebrate 100 years since its inaugural class of 1910. We are planning a great weekend of lectures, tours, and exhibits to showcase 100 years of excellence in design education. Please help us by planning to come back to campus and join us for our celebratory weekend.
• If you have any questions about the 100th anniversary, or what you can do to help, please contact Stacy Manning.

"And lastly, I want you all to know that we are here for you. Carrie O'Malley, our Career Services Center Director, is in attendance tonight. She has been helping many alums with job searches during this difficult time. We are planning to have a presence at all professional development conferences over the next 12 months in order to give our alums an opportunity to gather and network, and you are always welcome to contact any one of us with a specific concern or question. Please let us know how we can help you.

"Thank you all for being here tonight."

ALUMNI EVENTS

We want you to stay involved and connected to the school, so please join us for one of our many upcoming alumni events:

• American Planning Association (APA) Convention Reception
  New Orleans, Louisiana
  Saturday, April 10, 2010 (tentative)

• American Institute of Architects (AIA) Convention Reception
  Miami, Florida
  Thursday, June 10, 2010 (tentative)

• American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Conference Reception - NeoCon World's Trade Fair
  Tuesday, June 15, 2010 (tentative)
  Chicago, Illinois

We are continuing our effort to find (and maintain) the most accurate contact information for all of our alumni. Stay in touch with former classmates—update your record and contact preferences by logging on to the university's online alumni directory.

More details will be available on the School of Architecture alumni web page as events approach. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact Stacy Manning at smanning@austin.utexas.edu or 512.471.0617.

CAREER RESOURCES FOR ALUMNI

The Career Services Center provides services and resources to all alumni of the School of Architecture. Alums may register on Career Source to search for seasoned positions, as well as freelance opportunities.

Did you know that as an alumnus of the University of Texas, you have access to valuable career tools such as AccessUT and Texas Exes Career Services?

AccessUT is an online job and internship database within the university's Hire Texas web site that allows students and alumni to view postings from employers searching for their next hire. It also provides employers a free, centralized place to post professional, career-related job and internship opportunities for students and alumni.

The Texas Exes offers important career services such as one-on-one career consultations, resume critiques, coaching, online career assessment tools, seminars, job-searching resources, networking opportunities, and a Virtual Career Center.

We want you to connect with our current students!
If you have internships, or part-time or full-time positions available for UTSOA students, contact the Career Services Center to post your opportunities on Career Source. You can also contact the Career Services Center to learn more about career events, including Career EXPO, Career Week, portfolio reviews, on-campus recruiting, and mock interviews.

Career Week 2010
Registration for Career Week 2010 begins October 15. Career Week is our annual spring on-campus recruitment event that allows employers the opportunity to interview pre-selected candidates from our current student body for part-time, full-time, and internship positions. This spring's event is scheduled for March 30-April 1. For more information, log into Career Source.

EVENTS

For the latest updates, check out the online UTSOA Calendar.

EXHIBIT

November 9 – December 12
Mebane Gallery
Goldsmith Hall (Monday-Friday, 8-5)

Ronit Eisenbach and Sarah Bonnemaison:
Installation Tectonics

LECTURE

Monday, November 9
Goldsmith Hall 3.120, 5:00 p.m.

Carl Steinitz
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Cambridge, Massachusetts

"Landscape Planning: A History of Influential Ideas"

LECTURE

Wednesday, November 11
Texas Union, Lone Star Room 3.208, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Dr. Fernando Lara and Dr. Bjorn Sletto

"The Planned and Unplanned: Brasilia 2010 & Favela Studio"

As part of UT's Brazil Week, Assistant Professors Lara and Sletto will present a talk on Latin American urbanization, the challenge of the Brazilian favelas, the Brasilia 2010 spring lecture series, and the CRP and Latin American Studies dual degree program.

LECTURE

Wednesday, November 11
Goldsmith Hall 3.120, 5:00 p.m.

Ross Wimer
Chicago

"Current Work"

LECTURE

Wednesday, November 18
Goldsmith Hall 3.120, 5:00 p.m.

Ronit Eisenbach
College Park, Maryland

"Installations by Architects"

Ronit Eisenbach is an associate professor of architecture and chair of the Kibel Gallery at the University of Maryland. She teaches design to majors, as well as a general education undergraduate course, Introduction to the Built Environment. An interest in thinking through making and refining perception has led her to teach a series of situation-based, design-build studios that frame elements of architecture such as light, color, space, and movement.

Eisenbach's installations and maps have been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad in venues such as the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Graham Foundation, the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Art Gallery of Windsor, Princeton University, and the streets of Tel Aviv. These temporary works explore how perception of subjective, invisible, and ephemeral objects affects understanding and experience of place.

Her new book (with Sarah Bonnemaison), Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building and Design explores the rising importance of installations as professional and pedagogical tools of architecture that can serve as a vehicle to generate public dialogue about the built environment.

PRESENTATION

Tuesday, December 1
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Auditorium
11:30-1:00
4801 La Crosse Avenue, Austin, Texas

Steve Windhager, Ph.D.
Director of Landscape Restoration,
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

"What is the Sustainable Sites Initiative?"

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary effort by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden to create voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction, and maintenance practices.

The central message of the Sustainable Sites Initiative is that any landscape—whether the site of a large subdivision, a shopping mall, a park, an abandoned rail yard, or even one home—holds the potential both to improve and regenerate the natural benefits and services provided by ecosystems in their undeveloped state. While there are existing standards for sustainable structures, there are no comprehensive guidelines for those who want to create and measure sustainable landscapes. The Sustainable Sites Initiative Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is intended to be a tool for those who design, construct, operate, and maintain landscapes, including but not limited to planners, landscape architects, engineers, developers, builders, facility managers, horticulturists, governments, land stewards, and organizations offering building standards.

For more information, write to: info@sustainablesites.org.

You are invited to bring your lunch to the presentation or purchase one in the café.

CENTER LUNCH FORUM SERIES

Roughly every other Friday during the fall and spring semesters, The Center for American Architecture and Design hosts a Friday Lunch Forum Series. The aim of the series is for faculty and students to meet in an informal atmosphere to debate topics and to share ideas about history, practice, theory, and new directions for architecture.

All Center Lunch Forums take place at 12:00 noon (CST) in Battle Hall, Room 101, and via LIVE WEBCAST. (Download RealPlayer here. It's free.)

Visit the Center website for updates and to access the live webcast. Remaining forums on the fall 2009 schedule include:

• November 6, Michael Garrison, "Gentrification Mitagation"
• November 20, Vincent Snyder

CITY FORUM SERIES

City Forum is a planning and urban issues speaker series hosted by the Community and Regional Planning Student Organization (CRPSO) and the Community and Regional Planning Program (CRP) at The University of Texas at Austin. The bi-weekly speaker series is intended to broaden the curriculum in the CRP program by presenting the experiences, perspectives, and insights of scholars, community leaders, practicing planners, and policy makers who engage in timely issues.

For questions, comments, or suggestions related to City Forum, contact Kathryn Howell.

Friday, November 6
"The Layers, Faces, and Impacts of Planning: A Community's Dilemma and an Organization's Challenge"
Location: Texas Union, Chicano Culture Room (UNB 4.206), noon to 1:30 p.m.

The challenges of community planning extend beyond American cities and regions into villages, cities, and neighborhoods world-wide. During summer 2009, CRP students conducted a viability and vitality assessment of a community school in Nairobi, Kenya. They worked closely with community members and conducted field visits, sensitized parties to the process, interviewed a wide range of stakeholders, and held a community forum.

This student-led City Forum will focus on the students' work, the challenges they faced, and the lessons learned from this experience.

Panelists:

• Robyn T. Emerson, CRP student and board member of Providence Ministries. Robyn has worked in Kenya on the nation's national development plan, VISION 2030, and with other national organizations as a consultant, developing strategic and evaluation plans.
• Nathan Laughlin, CRP student and lead engineer for the Lower Colorado River Authority
• S. Bennett Powell, CRP student

EXHIBIT

October 5 – December 12
Materials Lab
West Mall Building, Room 3.102 (Monday-Friday, 9-6)

Constructions in PAPER

Current students from three UTSOA studios explored the material properties of paper in their first assignment of the semester. Each studio assignment was different in their program and design requirements; however, collectively through analog and digital methods of manipulation - folding, bending, perforating, ripping, scoring, crushing, weaving, and/or cutting - each form of representation provides a unique designed component and assembly of parts. Generative and iterative explorations are seen three-dimensionality and in form and surface.

The work on display is a collaboration from Design 5 Architecture with Assistant Professor Michael Beaman, Design 5 Interior with Assistant Professor Igor Siddiqui, and Vertical Studio with Assistant Professor Danelle Briscoe.

EXHIBIT

September 8, 2009-January 15, 2010
Visual Resources Collection
Sutton Hall 3.128 (Monday-Friday, 8-5)

"The Passage to the New: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1938, Photographs by Christopher Long"

During the mid-1980s, Christopher Long, professor in architectural history at The University of Texas at Austin, photographed the built environment in Central and Eastern Europe. Awarded a Fulbright to study at the University of Vienna, Long researched his dissertation on the life and work of architect and designer Josef Frank.

Trained as a cultural historian, Long began a self-taught crash course in architectural history. He walked the streets of Vienna, Hungary, and Poland. He visited and observed every Frank building and photographed other examples of Viennese modernism, including buildings by Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Adolf Loos. He photographed during the cold winter months, when light was clearest, in order to overcome Austria's overcast weather and capture building façades often veiled in the shadows of their neighbors.

From 1994 to 1996, Professor Long lived and taught in Prague. He shot images of a city in transition, being rebuilt after the fall of communism.

The Visual Resources Collection (VRC) collaborated with ARTstor, a digital library of over one million images licensed by the University of Texas Libraries, to catalog and digitize over two hundred of Professor Long's slides. The exhibit represents a selection of images from ARTstor's Christopher Long: Central European Architecture collection.

Funding for lectures and exhibits is provided in part by: Brightman/York Endowed Lecture Series in Interior Design, Edwin W. and Alyce O. Carroll Centennial Lectureship in Architecture, Bluford Walter Crain Centennial Endowed Lectureship, Gensler Exhibitions Endowment, Herbert M. Greene Centennial Lectureship in Architecture, The Wolf and Janet Jessen Centennial Lectureship in Architecture, Karl Kamrath Lectureship in Architecture, Jane Marie Tacquard Patillo Centennial Lectureship, Edwin A. Schneider Centennial Lectureship in Architecture, School of Architecture Exhibitions Fund, and Wilsonart Endowed Lecture Series in Interior Design.

CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Get Clean to Get Green

On October 24, the Center for Sustainable Development hosted "Get Clean to Get Green," the first phase to clean-up the brownfield that will be the future home of the Guadalupe-Saldaña Net-Zero Energy Subdivision, America's first 100% affordable, net-zero energy neighborhood. The CSD partnered with several community organizations, including the City of Austin, and in just a few short hours, volunteers removed over 9,600 pounds of tires, trash, and debris from the site.

This event was in collaboration with the 350.org International Day of Climate Action, where over 5,200 events took place worldwide in 181 countries to spread awareness of the fact that we are currently above the 350 ppm sustainable limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

CSD Film Series

The Center for Sustainable Development is hosting a film series for sustainability-related movies, documentaries, and short films. Films will be shown every other Thursday evening this fall. They begin at 7:00 p.m. and are followed by a brief discussion of the themes and ideas presented in the film. Weather permitting, they will be shown in the Goldsmith Courtyard, or in Goldsmith Lecture Hall 3.120 in the event of inclement weather. The remaining films of the fall series are:

• November 5, Blue Vinyl, an award-winning documentary about the lifecycle of polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC, which has dire effects on human health and the environment from cradle to grave


• November 19, The Unforeseen, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Laura Dunn. The Unforeseen is a documentary about the fight over development in the Barton Creek watershed between activists, environmentalists, and developers, and the many issues surrounding development and urban growth in Austin.

CONTACTS

In this fast-paced world, there's a lot of news to keep up with. We know you are doing great things, and we rely on you not only to share your stories, but also to keep us up-to-date on your contact information so that we can share our stories with you. Alumni, please send your news and contact updates to Associate Director of Constituent and Alumni Relations Stacy Manning at smanning@austin.utexas.edu. Students, faculty, and staff may send updates to eNews editor Pamela Peters at p.peters@mail.utexas.edu.

UT-Austin School of Architecture
soa.utexas.edu

Dean's Office
512.471.1922, fax 512.471.0716

Center for Sustainable Development
Assistant Director, Barbara Wilson
bebrown@mail.utexas.edu, 512.471.2709

Center for American Architecture and Design
Administrative Associate, Christine Wong
christinewong@mail.utexas.edu, 512.471.9890

Assistant Dean for Development
Julie Hooper, jhooper@austin.utexas.edu, 512.471.6114

Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs
Jeanne Crawford, jcraw@mail.utexas.edu, 512.471.0109

Program Coordinator for Graduate Affairs
Rosemin Gopaul, gopaul@austin.utexas.edu, 512.471.0134

Associate Director of Constituent and Alumni Relations
Stacy Manning, smanning@austin.utexas.edu, 512.471.0617

Career Services Center
Director, Carrie O'Malley
carrie.omalley@austin.utexas.edu, 512.471.1333

Materials Lab
http://soa.utexas.edu/matlab, 512.232.5969

Visual Resources Collection
http://soa.utexas.edu/vrc/, 512.471.0143

Architecture and Planning Library
www.lib.utexas.edu/apl/, 512.495.4620

Publications Editor
Pamela Peters, p.peters@mail.utexas.edu, 512.471.0154

Event Coordinator
Alley Lyles, alyles@austin.utexas.edu, 512.471.8187

Webmaster
Christopher Rankin, crankin@mail.utexas.edu, 512.471.3703

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