FALL 2006 GRADUATION ADDRESS:
TREND IS NOT DESTINY, BUT DESIGN AND PLANNING ARE

Dean Fritz Steiner presented the following address to graduates, families, and friends of the School of Architecture on Saturday, December 9, 2006, at a ceremony and dinner in Goldsmith Hall.

"Trend is not destiny," Lewis Mumford, the 20th century architecture and urban critic, observed. However, an analysis of trends can reveal our past and suggest options for our futures. During the morning of October 17, 2006, the 300,000,000th American arrived, either by birth or by immigration. Looking ahead, we will welcome our 400 millionth American by 2043.

Where will the next 100 million Americans live?

A growing body of research suggests that more than 80 percent of the nation's population and economic growth will occur in ten to twelve megaregions by mid-century. The Regional Plan Association defines a megaregion as large connected networks of metropolitan areas. The Texas Triangle with Houston and San Antonio at the base and the Dallas-Fort Worth region at the apex and Austin in the middle is one of those megaregions. The Texas Triangle is expected to grow by 10 to 12 million people in the next 20 to 30 years.

The population growth in the Texas Triangle is part of larger national and global trends. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 2 billion people on the planet. Now there are 6.3 billion, and we're expected to grow to 9 to 10 billion by mid-century.

Most of these people now live in urban regions like the Texas Triangle. Over half the world's population live in cities for the first time. As a result, we now live in the First Urban Century. Global urbanization in large city-regions was the theme of this year's Venice Architecture Biennale.

Population growth in the United States is being fueled both by births and by immigration. New immigrants are changing the face of urban landscapes. During past waves of immigration, new residents settled in the urban cores of traditional gateway cities like New York and Chicago. In the current wave, immigrants are just as likely to settle in suburban neighborhoods and rural areas of emerging gateway regions such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

In addition to changing settlement patterns, immigration, population growth, and urbanization are influencing the design and planning professions in numerous ways. For example, let us consider the contribution of buildings.

Buildings contribute around 45 percent of the greenhouse gases in the United States and consume about 45 percent of the energy used in the nation. Meanwhile, because of population growth, we will need to produce many more buildings. By 2030, half the buildings will have been constructed between now and then. In addition to buildings, we will also need twice as many roads, parks, water and sewer lines, and other infrastructure. The implications for architecture, planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, and interior design should be clear.

Beyond the building, elements like paving, especially black asphalt for roads and parking lots, result in several problems. For instance, dark surfaces absorb much more heat than light surfaces, which reflect sunlight. As a result, dark surfaces such as those comprised of black asphalt contribute to urban heat islands. In addition, hard surfaces increase surface runoff after storms and decrease water infiltration. Flooding and groundwater recharge problems result. In addition, the more we pave, the more wildlife habitat and prime farmland we lose. White roofs, concrete-colored pavement, smaller parking lots and roads, and more trees would do much to improve urban livability.

As the demographics of Texas and the nation continue to change, design and planning must also adjust to understanding and responding to more diverse cultures. As noted, new immigrants are as likely to move to Addison, Texas, as the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A challenge to an architect or planner is how to incorporate the values of an immigrant from Mumbai or Guatemala City or Lagos into the north Texas landscape.

So what do we, more importantly, what do you--new graduates--do about these opportunities and challenges? What are the barriers faced by architecture and the other professions represented in our School?

Let's begin with architecture.

Some claim the star system holds back architecture. I'll let you in on a guilty secret: I'm actually fond of the star system. We need heroes. Star architects pave new paths and explore new ideas through form. Our architecture heroes are fun.., but flawed. Alas, the flaws are many. We prop them up, then we tear them down. Their personal lives are exposed (even if they are pretty boring). The stars tend to be old white guys with bowties, round black glasses, and a penchant for monochromaticism.

There's hope. First, we have increasingly more women heroes, including women who aren't from European heritage--Zaha Hadid, Merrill Elam, and Billie Tsien, for example. Many of our graduates are rising star architects such as Craig Dykers and his Snøhetta colleagues, Lake/Flato, Bercy Chen Studio.

Here, in the School, we try to promote future heroes from unexpected places. This past fall, our speakers were refreshingly international and detail-oriented. My personal favorites were Lisa Switkin's tour de force explanation of Field Operation's work on New York's High Line Project and Francisco Mangado's inventive, thoughtful work in Spain.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the star system is not in the creation of heroes--we need heroes; rather, it is that the star system limits the role-model options open to architects as a design path.

There are other career path options. Academics is one. Can one imagine a Nobel Laureate in physics not being an academic, or a Pulitzer Prize winner in history?

Actually, architecture has a long interesting academic past. We in the academy have launched the likes of Paul Cret, Lou Kahn, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, our own Charles Moore, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, and on and on. But let me suggest a different path, where academics isn't a launching pad, but an end into itself. My heroes in this regard are other deans who are expanding the scope of their schools, such as Donna Robertson, who has created a landscape architecture degree at ITT; Brenda Scheer, who created a planning degree at Utah; and Gary Hack, who created a new digital design degree at Penn.

Our School is doing our part to advance scholarship, too. In 2006-2007, School faculty will publish eight books. This is a high level of scholarly productivity for a relatively small faculty.

Another option to the design path is urbanism. There's the so-called New Urbanism mostly led by architects, who romanticize the past, and Big Urbanism, championed by star architects, who romanticize the future. There's the more edgy urbanism, mostly led by landscape architects, like West 8 in The Netherlands, as well as James Corner and his Field Operations colleagues. There's the pragmatic urbanism, led mostly by planners. Then, there's the creative urbanism, again led by architects like Ricky Burdett.

Another option to the design path for architecture is sustainability, the green route. From Pliny Fisk through Bill McDonough on to Raphael Pelli, architects continue to advance green building design.

Housing provides anotheer career path for architects. For brevity's sake, let's look west to California and the work of Renee Chow and Teddy Cruz. They have enhanced our understanding of housing in suburban spaces and shanty towns.

Beyond these fields, other options for architecture include materials research (see the work of Sheila Kennedy), the whole building process (the ideas of Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake), or geeky constructionists like Ken Yeang and Santiago Calatrava, who have risen engineering to art.

A few architects have focused their energies on the poor, such as Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair and our own Sergio Palleroni. These architects are charting new synthetic, worthwhile paths that overlap a great deal with community and regional planning.

To take advantage of the challenges and opportunities presented by urbanization, population growth, and immigrations, planners, I believe, need to renew our ties with architecture and landscape architecture. A few weeks ago, an architecture graduate student asked me why there weren't any courses in public participation or social research in the School. I responded that there are--in our Community and Regional Planning Program. However, we don't make those courses very accessible to others in the School. We need to change this.

In addition to public participation, planners have developed considerable expertise in land-use law, environmental policy, public health, and transportation systems. This knowledge can be very useful for architects, landscape architects, preservationists, and interior designers. Such knowledge will be expanded by such increased interaction.

Landscape architecture has much to contribute, as well. To maximize this potential, I believe, landscape architects need to increase their understanding of the basic media with which they work--soils, water, and plants. Such ecological knowledge can contribute much to the challenges presented by urbanism.

Which brings us to interior design. We spend much of our lives indoors. If there will be a lot more of us living on Earth, and if we'll be living in urban areas, and if we'll be of more diverse backgrounds, then how we spend times indoors will be increasingly important. I think the most significant challenges faced by interior design is a lack of theory. For the profession to advance, theory is essential because, after all, there's nothing as practical as a good theory. Graduate-level study is important in this regard, which is why our School is exploring the establishment of Master of Interior Design degree.

Graduates, you have much to offer. The world needs you. Population, urbanism, and immigration trends demand your knowledge and skills. I agree with Lewis Mumford, "trend is not destiny," however, design and planning are destiny.

—Fritz Steiner

RESULTS: FRANCISCO "PACO" ARUMI NOÉ
MEMORIAL SUNDIAL COMPETITION

To honor the memory of Professor Francisco "Paco" Arumi-Noé, the School of Architecture hosted a competition to design a permanent sundial for the south face of Goldsmith Hall (http://soa.utexas.edu/ events/paco_sundial.pdf).

We are pleased to announce that Jeff Barajas from Assistant Professor Samantha Randall's design studio was selected as the winner. In Jeff's words:

"This simple, yet meaningful, memorial utilizes a series of both glass and steel rods to display the hours of the day and is also spanned by four longer stainless steel rods that are traced by the sundial's shadow on the solstices, equinoxes, and on the day which Mr. Arumi-Noe was born. The steel rods cast darker shadows to indicate the current time as well as the shadow of noon. The glass rods cast more subtle shadows that indicate the hours 8-11 a.m. and 1-4 p.m. by their relationship to the darker noon shadow. The materials used in this design require minimal maintenance and can be easily secured into the existing grout joints."

A total of 21 entries were received, with 19 coming from current students. One was received from alumnus Richard Uzzell [B.Arch. '79; B.S.A.S. '80], and another from Hawkeye Glenn, a friend of Paco's son. We were especially gratified to receive those entries from outside the current student body. Jurors were very impressed with the range and sophistication of the group of entries. The Runner-up entry was from the team of Leun Jee Choi/Tram Ha; Honorable Mention: Matt Macioge; Innovation Award: (tie) Matt Ostrowski and Leun Jee Choi/Tram Ha; and Pedagogy Award: M. James Denny.

The sundial committee wishes to thank all the participants for their hard work, creativity, and inspiring designs. An additional note of appreciation goes to Professor Richard Swallow and Assistant Professor Samantha Randall for supporting the competition through their design studios.

The jury met in two groups to vote on a shortlist of entries, then made their final selections by email ballot. In a dramatic turn of events, the winning entry came in a distant second in the shortlist tally, but in final voting all but one juror placed it in the top spot. The jury consisted of Arthur Andersson of Andersson-Wise Architects (abstained from final voting); Bill Booziotis, architect of the Goldsmith addition; Gail Vittori, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems; Pat Clubb, UT-Austin Vice President for Employee and Campus Services; Associate Professor Dan Leary; Associate Professor Vince Snyder; Associate Dean Kent Butler; and Dean Fritz Steiner.

Events

EXHIBIT

September 11, 2006, through January 12, 2007
Visual Resources Collection
Sutton 3.128 (Monday-Friday, 8-5)

"Through the Eyes of an Architect:
Images from R. James Coote's Travels"

"Through the Eyes of an Architect: Images from R. James Coote's Travels" features digital prints from selected 35mm slides donated to the Visual Resources Collection (VRC) by Professor Emeritus R. James Coote. Along with almost two thousand slides from his personal collection, Professor Coote provided thorough descriptions of each image facilitating the creation of online catalog records; the entire donation is in the process of being digitized and will be available online for use by the University community.

From 1965-2000, Professor Emeritus Coote taught architectural design and architectural history courses to undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Texas at Austin.

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

Each year, the Texas Exes take great pride in recognizing a professor and graduate instructor from each college with the Texas Exes Teaching Awards. This year's recipients from the School of Architecture are Assistant Professor Ulrich Dangel and Teaching Assistant Hillary Collins.

Recipients for these awards are chosen solely by the students. These are unique awards based largely on the teacher-student relationship. The presentation of the 2007 Texas Exes Teaching Awards will be Tuesday, February 6, 2007, at 5:30 p.m. at the Alumni Center.

Lecturer Mark Macek [B.Arch. '90], who teaches woodworking and furniture design at the School and owns Mark Macek Furniture, was featured in the December 3, 2006, edition of the Austin American-Stateman in an article on Austin art and artisans by Michele Chan Santos. His response to Santos' question, "Are these works of art?" is "I don't call it art. There is something mystical about that. But I do think a well-designed table expresses something an ordinary table does not." To see more of Mark's furniture designs, visit http://www.macekfurniture.com/ and http://www.maceksolidarts.com/.

On December 11, 2006, Assistant Professor Ming Zhang took and passed the national examination of the American Institute of Certified Planner (AICP). AICP is the professional institute of the American Planning Association and offers the national exam twice a year. Detailed information about the exam is available at http://www.planning.org/certification/.

The Essential Ian McHarg: Writings on Design and Nature, edited by Dean Fritz Steiner was recently published by Island Press. The book brings together a series of short essays that reveal the full range of McHarg's thoughts on design and nature. Adapted from the comprehensive book of his work, To Heal the Earth (co-edited by Steiner), these carefully selected essays provide an ideal reader for undergraduate and graduate students in planning and landscape architecture.

Professor Steiner also recently published a chapter titled "Mapping for Sustainable Resilience," co-authored with Barbara Faga, James Sipes, and Robert Yaro, in the book, Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina (University of Pennsylvania Press).

The Prothro House in Dallas designed by Professor Larry Speck has gotten a lot of notice lately. It was published in the November 2006 edition of Architectural Digest. It won a national Tucker Award from the Stone Institute and was published in Building Stone Magazine, fall 2006. It also received a National Award of Honor from ASLA for its garden design done in collaboration with Mesa Design in Dallas and was published in the October/November 2006 edition of Garden Design. It was also chosen as a recipient of a Texas Association of Building Contractors Excellence in Construction Award 2006 (contractor was Thomas Byrne of Ft. Worth).

Larry also wrote a chapter in the recent UT Press publication called The Texas Book. He gave a talk on that chapter at the Texas Book Festival this fall.

Associate Dean Louise Harpman, a Faculty Fellow of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, has received a grant from the RGK Center to expand the DesignBuildTexas project. The grant will enable her to develop a multi-year project format and develop partnerships with nonprofit organizations.

STUDENT NEWS AND AWARDS

Brett Firfer, AICP [B.S.A.S. '95, M.S.C.R.P. '97] was recently elevated to Associate Justice Planner at Ricci Greene Associates Architecture + Planning in Manhattan, where he has been working for more than seven years. His primary work focuses on planning and programming for courthouses, jails, and juvenile facilities. Currently, he is working on programming and planning for four New York City courthouses, a courthouse in Franklin County, Ohio, and a courthouse in Augusta, Maine. Other recent projects include three related studies for the King County (Washington) Cities Jail Needs; jail studies for Seattle and Auburn, Washington; and a courthouse in Fort Bend County, Texas.

It was just announced that graduatate student Parker Williams, working with Lecturer Elizabeth Alford and Professor Michael Garrison on the Texas Back Home modular housing project, won the 2007 Green Building Design Student Competition. The award includes a $2500 scholarship. His design will be showcased at the Modular Building Institute's 2007 Annual Convention.

ALUMNI NEWS

Catherine Hardwicke [B.Arch. '79] used to build Nativity scenes in her living room as a child. As director of the film "The Nativity Story," she had the opportunity to retell the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem on a larger scale. The movie, which is similar to the accounts found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, was released earlier this month. Hardwicke previously directed the films "Thirteen" and "Lords of Dogtown."

IN MEMORIAM

Don Tew [B.S.A.S. '64; B.Arch. '66] passed away on November 20, 2006, at the age of 65, having suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. Managing his own firm, Tew Associates, Don designed 68 church sanctuaries and buildings--including Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin--and about 30 Central Texas schools over the course of his career.

We encourage all alumni to share news with us by submitting updates to Stephanie Palmer at stephanie.palmer@mail.utexas.edu. In addition, if you know of other alumni who may not be receiving this or other SOA publications, please forward their information to Stephanie or encourage them to contact her.

INTRODUCING: HISTORIC PRESERVATION PROGRAM NEWSLETTER

Keep up with the latest news, events, awards, calls for papers, opportunities, and more from the UTSOA Historic Preservation Program. Program Director Michael Holleran and newsletter editor, second-year preservation student Melissa Huber, have created HP NEWS, packed with items of interest in preservation (http://soa.utexas.edu/hp/news).

Contact HP News staff with questions, comments, or requests at HPnews@mail.utexas.edu

FRIENDS OF ARCHITECTURE

Now is the time to reserve your spot on Friends of Architecture's February 3 & 4 tour of Dallas homes. Professor Larry Speck will guide us through a stunning array of Dallas' most spectacular residential architecture. You won't want to miss this opportunity to tour private homes designed by Bodron+Fruit, Cunningham Architects, Morrison Seifert Murphy, and others. If you want to experience Dallas style for yourself, make your reservation now, before another Friends of Architecture tour is sold out!

To make a deposit, visit Friends of Architecture's online store at http://utdirect.utexas.edu/txshop/item_details.WBX?cart_id=0ATSYMPOS&dept_prefix=AT&item_id=21&cat_seq_chosen=02&subcategory_ seq_chosen=000&r_cust_service_url=.

For information on Friends of Architecture membership, visit http://soa.utexas.edu/foa/intro.

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 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