Dean's Journal
Advisory Council chair Susan Benz, former deans Larry Speck and Hal Box, and Dean Fritz Steiner at the home of Ed Blaine. Photograph by Charlotte Pickett.
The School's Foundation Advisory Council met on October 28 and 29. Council chair Susan Benz [B.Arch. '84] has been leading her fellow council members in an exciting renewal process over the last year, and this fall gathering was no exception. Among the many positive changes was the creation of a strategic planning team of members, including Diane Cheatham, Kent Collins [B.Arch. '81], Diana Keller, Graham Luhn [B.Arch. '60], Jana McCann [B.Arch. '80], Charles Phillips [B.Arch. '74, M.Arch. '75], Alan Sadeghpour [B.Arch. '75, M.Arch. '78], Dan Shipley [B.Arch. '79], Laura Toups, and Gordon White. This volunteer "SWAT team" will help the School in an assessment of benchmark measures to enhance the School's standing among our peers. This important review will lay the groundwork for restructuring the council to support the School's mission and programs in the coming year.
The group also enjoyed a presentation by UT-Austin Vice President for Resource Development Rick Eason. Vice President Eason made presentations to the group to help us plan for organizational competitiveness and urged our council to understand who we are, where we want to go, and to "think in transformative terms" of how we get there.
Former School of Architecture dean Hal Box (right) was presented with a commemorative award by UT-Austin President Larry Faulkner. Photograph by Emily Moore.
The council also recognized former dean Hal Box [B.Arch. '50] as its first honorary member. At our Friday evening dinner, graciously hosted by Ed Blaine, Susan Benz, Professor Larry Speck, and I noted Hal's many contributions to the School. The next morning President Larry Faulkner formally thanked Hal on behalf of the University and presented him with a commemorative award marking his achievements.
After a School faculty meeting on November 1, I flew to Los Angeles for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) fall meeting. That evening and the next day, I participated in the ULI Sustainable Development Council activities. On Wednesday, November 2, we met at the new Playa Vista development. Located on the site of the former Howard Hughes airport, the development evolved from a New Urbanist plan in the late 1980s and early 1990s into a conservation-oriented "green" design from the late 1990s to the present. As a result, Playa Vista provides a good case study where New Urbanism and sustainable design principles have been implemented. The topics addressed included conservation-oriented development, the recycling of building materials, green design, and specific project design.
Later that afternoon, EDAW President and ULI Program Chair Joe Brown opened the meeting. He introduced the 2005 J. C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development recipient Albert Ratner of Forest City Enterprise. The award presentation was followed by the first plenary speaker Ken Dychtward. He described how population growth and demographic trends will dramatically transform urban regions in the twenty-first century.
On Thursday, November 3, I attended a presentation by former U.S. Secretary of Interior and former Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt, who proposed a new vision for land-use planning in America. He used his new book, Cities in the Wilderness, as well as the recent Katrina disaster to explain his thesis. According to Secretary Babbitt, Katrina "illustrates the total vacancy of national land use policy." He offered concrete suggestions for establishing such a policy, using precedents starting with George Washington.
Next, I attended a panel led by Robert Grow of Envision Utah. This panel addressed how to implement regional visioning efforts, like our Envision Central Texas project. This panel hit home because I am currently deeply involved in helping to set priorities for a proposed bond election for the City of Austin. A successful bond election promises to advance the Envision Central Texas vision. Mr. Grow will be a keynote speaker for the State Highway 130 Summit on November 19, sponsored by Envision Central Texas. (See: http://www.envisioncentraltexas.org.)
Author Paul Hawken spoke about cities as "ecological arks" in his lunch plenary lecture. He connected the greening of the world's cities to social justice. Mr. Hawken observed, "There's no client but the future."
On Friday, November 4, I flew to the joint Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture/Council of Educators in Landscape Architcture (ACSA/CELA) administrators conference in Baltimore. On Saturday, Maurice Cox of the University of Virginia, the former Charlottesville mayor and present councilman, moderated a session on leadership in society. Professor Cox's panel included former Rhode Island Congressman Robert Weygand and former New Hampshire Congressman and Ambassador to Denmark Richard Swett. Congressman Weygand is the only landscape architect to serve in the U.S. Congress during the twentieth century and Ambassador Swett the only architect. Congressman Weygand discussed developing leadership through motivation, education, dedication, and recognition. Ambassador Swett drew on his new book, Leadership by Design: Creating an Architecture of Trust, to illustrate why design matters for political leadership.
The Design Deans' Collaborative of Public Research Universities met on Sunday, November 6. We discussed two recent reports: a white paper titled "Sustaining a Diversely Qualified Faculty in Design Programs" prepared by individuals from CELA and ACSA and "Assessing the Diversity of Planning School Work: A Proposal for ACSP Planning School Performance Measurement" prepared by an Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning working group. (I serve on the latter and if anyone would like a copy of either proposal, please contact me.) Our deans group also discussed tenure, accreditation, and budget issues. We decided to write a white paper on national research priorities for design schools. The eleven collaborative participants identified the following topics for the paper: emergency management, energy and sustainable development, urbanization and regionalization, integrated design and construction, national security, public health, and housing.
I returned to Austin on November 7 to participate in Professor Michael Benedikt's studio review. His students are creating designs for a new humanities building on the University of Texas at Dallas campus.
After the studio review, I participated in the City of Austin's Bond Election Advisory Committee Monday evening. We heard from a number of cities about community needs including open space, affordable housing, urban infrastructure, Great Streets, a new library, and neighborhood centers. We discussed the recommendations that we will make to the City Council for the bond package to take to the voters.
Dean Fritz Steiner and Advisory Council member Bill Booziotis at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts groundbreaking on November 10. Photograph by Kris Muñoz Vetter.
On Tuesday, November 8, I helped to organize an Envision Central Texas State Highway 130 Summit, that is scheduled for Saturday, November 19. I was also Austin City Councilman Brewster McCracken's guest for an Austin History Center lunch at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel.
Associate Dean Kent Butler and I participated with the Envision Central Texas Open Space Committee in a workshop on Wednesday. Over 25 open space advocates from across the region participated. Organized by Open Space chair Robin Rather, this group discussed open spaces issues and a vision for the future open space system.
Assistant Dean Kris Muñoz Vetter and I flew to Dallas on Thursday, November 10, to attend the groundbreaking for the new Center for the Performing Arts, and had lunch with Advisory Council member Ken Hughes and discussed our work on the Center site design committee. We then returned for the School's Charles W. Moore Lecture by Rick Joy and for Placeworks IV, the annual benefit party for the Charles W. Moore Center for the Study of Space (http://www.charlesmoore.org/). This year's highly-successful event was chaired by Friends of Architecture chair Diana Keller. The party featured the Center's new Place Notes series (distributed by the University of Texas Press) and a silent auction of works by architects, artists, and designers.
—Fritz Steiner
