Dean's Journal

Many topics are discussed and debated in the halls of Goldsmith, Sutton, and Battle. Football is rarely mentioned by the faculty or staff (with the notable exception of network analyst and die-hard Longhorn fan Tisha Alvarado). However, since the Texas Rose Bowl victory, we rival ESPN in our gridiron discussions. The National Championship certainly reinforced a sense of community around the School, on campus, and throughout Austin.

The end of the fall semester and the beginning of the spring semester bookended the Rose Bowl. The conclusion of the fall semester included studio juries, final examinations, and graduation ceremonies. The new spring semester brought a return of students and the beginning of new classes.

At the end of the fall semester, I visited Boise State University and the University of California-Berkeley. Boise State is considering the creation of a new community and regional planning program and sought my advice. Idaho is facing rapid growth. As a result, civic leaders are exploring ways to balance development and conservation. They are lobbying university officials to establish a planning program to help pursue this balance. After two days in frigid Boise, I flew to the Bay Area to conduct a review of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Berkeley with Penn Design Dean Gary Hack and Georgia Tech professor Catherine Ross. The two visits consisted of an interesting juxtaposition of a planning program at its birth and a mature academic program.

On Monday, December 19, I met at the American Society of Landscape Architecture (ASLA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. I had helped organize a technical advisory committee of academics, as well as environmental organization and government agency staff. The purpose of the meeting and the committee is to map the environmentally sensitive areas of the Gulf Coast Region from Pensacola, Florida, to Houston, Texas. Associate Professors Kent Butler and Bob Paterson also serve on the technical advisory committee.

The mapping exercise is being led by the landscape architecture firm EDAW, geographic information systems pioneer ESRI, and the Regional Plan Association (RPA). RPA President Bob Yaro has organized the major design and planning associations to cooperate on Gulf Region planning, including ASLA, the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association, the Urban Land Institute, and others.

The technical advisory committee decided that two maps should be produced by February at the 1:25,000 scale. These maps will display, first, a record of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico over the past 30 years and, second, a map of environmental risk. A second series of maps is envisioned to be procured by June before the next hurricane season. I am collaborating with RPA, EDAW, and ESRI to secure funding for this mapping project.

Closer to home, I continued to work with Envision Central Texas (ECT) and the Austin Bond Election Advisory Committee. As incoming ECT chair, I met with several individuals about our agenda for the coming year. On January 9, the advisory committee unanimously recommended a $614.8 million bond election that includes $144 million for public facilities, $90 million for a new central public library, $92.3 million for open space, $67.5 million for affordable housing, $122.1 million for drainage, and $98.9 million for transportation. Austin Mayor Will Wynn appointed the advisory committee to help advance the ECT vision. Especially the open space and affordable housing elements will help realize that objective. In addition, at our January 9 meeting, we unanimously recommended a May election. Our recommendations are now in the hands of the Austin City Council.

On Thursday, January 12, UT-Austin Vice President for Development Rick Eason, Assistant Dean for Development Kris Vetter, a cross-section of School faculty, and I met to discuss our current mission and values. We drafted new statements to be discussed by the faculty. The revised mission and values were also used by a strategic planning committee of our Advisory Council, which met yesterday. This committee seeks to reposition the Advisory Council to improve their abilities to support the School.

On Tuesday, I met with my Environmental Readings class for the first time this semester. We will explore the long, deep green thread that exists in American literature from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman through Herman Melville and William Carlos Williams on to Terry Tempest Williams and David Orr. Furthermore, we will discuss how this literature has influenced American architecture, landscape architecture, and planning.

Events

EXHIBIT

February 6-10
Center for Mexican American Studies: 35th Year Anniversary
Mebane Gallery, Goldsmith Hall

SEMINAR

February 9
"Preservation Opportunities and Challenges Collaborating with New Urban Ideals"
Preservation Day Seminar
Texas Association of Counties Building
1210 San Antonio Street, Austin
8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

As historic downtown areas have become the focus of new urban development, preservationists increasingly find themselves challenged by issues of densification, sustainability, and safety. This seminar series will examine successful projects, as well as regional planning efforts, aimed at coping with the sometimes conflicting goals of traditional allies, including new urbanists, environmentalists, and regulatory officials.

• "Working with Code Compliance Officials," Tony Eeds, AIA, White Rock Studio, Dallas
• "Current Trends in Land Use Planning and Their Effects on Historic Preservation," Kimberley Mickelson, AICP, Attorney, Houston
• "Densification, Sustainability and the Impact on Historic Preservation," Fritz Steiner, Dean, UT-Austin School of Architecture

Sponsored by Preservation Texas and the Building Industry Council of Austin. For more information, visit http://www.preservationtexas.org.

LECTURE

February 10
Juan Cotera
Cotera Kolar Negrete & Reed
Goldsmith Hall 3.120, 5 p.m.

Francisco "Paco" Arumí-Noé. Photograph by Dana Norman.

Explore UT and
All-Class Reunion

On Saturday, March 4, 2006, the School of Architecture will host our third annual All-Class Reunion. Once again, we encourage alumni to return to campus for the University's annual "Explore UT" open house, followed by a reception for all School of Architecture alumni.

As a very special part of this year's reunion, we will also pay tribute to Professor Francisco "Paco" Arumí-Noé, who passed away this past September. We were touched by the responses we received from our alumni regarding Paco's sudden passing, and we hope that his commemoration during the All-Class Reunion will justly honor his many achievements and be an inviting opportunity for us to all convey our respects. In anticipation of this tribute, please visit http://www.utexas.edu/architecture/memorial/paco/ to post your memories of Paco, so we may incorporate them into our evening.

We hope you will mark your calendars for "Explore UT" and the All-Class Reunion, beginning at 5:00 p.m. Additional details will be available in upcoming issues of eNews and in a forthcoming invitation. For questions regarding March 4 events, or to update your contact information, contact Stephanie Palmer at 512-471-0617 or stephanie.palmer@mail.utexas.edu.

Faculty Scholarship

The Oakwood Road Church, Ames, Iowa, designed with Michael Underhill and Laura Miller (Heymann, Miller, Underhill Architects). Photography provided by Heymann, Miller, Underhill Architects.

 

Professor David Heymann's project, the Oakwood Road Church, in Ames, Iowa, designed with Michael Underhill and Laura Miller (Heymann, Miller, Underhill Architects) opened in the fall of 2005. It has been awarded a Design Citation in the 2005 Arizona AIA Awards program and a merit award in the 2005 AIA West Mountain Region Design Awards program.

Also in the fall, Professor Heymann served on the New York City Chapter AIA Design Awards jury.

Charlotte Perriard exhibition catalog.

 

On December 6, Associate Professor Dr. Danilo Udovicki-Selb gave the keynote address at the Pompidou Center in Paris for the opening of the grand retrospective exhibition of Modernist designer Charlotte Perriand. His lead essay in the catalog inspired the design of the exhibition.

Professor Udovicki contributed a major chapter in the 2003 book, Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living, edited by Columbia University professor of architecture Mary McLeod. It is the first book in English on this pioneering figure, who created many pieces now seen as classics of modern design.

Bioswale, Taipei, Taiwan. Photograph provided by Sergio Palleroni.

 

Visiting Associate Professor Sergio Palleroni and his team are finalizing their pedagogical teaching and design/build work that was implemented during their stay in Taiwan. Their book, Sustainable Taiwan: Research and Investigations of Sustainable Development in Taiwan, Negotiating between Urban and Rural, will be published in late spring or early summer. It will be a collaboration between the UT-Austin School of Architecture, National Taipei University of Technology, and National Taiwan University.

The project, a prototype sustainable home in the heart of Taipei (designed and built with research assistants David Hincher, Jason Hercules, and Mark Tirpak) has the first urban bioswale and grey water urban filtration system in an urban center in Asia.

On a major street in Taipei, the house has a series of markers which educate the public on its role. It was modeled on one of China's more well-known scroll paintings, "gathering at the lotus pavillion," of the 10th century, which described a historic gathering of scholars, poets, and painters that the emperor asked to meditate on nature. They sat along a stream, and as they needed inspiration, they picked up wine cups that were floated by servants from the lotus pavillion, the beginning of the scroll. At the end of the stream, servants are picking up the empty cups, which they then run back to the pavillion.

Professor Palleroni explains, "I was so struck by this painting that I made it the frame of reference for the redesign of the urban fabric along the heart of the city. We have added forty markers to commemorate the forty participants and added space so that each year students can add their own thoughts to the stream."

 

Dean Fritz Steiner's article, "The Woodlands: Retrospect and Prospect: Looking at the ecoburb after 30 years," is featured in the current issue of CITE magazine, CITE 65: Winter 2005.

Golconde interior. Photograph by Ashok Dilwali, 2003.

 

Lecturers Pankaj Vir Gupta and Christine Mueller are presenting an opening lecture at the Graham Foundation in Chicago on February 21 in conjunction with the exhibition, "Golconde: The Introduction of Modernism in India," that will run through April 6.

Mr. Gupta and Ms. Mueller, vir.mueller architects, traveled (with Cyrus Samii) to India in 2003 to conduct research on the architecture of Golconde. Sited on the coastal edge of the Bay of Bengal, Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, was designed by architects George Nakashima and Antonin Raymond. Golconde is a remarkable architectural edifice, seamlessly negotiating between the tenets of early modernist architecture while addressing the pragmatic impositions of a tropical context. This exhibition assembles construction drawings, architects' letters and journals, and extensive photographs of this extraordinary building.

Center for Sustainable Development News

Dean Fritz Steiner recently appointed Professor Kent Butler director of the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD). Associate Professor Steven Moore and Professors Michael Garrison and Bob Paterson will remain co-directors of the CSD (http://web.austin.utexas.edu/csd/).

The CDS has grown substantially in the last year. Currently, its staff includes four full-time professional staff, four doctoral research assistants, and numerous graduate and undergraduate research assistants.

The number of faculty principal investigators directly or indirectly involved in the CSD has increased by more than 100% in the last couple of years and is now up to 20 faculty members involved in sponsored research projects.

Sponsored research supported by CDS principal investigators includes competitive grants from national and international foundations (Rockefeller, Luce, Lincoln Institute); approved and pending competitive grants from federal agencies (National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, Housing and Urban Development, and Department of Energy); contracts with Texas state agencies and local governments (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, General Land Office, City of Austin); numerous unrestricted grants from private, corporate, and nonprofit entities; and competitive challenge grants administered by The University of Texas (Hogg Endowment for Urban Governance, Snell Grant for Sustainable Transportation).

The level of funding for research in the School is on the order of $1 million per year and is expected to grow substantially larger over the next two years, so as to engage more students and faculty members, both within the School and in various other units on The University of Texas at Austin campus and elsewhere, nationally and internationally.

Alumni Updates

Globe Playhouse, designed by Joel Webb. The structure perches 2 feet off the ground and features a window-lined interior and skylight, plus a loft that leads to a swooping playground slide. Photograph by Stefano Paltera, The Los Angeles Times.

 

Joel Webb's [B.Arch. '04] design for a treehouse-like hideaway for a fourth-grader with leukemia was featured in a December 17, 2005, article by Bob Pool in The Los Angeles Times. Mr. Webb's sphere design was chosen by nine-year-old Joshua Bailey from a rough sketch after the Los Angeles branch of the international architectural firm RTKL Associates staged an in-house playhouse design competition. The design is a conventional Western-style fort, a battleship-like structure, and a "Transformer"-themed structure whose parts can be moved. Wired for electricity, the hide-out globe will be equipped with a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, and an X-Box game, its builders said.

The volunteer project was set in motion by the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Los Angeles after Joshua's father suffered a heart attack before he was able to finish the backyard fort he started for his son in 2002.

 

G. Allen Atkinson Jr., AIA [B.Arch. '75], a vice president and principal of F&S Partners Incorporated, was elected Vice President/Treasurer of the AIA Dallas Chapter for 2006. Mr. Atkinson has been practicing architecture for 30 years and is an active member of the American Institute of Architects, Texas Society of Architects, and the Society for College and University Planning. He and his wife Kay live in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas.

 

Laura Knott [M.S.H.P. '04] recently joined the Charlottesville, Virginia, office of John Milner Associates, Inc., a historic preservation firm. In addition to her Master of Historic Preservation degree from UT-Austin, Ms. Knott also earned a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Louisiana State University. She will serve as project manager and landscape architect in historic preservation and design projects for clients such as the University of Virginia and the National Zoo.

 

We encourage all alumni to share news with us by submitting updates to alumni coordinator 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 those alums to contact her.

Friends of Architecture

Studio 25, designed by Emily Little Architects. Photograph by Patrick Y. Wong.

Friends of Architecture's February 4 tour of Hill Country Ranches with Larry Speck is sold out! If you missed the opportunity to join this exclusive tour, you'll want to pre-register as soon as possible for FOA's other outstanding tours. Contact FOA Director Stephanie Palmer at 512-471-0617 or stephanie.palmer@mail.utexas.edu to sign up for or renew your Friends of Architecture membership and to pre-register for the March 25 San Antonio tour, designed by Gilbert Mathews, and Larry Doll's "Modernist Tour of France and Switzerland," June 21-July 1. FOA tours are for members only, and space is limited.

For membership information, visit our webpage at http://web.austin.utexas.edu/architecture/outreach/foa/ main.html.

Contacts

UT-Austin School of Architecture website, arch.utexas.edu

Architecture and Planning Student Council + AIA Students website, http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/apscaias/

(area code 512)

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

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

Assistant Dean for Development, Kris Muñoz Vetter, 471-6114, kmvetter@mail.utexas.edu

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

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

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

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

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

Career Placement Director, Sheila Balog, 471-1333, sheila.balog@mail.utexas.edu

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

Architecture and Planning Library, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/apl/index.html, 495-4620

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