Faculty News

April 29, 2016
The UTSOA faculty is comprised of many practicing professionals from across the disciplines of the built environment. Here is a sampling of recent faculty news and projects.
MF Architecture's Bracketed Space House

(Image above: MF Architecture's Bracketed Space House)

The UTSOA faculty is comprised of practicing professionals from the fields of architecture, community and regional planning, historic preservation, interior design, landscape architecture, sustainable design, urban design, and architectural history.  Herewith is a sampling of recent faculty news and projects


September 2016

UTSOA Professor Sinclair Black and Associate Dean Juan Miró have been named among the 2016 Honor Award recipients by the Texas Society of Architects. The award program recognizes exceptional members, firms, individuals, and organizations for outstanding achievements in support of the profession of architecture, the built environment, and quality of life in Texas. Honorees will be recognized at the 77th Annual Convention and Design Expo, from November 3–5, in San Antonio. Black will receive the Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Honor of Llewellyn W. Pitts, FAIA. Associate Dean Miró's firm, Miró Rivera Architects, will receive the award for Architecture Firm of the year. Read more here.

Matt Fajkus, along with his practice Matt Fajkus Architecture, completed [Bracketed Space] House on Riley Road in Austin. The site is blessed with dynamic natural views and the landscape is incorporated into the daily life of the residents. The public and private wings are capped by rectangular roofs with “jogging walls” beneath, while all indoor spaces open up to a central courtyard which terraces down to the existing creeks and trees, creating a transitional space between man-made and nature. The residence is recently featured in two articles: “Sophisticated Austin Masterpiece; Beautifully Sited” and “Modern Miracles: 7 Incredible New Contemporary-Design Homes.” The design team consisted of Matt Fajkus, David Birt, and the project was managed by Jayson Kabala and UTSOA alumnus Travis Cook [MArch '12].

Also designed by Matt Fajkus Architecture, Look+See Vision Care, which opened last year on South 1st Street in Austin, was selected as the 2nd place winner in the 2016 America’s Finest Contest (Invision Magazine). The interior finish out includes a front of house with display area for 800 eyeglass frames, a casual lounge in ample natural light, dispensing areas for trying on and comparing various frames and brands, and an in-house lab where lenses are crafted by hand. The space was featured on e-architect and Modern Architecture & Design (Austin Eye Candy). The design team consisted of Matt Fajkus and David Birt, and the project was led by UTSOA alumnus Ian M. Ellis [BArch ’13].

Sarah Gamble [MArch '05] will give a lecture this November at the University of Idaho's Architecture Program.

Michael Garrison will serve as a panelist at the Facades+ conference in Dallas in October. The conference brings together some of the world's most productive building professionals and leading researchers to share insights on how facades are brought to life. It is the premiere conference on high performance building enclosures.

The Collaboratory Assembly, a project by Tamie Glass, Clay Odom, and Jen Wong [MArch '13], was recently awarded a Legacy of Design Award in the Commercial - Custom Designed Element Category by the ASID Texas Chapter.  Completed for the UT Energy Institute, the project was designed and fabricated with assistance by UTSOA students Alex Dallas and Zach Walters, and was published in the most recent issue (Vol IV:Material Vocabularies) of The International Journal of Interior Architecture and Spatial Design (iiJournal).

Junfeng Jiao is featured in the most recent post from SOAvoices, an ongoing series of short interviews with faculty and students that speaks to the diversity of perspectives and experiences within the School of Architecture. Additionally, Jiao was interviewed by KRTS, Marfa Public Radio and KXWT, West Texas Public Radio, on how information technology can be used to understand the short term rental problem in City of Marfa. He also published a journal article, "Does Urban Form Influence Grocery Shopping Frequency? A Study from Seattle, Washington" in the International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management.

Quid Novi? Architectural Education Dilemmas in the 21st century, a book organized by Fernando Lara, in partnership with 2014 Fulbright visiting professor Sonia Marques, won first prize from ANPARQ, the Brazilian Association of Design Research. The trilingual edition (English, Portuguese, and Spanish) features contributions by scholars from the United States, France, Brazil, Spain, Venezuela, and Chile. It addresses the relationship between practice and education, with the realization that education has not changed much, while practice has suffered tremendous transformations over the last 50 years. Additionally, Lara penned this excellent op/ed on the Rio Olympics and the impact that event will have on the architecture and infrastructure of Brazil.

Gabriel Diaz Montemayor recently participated in the opening workshop of the study titled "Green Infrastructure Design Guidelines for Mexico's Northern Border Municipalities," organized by the Watershed Management Group, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC), and the Municipal Planning Institute of Hermosillo (IMPLAN Hermosillo). Montemayor is part of the consulting team developing the project's design guidelines and he delivered a lecture titled "Come Back to a Hybrid Urban Structure: Academic/Practical Projects for Northern Mexican Cities."

Additionally, Montemayor will participate as a panel moderator and presenter at the 3rd Green Infrastructure Forum for the US-Mexico Border Region organized by the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) and the North American Development Bank (NADB) in collaboration with the Border 2020 Program (EPA and SEMARNAT). The forum will be held at the Autonomous University of Coahuila in Arteaga on September 21 and 22.

Liz Mueller is included in a recent KUT (90.5 FM) story, Data Shows Big Differences Between Austin Renters and Homeowners.

Clay Odom's essay "Design, Subjectivity, and Culture: Notes on Productions" was published in the Int|AR (Interventions and Adaptive Reuse) Journal Vol.07 "Art in Context"—an annual publication by The Department of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and published by Birkhauser. His project "Tesseract 4.0" was published in D3:Dialog | International Journal of Architecture + Design, Vol.02 Blur.

Jonathan Ogren has authored, with David Todd, The Texas Landscape Project: Nature and People. With over 300 color maps and 100 other figures, the book seeks to give a geographic, visual, accessible look at major environmental events and conservation work in the state, touching on habitat, water, energy, wildlife, and public health issues. The authors will be presenting the book at various locations, including the Texas Book Festival in November. Click here for a calendar of their upcoming lectures.

Robert Paterson completed a Big XII Visiting Faculty Fellowship at the University of Oklahoma's Institute for Quality Communities in August. Presentations were made on the recently completed US HUD Sustainable Places Project and the City of Austin's Project Connect applications of scenario planning analytics. Presentations were made at the Center for Spatial Analysis, Geography and Sustainability, Architecture and with planning and design professions from the OKC Council of Government and Oklahoma City.

Sandi Rosenbloom has been appointed to two prestigious boards: The University of California San Diego Medical School's "Think Tank" for the Center on Healthy Aging, and The Board of Advisors for the University of California at Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.

Allan W. Shearer spoke at the Imagining the Future: Micro-Foundations of Creative Strategizing Conference organized by the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship at the McComb's School of Business. The event examined ideas of innovation by considering future-oriented and change-generating aspects of cognition, social interactions, decision making, search, communication, discourse, and behavior.  Shearer's presentation built on his recently published paper, "Abduction to Argument: A Framework of Design Thinking" (Landscape Journal, 2016), which identifies different kinds of primary generators that might be used to begin a design project and offers an approach for subsequent design development. For the last year and a half, Shearer has contributed to the NATO Urbanization Project, which aims to understand potential impacts of future environments and urban systems on security-related operations.  Part of this work was presented in the paper "Security and Future Urban Environments" given at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture annual meeting held in Salt Lake City. Most recently, Shearer participated in project conferences held at the NATO Stability Policing Center of Excellence in Vicenza and at the United Kingdom's Development, Concepts, and Doctrine Center in Shrivenham.  Next fall, he will participate in seminar-based exercise that will take place at the NATO Defense College in Rome.

Igor Siddiqui's project Sugarfree, is featured on the cover of the new issue of the International Journal of Interior Architecture + Spatial Design for which he also wrote an article titled "Edible." Siddiqui also recently presented his paper "Edible Materials Lab" at the 2016 International ACSA Conference in Santiago, Chile, where it was a part of a session on ecology.

Stephen Sonnenberg has been appointed Fellow of the Trice Professorship in Plan II for the Spring Semester, 2017. Professor Sonnenberg's research focuses on the points of intersection between psychoanalysis and other areas of scholarly inquiry.

Postdoctoral fellow Kristine Stiphany [MArch '06, PhD '15] and Jason Sowell were awarded an honorable mention in a social housing competition sponsored by the Federal District of Brasilia, Brazil. Stiphany and Sowell partnered with the São Paulo firm Shundi Iwamizu Arquitetos Associados (SIAA), whose principal, Shundi Iwamizu, PhD was a visiting critic at UTSOA in 2007. The competition included 109 entries submitted from professional firms across Brazil.

This July, Nichole Wiedemann, traveled to the Pacific Northwest to visit students, alumni, and firms associated with the school's Professional Residency Program. PRP provides students with unique opportunities to expand their education through work experiences in the architectural profession, and has established relationships with over 260 firms in 29 countries. Current interns Jolene Byford, Kristen Ericsson, Zoe Brown and Joanne Koola garnered experience at BORA Architects, Hacker, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (Seattle) and LMN (Seattle), respectively.

Robert Young was recently mentioned in an article in The Economist magazine and was featured in an article in The Cornell Chronicle. Additionally, he is now serving as principal investigator for the Texas CityLab.

Drawing Lines, an artist-driven, community-based public project, commissioned in response to Austin’s historic political transformation, was named a finalist in the SXSW Place by Design Competition in the “Urban Strategy + Civic Engagement” category. The project team featured:

Jack Sanders, [MArch '05], UTSOA alumnus and commissioned artist for the project
Patrick Bresnan, [MSSD '12] UTSOA alumnus commissioned artist for the project. (Also goes by Otis Ike)
Charlton Lewis, [MArch '13], UTSOA faculty + community advisor
Kaziah Haviland, [MArch '13], UTSOA alumnus + Drawing Lines project team
Lynn Osgood, UTSOA Planning + Drawing Lines project team
Sarah Gamble, UTSOA, [MArch '05], alumnus, faculty + Drawing lines Project Team

August 2016

Kory Bieg's Hybroot, which was one of the winning entries in the Field Constructs Design Competition, was published in WLA 26 | World Landscape Architecture Magazine. Additionally, Bieg presented three projects and a paper at the International ACSA conference in Santiago, Chile.

Matt Fakjus along with his practice Matt Fajkus Architecture, completed a residence for a young family of three in west Austin. Nicknamed Dusky Thrush House, the design is a response to suburban Austin neighborhood restrictions, proposing a modern twist on the typical material palette and arrangement of spaces. Main Stay House, another recently-completed modern residence by Matt Fajkus Architecture, has been named one of the five best residences in Texas by Dezeen. The Main Stay House design team consisted of Matt Fajkus, David Birt, and the project was managed by UTSOA alumnus Sarah Johnson [MArch.’10]. Additionally, Matt Fakjus' newly retooled summer internship program, MFx, was recently featured in Texas Architect. 

Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla was invited as a keynote speaker for the Modeling Medieval Vaults Symposium organized by the University of Liverpool at the UK. This international symposium included presentations from scholars doing research in several parts of Europe, and Ibarra talked about his research project on sixteenth-century ribbed vaults in Mexico.

Junfeng Jiao collaborated with the Urban Design/Planning Program at Shanghai Tong Ji University to investigate the pedestrian walking environments of 21 neighborhoods in Shanghai, China. He was invited to present his research at the 14th World Conference on Transport Research in Shanghai, where he gave a lecture entitled Understanding Pedestrians’ Travel Behavior in Large Chinese Cities, A Case Study of Shanghai Central City.

Fernando Lara and Gabriel Diaz Montemayor will participate in the Urban Morphology International Symposium organized by the Universidad Piloto in Bogota, Colombia in August. Lara's lecture is entitled "History of Modern Urbanism in Latin America" and Montemayor's is entitled "Updating Urban Planning in Mexico: Case Studies in Medium Sized Cities."

Steven Moore has been named to the Editorial Board of ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly, a publication of The Cambridge University Press. In its fall 2016 issue, JAPA, the Journal of the American Planning Association, will publish “Testing a Mature Hypothesis: Reflection on Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities: Urban planning and the contradiction of sustainable development.” Moore’s article is a critical and historical review of this seminal 1996 article by University of Michigan planner Dr. Scott Campbell, whose article has received more citations than any single article published by JAPA in its long history.

Igor Siddiqui has been named Associate Editor of the International journal Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture, published by Taylor & Francis. Siddiqui's project Zigzag, completed for an art fair in New York City, was recently published in the monograph Contemporary Installation Art (ArtPower International, 2016).

Larry Speck, Harwell Hamilton Harris (Director/Dean of the school from September 1951 to June 1955), Roland G. Roessner (on faculty at the school from 1948-1982), and the school's Alexander Architectural Archive were all mentioned in this excellent article on Austin's mid-century modernism in the Austin American-Statesman.


July 2016

Kevin Alter was recently interviewed by Modern Austin.

Sinclair Black was featured in an episode of UT's "The Hook" about the future of I-35 and his plan to build the highway underground, giving UT new land for development.

Gabriel Diaz Montemayor taught a landscape architecture/urban design/architecture workshop at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito in Quito, Ecuador, during June 13-18, and gave an invited lecture to their school of architecture on June 16th titled "Come Back to a Hybrid Urban Structure: Academic/Practical Projects for Northern Mexico Cities."

The Circuit of the Americas, designed by Professor Juan Miró’s firm, Miró Rivera Architects, has been named one of the 100 most important works of architecture in the US by ArchDaily. Gleaned from thousands of projects, the collection presents a curated list of what the influential publication considers the most significant buildings in the nation, and will serve as a reference for "millions of architects, students and specialists who are in search of the most important and inspiring projects from around the world." Completed in 2012, Circuit of the Americas has become a major attraction in Central Texas, and its iconic design recently helped COTA earn the distinction of being the "most Instagrammed" location in Texas.

Steven A. Moore is engaged, with Dr. Afroza Parvin, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Teaching & Learning at Khulna University in Bangladesh, as an External Reviewer of architecture curriculum reform. Dr. Parvin was a Fulbright Fellow at the UT School of Architecture in 2015-16. The continuing exchange between UTSOA and ArchKU is based on mutual interest in the design and testing of a post-colonial Public Interest Design curriculum.

Danilo Udovicki was invited as a respondent for a session entitled Beyond Constructivism: Soviet Early-Modernist Architecture Revisited at the Dublin Annual Conference of the European Architecture History Network.

Robert Young is teaching in the Summer College at Cornell University this summer.