During the mid 1980s, Christopher Long, professor for 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.
As more jurisdictions search for answers to the most pressing challenges surrounding growth, resource management and sustainability, planners are working in a multitude of ways to find solutions in the public and private sectors. This City Forum brings together four planners who represent some of the diverse perspectives, personal backgrounds, and career trajectories that characterize this profession.
Traditionally in architecture, potential disparities between descriptions of site and conceptions of building have been reconciled through, what can be considered a descriptive and conceptual equalizer, representation. For example, Modernism was witness to “landscape as tabula rasa”, reflecting an investment in buildings as synthetic, planar, structurally-gridded constructs. Appliqué, appropriated patterns, signs and symbols dictated an understanding of buildings during Post-Modernism, perpetuating a similarly artificial interpretation of ground.
The challenges of community planning extend beyond American cities and regions into villages, cities, and neighborhoods world-wide. In 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.
Every summer from 1985 to 1996, with the assistance of volunteer teams from Earthwatch, W.L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor Emeritus in Architecture and former dean of the School of Architecture Hal Box, F.A.I.A., and Dr. Logan Wagner explored, photographed, measured and made scale drawings of over ninety towns in Mexico; the collection of over 8,000 slides taken during this period was donated to the School of Architecture’s Visual Resources Collection (VRC).
During the semester, the Design V studio engaged theory, research, innovation, and construction as the frameworks of a massively parallel approach to design methodology.This studio engaged a multiplicity of design frameworks simultaneously and collapsed towards one focused final project that is currently on exhibit in the UTSoA Materials Lab.
Theory – How and with what means do we create informed designs; and ultimately, how can we make meaningful contributions to architecture through research and play?
What is the nature of rules, techniques and processes?
In 2006, graduate student Michael Bricker received the School of Architecture’s (SOA) Mebane Travel Grant to visit Mongolia to design an energy efficient home for a family in the community of Yeroo. Upon receiving funding from the SOA, Michael invited graduate student Ami Mehta to assist with the research and design of the proposed home. Together, Michael and Ami decided to expand the scope of the project to include two independent study courses to research Mongolian architectural history—namely the ger, Chinese Buddhist temples, and Soviet civic buildings—and to investigate the