On February 27, 2020, the Materials Lab hosted a multi-disciplinary workshop with Luisa Fandino (Division of Textiles and Apparel, UT Austin), and Josh Vekhter (Computer Science, UT Austin). The workshop explored an innovative approach to fabricating three-dimensional surfaces in which weaving was explored not only as a way to create volume or flat surfaces, but as a tool to create interwoven double-sided panels from ribbon veneers.
Community engagement, once a box to be checked as part of public design commissions, is increasingly a creative driver in the design and planning of public realm in cities. Building on her practice’s mission, Gina will share stories of projects - across geographies, project types and scales - of inspired community-engaged design. She will explore Agency’s philosophy, tactics and experience in engagement and outreach with an emphasis on how the welcoming of community voice leads to better design outcomes.
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On Friday, February 14, the Center for American Architecture and Design will host Dr. Tara Dudley as part of the Friday Lunch Forum series.
Roughly every other Friday during the fall and spring semesters, the Center hosts the Friday Lunch Forum Series. The aim of the series is for faculty, staff, and students to meet in an informal atmosphere to debate topics and to share ideas about history, practice, theory, and new directions for architecture. Recordings of each forum will be posted as they become available.
Please join SOM for a presentation on the firm, current work and hiring practices on February 13. The event will be held in Career Services office in Sutton Hall 3.128 at 11:00am with lunch provided.
RSVP TO UTSOA-CAREERS@UTEXAS.EDU BY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10.
Learn more about SOM here.
The Materials Lab had the pleasure of welcoming Kristof Irwin P.E., Principal at Positive Energy and host of The Building Science Podcast, on Wednesday, February 12 for a Lunch 'n Learn session. Kristof’s background includes 12 years of experience as a custom builder (including deep energy retrofits and zero-net energy projects) and 11 years as a building science consultant. He worked for 14 years as an engineer, research scientist, and physicist for government and university research labs.
The gender chasm in architecture persists. Students see it in their mentors, practitioners experience it in the office, and media representation of the profession follows in kind. While schools of architecture are more and more demographically gender-balanced in their student populations, faculty and the practice both remain vastly skewed,[i]indicating that programming in schools may be leading genders into the profession inequitably or “losing” certain populations along the way, or that the bridge between academia and practice is broken.
Join Career Services for career prep sessions to prepare for the UTSOA Career Fair on Feb 24th!
12:00p - 1:00p in Sutton 3.128
Friday, February 7
Friday, February 14
Friday, February 21
As our transition to sustainable practices becomes more urgent, explorations into cultivated materials have increased. On February 6, 2020, Daniel Reyes, founder of Fungi International, led a hands-on workshop that covered the potential of fungi in the built environment. Participants were provided with growing medium from local waste resources, inoculated with fungi, to grow their own mycelium blocks. Three fungi species were introduced: oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus), reishi (Ganoderma tsugae), and tiger sawgil (Lentinus tigrinus).
Interface Architecture is designed by Casey Rehm. The exhibition will utilize neural networks to simulate an infinitely tall city block, amplifying the banal through automation to produce a speculative context for architecture.
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