The Center for Sustainable Building Research's (CSBR) Minnesota Green Affordable Housing Guide is listed as a resource on the Green Eco Services weblog (scroll down or search for "Minnesota Green Affordable Housing Guide").
John Comazzi (Architecture) participated in the design and planning of the Children in Nature event sponsored by the Chidren, Youth, and Family Consortium and the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The conference takes place on Thursday, November 6, 2008, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Arboretum.
The City, the River, the Bridge symposium offers a retrospective on the I-35W bridge collapse, the aftermath, and its reconstruction. The symposium, sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, will be held October 9-10, 2008 at various locations around the Twin Cities campus. University President Robert Bruininks will give the capstone comment. Dean Tom Fisher and Pat Nunnally (Landscape Architecture) are featured speakers on Friday, October 10.
Update: Friday, October 10, 2008: Tim Nelson covered the event for Minnesota Public Radio, quoting Ninnally as saying, "There are a lot of things to still be thinking about. A lot of questions to ask about things we may have learned or not learned, what the ongoing discussion about infrastructure is and where might we be in these conversations in another five or ten years. We don't just sort of do things like fix substantial parts of the city and not have those things reverberate for a while."
A set of get out the vote screenprinted posters by James Boyd-Brent's (Graphic Design) Spring 2008 DHA 3312 students is currently on display in the Wilson Library. Today (Tuesday, October 7, 2008), from noon-1 p.m. in the Wilson Library's fourth floor lobby, the students will speak about their posters.
Elections for the P&A and CS/BU Consultative Committees were recently held and the results are in.
Following is the full list of elected P&A Consultative Committee representatives:
"Critical Ommissions"
By Rick Poynor, Print, October 2008
Steven McCarthy (Graphic Design) was quoted in "Critical Omissions," a Print magazine article by Rick Poynor about the budding critical design movement and its relationship to graphic design. The article concerns the exhibition Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design, which took place at the Architectural Association in London and was organized by Mark Owens and Zak Kyes. Owens and Kyes responded to Poynor's article, to which both Poynor and McCarthy provide rebuttals.
"Deep North"
By Diane Hellekson, Landscape Architecture, September 2008
How to sustainably reclaim northern Minnesota's open-pit iron ore mines? That's the question John Koepke and Chris Carlson (Landscape Architecture) are trying to answer. One proposed solution is to integrate the reclamation process into the mining process itself, rather than working to reclaim individual mines after they're abandoned. This is something Koepke and Carlson are exploring in a new course for mine engineers to be offered next year.
Koepke and Carlson have completed a plan for part of a new mine outside Biwabik that uses natural slopes, drainage swales, and a 500-foot long figurative earth sculpture in a process meant to be integrated into the mining operation.
Diane Hellekson, the author of the article, is a Landscape Architecture alumna.
"Making the house a home"
By Pauline Oo, UMNews, October 1, 2008
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni's (Interior Design) DHA 3605 class is featured in this UMNews article. Third-year students are learning how to design home interiors that support different lifestyles, something Hadjiyanni refers to as "culturally sensitive housing." "Culturally sensitive housing," Hadjiyanni tells Oo, "is housing that supports diverse cultural needs, diverse ways of li[f]e."
Displacement drives the need for culturally sensitive housing. Hadjiyanni's research indicates that residents will "transform the significance and function of individual rooms" to reflect their cultural identities. "The Somalis will put triple layers of curtains because they like their rooms to be darker, and they will decorate their walls with rugs that have koranic verses," she explains. "The Hmong will put up tropical scenes and use the color green to remind them of the mountains they came from. Illegal Mexicans who cross the Rio Grande by foot—and can't bring anything with them—would hang a calendar with the Virgin of Guadalupe to create a sense of home in the house they end up sharing with four or five strangers."
Hadjiyanni's students will show design proposals illustrating how cultural groups can preserve their traditions at the Building Ties exhibition at the Hennepin History Museum.
The Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) holds its annual conference, entitled Silicon + Skin: Biological Processes and Computation, at the College of Design's School of Architecture. Marc Swackhamer (Architecture) is the site chair for the event taking place on Friday October 17, 8-10 p.m. in the Rapson Hall courtyard. The conference is free and open to the public.
The conference examines the impact of biological processes in nature on sustainable design. Architects are fond of saying that shape is cheaper than material. Biological systems in nature put little emphasis on form or expensive materials. These biological systems have only a few chemical substances (materials) and necessarily focus on efficient building processes such as self organization in a bottom-up manner. As a result, the field of biomemetics appears to hold fascinating promise for the design disciplines in general and architecture in particular.
Blaine Brownell (Architecture) is one of the event's featured speakers.
The content of the conference focuses on the relationship between biology and computing and presents a unique opportunity for students and faculty "to be at the center of a critical conversation regarding the direction of digital production" in architecture, according to Swackhamer.
"This year, ACADIA will be among the highest attended in the organization's nearly 30 year history," said Swackhamer. "There are an unprecedented six keynote speakers, five technical and thematic workshops, 10 paper sessions, an exhibition of peer-reviewed projects, and a traveling exhibition entitled Anxious Climate featuring the work of Francois Roche, AMID/cero9, and Philippe Rahm."
Balthazar Korab worked with Le Corbusier before coming to the United States in 1955 to join Eero Saarinen and Associates, where he began experimenting with the use of photography as part of the design development process. Korab is joined in conversation by John Comazzi (Architecture).
This free, public event is the opening lecture for Beyond the Measly ABC, a symposium examining the legacy of one of the modern masters of architecture, Eero Saarinen.
Friday, October 10, 7-9 p.m.
Lecture: 7 p.m., Bell Museum Auditorium
Reception: 8:30 p.m., Rapson Hall
Several College of Design faculty will be participating in the symposium: Dean Tom Fisher will speak on Eero Saarinen's contribution to Contemporary Architecture; Nancy Miller (Architecture) will present work on Eero Saarinen's corporate campuses; and Ozayr Saloojee (Architecture) will speak to his current research on Eliel Saarinen's design of Christ Church Lutheran.
As part of these events, an exhibit entitled "Christ Church Lutheran: Three Photographic Visions" will open at the conclusion of the symposium on Sunday, October 12. The exhibit features a photographic narrative of Christ Church Lutheran as seen through the camera lenses of George Miles-Ryan (1911-91), Balthazar Korab (1926-) and Pete Sieger, AIA. Organized and curated by Ozayr Saloojee and Michael Hara, the exhibit will be at Christ Church Lutheran until January of 2009. Contact the church at 612-721-6611 for exhibition hours.
The symposium is sponsored by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, Christ Church Lutheran, and the College of Design. Rendezvous with the U is cosponsored by the American Institute of Architects, Minneapolis.
For more information, call 612-625-8796.
The Winterthur Museum & Country Estate has announced its 2009-10 research fellowship program consisting of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), McNeil Dissertation, and short-term residential fellowships to support advanced study of American art, culture, and history. Fellows may conduct research based on the museum collection of objects and artworks made or used in America to 1860.
More information (including application information) is available on the Winterthur Web site. Applications are due by January 15, 2009.
Mogens Smed will present the class, "Modular interior construction: Design, bottom-line, and the environment," on Wednesday, October 8, 2008, from 2-4 p.m. in 104 Hanson Hall.
RSVP to warz0014@umn.edu is required by Monday, October 6.
Mogens has been a leader in the modular interior construction industry for almost 40 years and a long-time advocate for environmental sustainability in the interior design and construction industry.
The course:
The College of Design is a co-sponsor of this community event where young people from the Kwanzaa Community Church and other community partners will paint 10 sidewalks in North Minneapolis with art that reinforces HIV/AIDS prevention messages.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Kwanzaa Community Church
2100 Emerson Avenue North, Minneapolis
Long-time Friend of the Goldstein Mrs. Marion Winzen died of cancer in late September 2008. In addition to her participation on the Friends of the Goldstein board of directors, Winzen donated several pieces of designer clothing to the Goldstein. Donations in memory of Marion Winzen can be made to the Goldstein Museum of Design.
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) has issued a call for faculty fellows for 2009-10. The IAS Faculty Fellows program enables up to 20 faculty members to spend a semester in residence at the Institute in order to benefit from the community of scholars and share their work across disciplines.
Faculty members involved in collaborative work may apply in teams of two or three. The Institute covers one-half of the fellow's B-base salary and fringe (up to a maximum of $30,000); the fellow's home college is responsible for the remaining one-half of the salary and fringe.
More information -- including application information -- is available on the IAS Web site.
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