Archinect - News

A classroom for the 21st century: where are the best places for learning?

2013-05-14T18:21:00-04:00

... how does using a different physical space have an impact on learning? Bosch argued that changing the environment helps teachers and students to break free from old habits: "One of the things you can do is create an environment where you cannot function the same way as you used to. What happens when you go out of the school into a theatre, you have to improvise. When you improvise, you start learning and developing."

The Stern-designed Kohler Environmental Center forces students to work with their zero-energy building

2013-03-20T17:53:00-04:00

The students were tapped in determining whether to invest in one or two clothes dryers. Would they use drying racks to eliminate the second dryer? Would they give up hair dryers? Would they wear sweaters in winter to permit an energy-saving thermostat setting of 67 degrees? “We don’t tell students that certain behaviors are unacceptable,” said Joseph Scanio, one of the center’s two live-in teachers. “We discuss things. We make it easy to be intentional about the choices you make.”

"Reality Check" Premiere

2013-03-07T12:29:00-05:00

In 2012, filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project, a charitable undertaking, consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story.

"Reality Check" a 45-minute documentary about the conception and realization of the Masonic Amphitheatre by the students in Virginia Tech's design/buildLAB will premiere on March 28th at 7PM at VT's Hancock Auditorium. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Leon Gerskovic.

Free and open to the public!

Go to www.realitycheckfilm.com for more information or to schedule a free screening at your own venue.

Britain's Architecture postgraduate and master's courses in 2013

2013-02-26T14:59:00-05:00

University performance: Architecture in our sortable table .

The Guardian has put together a handy sortable table with the UK's architecture postgraduate and master's courses in 2013. Compare tuition fees, student numbers, completion rates, and more.

University of Minnesota Launches New Degree: High School to Licensed Architect in Seven Years

2013-01-19T17:55:00-05:00

"Anything we can do to expedite the speed with which people can get licensed is a good thing," says David Cronrath, AIA, Dean of the University of Maryland's School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. "What Renee [Cheng, Professor and Head of the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture,] has done is establish a roadmap which a lot of people can follow. And, I think, of course they will."

Starting this spring, the School of Architecture, at the University of Minnesota's College of Design, will offer a new concentration in research practices within their master of science in architecture degree (MS-RP) for students starting the fall of 2013. The program aims at halving the amount of time from high school to licensure for architects--from an average of 14.5 years to 7.

By offering this model, the School of Architecture nudges the profession toward true culture change, one that expects all students to be licensed upon graduation, regardless of their final career choices. It also takes advantage of recent changes to the National Council of Architectural Registration Board's Intern Development Program and Architect Registration Examination, and leverages the historically strong connection between practice and academy in the Minneapolis/St Paul community.

Architect Magazine is out this January with a piece featuring the MS-RP degree. The article details the wo...

Winners of the 2012 RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards

2012-12-06T16:36:00-05:00

The winners of the 2012 RIBA President’s Medals were announced this week at a special ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. Dating back to 1836, the prestigious RIBA President's Medals reward talent and excellence in the study of architecture.

Project Pipeline Introduces New Orleans High School Students to Architecture and Design

2012-08-14T21:09:00-04:00

More than 25 high school students from across New Orleans, most of whom had never met an architect, recently took part in the inaugural Project Pipeline Architecture and Design Camp — a four-day, intensive workshop intended to introduce the process of design to a community with historically limited access to the design profession.

The camp was organized by the Louisiana Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA LA) and held at the Tulane School of Architecture.

SEEDocs launches with Owe’neh Bupingeh pueblo project

2012-05-18T17:24:00-04:00

SEEDocs launches with the story of the restoration and revitalization of the Owe’neh Bupingeh pueblo in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico.

Team: Atkins Olshin Schade Architects, The Ohkay Owingeh Housing Authority

Location: Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico

Issues Addressed: Cultural Heritage, Historic Preservation, Education, Affordable Housing, Job Training, Community Building, Local Identity

Project Description: Re-creating a more vital Pueblo center and reinvigorating cultural heritage traditions through the rehabilitation of the historic Pueblo core was this project’s focus. The pueblo core is the spiritual, social and cultural center of the Pueblo. Community members were trained in traditional building techniques and played a key role in rebuilding the houses and community spaces. The project also re-appropriated preservation practices and treatment of the Pueblos’ cultural resources from federal guidelines to what is suitable for Ohkay Owingeh.

33 Alternatives to University or Design School in Europe

2012-05-14T20:45:00-04:00

To do things differently, it helps to connect with new people and contexts. Universities and design schools seldom make that easy... This handout contains the most interesting ones we’ve found so far. It includes [with their permission] the findings of a scoping study for Schumacher College in England. No quality judgment is implied by inclusion in (or omission from) this list.

Design's Invisible Century

2012-04-23T14:17:00-04:00

All human artifacts and activities — not just our objects and architecture, but also our organizations and operations, policies and procedures, systems and infrastructures — have been designed, and too many of the most critical have been badly done by professionals and politicians who didn’t know the first thing about design. While we cannot blame them for what they didn’t know or couldn’t see, the stakes have gotten too high for us to continue in this way.

On Places, Thomas Fisher, dean of the Minnesota College of Design, argues that the 21st century is poised to become the "invisible century of design" (rivaling the last hundred years, the invisible century of science). Who will be the Einstein and the Freud of the new design century? We need a revolutionary thinkers to identify and solve critical structural problems.

Architecture School 1990-2012: The Future That Is Now

2012-03-12T16:32:00-04:00

It is possible to say without too much exaggeration that we now inhabit a version of the future William Gibson first described 25 years ago.... an accumulation of smaller changes, the consequences of which are subtle and all-pervasive as technology has increasingly lodged in unanticipated aspects of our lives. As Gibson has observed, the actual future is often more nuanced and unexpected than the imagined future.

In a chapter from the new book Architecture School (MIT Press), edited by Joan Ockman, Princeton School of Architecture Dean Stan Allen traces the history of architecture education over the past two decades — as he says, a volatile period during which "rapid technological and social changes presented complex challenges to practice and education."

Why Cooper Union Matters

2011-12-13T13:29:00-05:00

The philosophy that courses through the institution is that education is a higher good, one that enriches the individual and, in so doing, enriches the human community. In this framework, education has its own value—and this is what makes Cooper Union radical and worth saving, perhaps even worth imitating: It is operating on a fundamentally different idea of what education is, and what it can be.

New Master of Architecture program coming to New York

2011-08-12T15:42:59-04:00

Rochester Institute of Technology has received approval from the New York State Department of Education to offer a Master of Architecture program. A collaboration between RIT's Golisano Institute for Sustainability and the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, the Master of Architecture curriculum focuses on the areas of sustainability and urbanism, including integrated practice such as energy efficiency.

Something for our Upstate New Yorkers.

Parsons Collaborates with NYC Parks & Recreation to Improve Historic Pool in Washington Heights

2011-07-26T13:01:48-04:00

NEW YORK, July 26, 2011—Parsons The New School for Design has joined with NYC Parks & Recreation through the Design Workshop, its innovative design-build studio led by graduate architecture students, to create a new pool pavilion, Splash House, for the Highbridge Pool and Recreation Center, a WPA–era bathhouse in Washington Heights. The project represents the first of a five-year initiative between NYC Parks & Recreation and Parsons Design Workshop to identify and implement improvements in public spaces across the city.

“We have been impressed by the professionalism and design skills of the talented students at Parsons,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “From the master planning process through the various design iterations, and now the construction phase on site, they have worked diligently and intelligently to meet the community’s needs. We are looking forward to increasing recreational opportunities at the Highbridge Center.”

The Highbridge Pool and Recreation Center ...

Mecanoo Selected to Build Noorderpoort College in Stadskanaal

2011-07-19T13:59:27-04:00

Mecanoo architecten has won the architectural selection for the new Noorderpoort regional community college in Stadskanaal, the Netherlands. The 8,500 m² college is like a mansion with beautiful wetlands as a front lawn situated within the town's green heart.

Keeping Britain's special effects dream alive

2011-05-15T11:18:03-04:00

"Typically you tend to find that students who are seeking-out courses in visual effects and film-making are the self motivated types who have gone out and found the information themselves." "It is something we work very hard at, but schools and colleges could be more aware about how a creative art education can be applied in the world of high-end modern digital media," he said.

Sticks and stones: can architects be built in the classroom?

2011-04-21T16:37:09-04:00

... one of the big problems in Britain – a country infamous for its visual illiteracy, or so say outsiders – is that architecture isn't taught to children, not much in the home, and much less at school. What an all-embracing discipline it is, though, for teachers and pupils alike: a fusion of art, maths, geometry, geography, physics, technology, politics, economics and environmental concerns.

The Guardian's Jonathan Glancey discusses the architectural education, or lack thereof, in the British early childhood education system.