Archinect - News

Next Up Mini-Session #6: a panel discussion with Dry Futures jurors

2015-11-04T15:32:00-05:00

Tomorrow (!!!) we'll premiere season two of Archinect Sessions, and in anticipation of the launch, we've been posting Mini-Sessions – interviews recorded during our first-ever live-podcasting series, "Next Up", held at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown and at the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here. We'll also be launching a brand new podcast soon.

For our last Mini-Session recorded at Jai & Jai, we spoke with a panel of jurors from Archinect's Dry Futures competition, featuring: Charles Anderson of werk, Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute, Ian Quate and Colleen Tuite of GRNASFCK (who joined us via Skype), and Peter Zellner of Zellner Naecker Architects LLP. The winners had been announced just a few days prior.

Listen to the "Next Up" interview with select Dry Futures jurors:

iTunes: Click here to listen, and click the "Subscribe" button below the logo to automatically download new episodes.
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Woodbury University launches new Masters of Landscape Architecture program in San Diego

2015-10-28T18:01:00-04:00

Woodbury University is expanding its architecture masters programs by adding a new MLA at its Barrio Logan campus in San Diego, beginning fall of 2016. The MLA will begin alongside another new program on the campus, a Masters of Interior Architecture.

With locations in San Diego, Los Angeles and Burbank, Woodbury is fully embedded within naturally dry (and currently drought-suffering) landscapes. Within this context, the final year of the MLA program will have students working with the Arid Lands Institute, a design-centered research organization associated with Woodbury that's devoted to developing sustainable solutions to the unreliable future of water as wrought by climate change. (ALI co-founders Charles and Hadley Arnold also served as jurors in Archinect's Dry Futures competition.)

"With a landscape architecture program at the graduate level," says Jose Parral, Associate Professor at Woodbury in San Diego, "we can bring a unique community together within the Southern California/...

Meet the jury of Archinect's "Dry Futures" competition: Hadley and Peter Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute

2015-08-21T15:50:00-04:00

There’s no such thing as the drought being over. There are only going to be cycles and our cycles, most models tell us, are only going to continue to be extreme. Wet will be wetter and dry will by drier."

Peter and Hadley Arnold are the founding co-directors of the Arid Lands Institute, a design-centered research platform devoted to making drylands "water-smart" the world over. Based in Los Angeles out of Woodbury University, ALI uses the American West as a case study for developing adaptive strategies to changing water systems and accessibility, as brought on by climate change.

Both Peter and Hadley earned MArchs from SCI-Arc, and have set their focus on dryland research and design since the late 1990s. Their approach to the drought is pragmatic, not alarmist: “The drought’s been handy because it’s brought an enormous amount of attention to that particular dimension of a changing climate and our need to adapt to it,” Hadley told Archinect.

Their work will continue regardless of the drought, but the increased public attention does help focus the public around water issues, especially in a region woefully unprepared to deal with a future where "wet will be wetter and dry will be drier"....

Drylands Design Conference

2012-02-03T17:57:00-05:00

...will re-examine the built environment of the arid and semi-arid west as a vast field of opportunities for design innovation at a range of scales, from building systems to infrastructure and landscape spaces. The conference will present and debate a portfolio of design strategies generated in response to the challenges set forth in ALI's Drylands Design Initiative...

Registration is currently open for the forthcoming Drylands Design Conference being held March 22-24 at the Woodbury School of Architecture. This event is the conference part of the Drylands Design Competition you can see the work by the winners at the competition website here.