Archinect - Features

The Fluidity of an Architecture Education: A Conversation with Tulane School of Architecture's New Director Emilie Taylor Welty

2022-11-08T08:48:00-05:00

"School is this great place where you can turn research into action, and that testing ground fosters creative, collaborative professionals who can implement positive change in the world," Emilie Taylor Welty shared during our recent Zoom call.

An architect, educator, and multi-disciplinarian specializing in public-interest design, materials, and detailing, her approach to practice and academia is rooted in collaboration and fabrication. As Tulane School of Architecture's new Director of Architecture, her extensive background in social design practices and equity building positions Taylor Welty as another exciting key figure in Tulane's academic leadership.

FireCity | FireLAnd: New Models of Resilience and Community with UCLA's Hitoshi Abe and Jeffrey Inaba's Research Studios

2021-07-22T13:48:00-04:00

What does building resiliency look like for urban landscapes? With the effects of climate change increasing, architects, urban planners, and landscape architects must work towards land use design strategies while having humans and nature coexist effectively.

The University of California, Los Angeles Department of Architecture and Urban Design's faculty and students continue to unpack challenges between land development and urban conditions. An institution that focuses on collaborative research between its students and faculty, it strives to create learning environments fueled by experimentation and discovery. To highlight these initiatives, Archinect connected with Associate Adjunct Professor Jeffrey Inaba and Professor Hitoshi Abe to discuss their collaborative research studios FireCity and FireLAnd. In addition, they explain common misconceptions students have when learning about urban regeneration, land use, and ways to approach design strategies for fire resilient urban infrastr...

Space Saloon Takes Group of Students out to the High Desert for a Dynamic Twist on the Typical Design-Build Workshop

2018-08-09T13:39:00-04:00

Located near the more buzzing cities of Joshua Tree and Palm Springs, the Morongo Valley is not a place one typically associates with experimental architecture. But, for a week back in May, the High Desert was met by a group of students making the scenic trek inland to try their hands at designing and building exploratory units (while also getting a healthy dose of Vitamin D).

The school of helpful knocks: the experiential pedagogy of Design Build Research

2015-10-21T16:05:00-04:00

In some veins of architecture pedagogy, there seems to be a movement towards new technology at the expense of hands-on construction techniques. In the opinion of architect Michael Green and creative entrepreneur Scott Hawthorn, these schools increasingly churn out graduates who are so moored in abstraction that they have very little practical ability. This is problematic in a field where clients and real, physical buildings often refuse to be abstract. Design Build Research (DBR), based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is Green and Hawthorn’s solution to schools that isolate designers from the community for which they design.