Archinect - News

Pratt Institute announces first 'Diverse Voices Creating Just Futures' cluster hire aimed at institutional change

2023-12-05T17:04:00-05:00

Today, the Pratt Institute has announced the launch of a new cluster hire initiative aimed at recruiting diverse faculty to each of the five degree-granting schools on its Brooklyn, New York campus.

Through “Diverse Voices Creating Just Futures,” Pratt believes it will create transformational learning experiences for all students as was outlined in the All-Institute Learning Goals from 2021.

Five new tenure-track assistant professors will be appointed to schools of Architecture, Art, Design, Information, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, respectively. There, they will focus on a broad range of special academic program areas, including Film/Video, Undergraduate Architecture, Interior Design, and the History of Art and Design. Pratt says the cohort will be brought together and provided with support for their scholarly and creative endeavors, in addition to being able to collaborate with each other on multidisciplinary research and other special projects.

Related on Archinect: Quilian Ri...

SCI-Arc announces resignations and important policy changes amid months of controversy

2022-09-26T19:20:00-04:00

Nearly five months have passed since the tumultuous March 25 Basecamp panel discussion and the wave of controversies that came after. While the LA-based architecture school has slowly faded from heavy media reporting, the team at Archinect has kept an eye out for any updates and changes coming from the school.

However, recent news from the school sent out via email to the SCI-Arc Community has announced essential policy changes AND the resignations of Tom Wiscombe and Marrikka Trotter, who have received intense heat from students, alums, and the architecture community at large.

Our April 7 coverage reported on a slew of petitions, news of third-party internal investigations, public "apologies," new faculty appointments, and responses from the community. At that point, only time would tell how the school of "archit...

UCL issues an apology and published report on the decades-long investigation of misconduct at the Bartlett School of Architecture

2022-06-09T19:09:00-04:00

A resolution has been provided in the saga at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture that has made waves in the press since first coming to light last year.

The institution has now issued a formal apology in response to the independent investigation into educational practices and environment that permeated at the school for decades.

UCL says it is also in receipt of the recommendations for improvement put forth in a recent investigative report created by independent consultancy Howlett Brown using a survey of more than 300 former faculty and students. As was expected based on previous reporting of first-hand accounts, the respondents in their survey detailed a frightening and toxic culture of abuse, racism, bullying, and even sexual harassment occurring at every level. Accordingly, the school has announced it will be removing several faculty members from student-facing administrative duties in addition to setting up a new working group that will help further adapt the recommended ...

A public apology gone awry, new faculty appointments, and a postponed 50th-anniversary celebration are among the most recent updates to the SCI-Arc controversy

2022-04-07T20:22:00-04:00

Nearly a week and a half has passed since the March 25 Basecamp panel at SCI-Arc that sent shockwaves across the school's community and the architecture industry. Since my initial reporting on the incidents and controversies happening at the institution, discourse regarding academia and labor practices has sparked further conversations around the systemic issues highlighted at SCI-Arc.

With news rapidly spreading across the internet, a wave of responses and comments from the community has surfaced, indicating that this wasn't an issue found solely within this particular school but across the profession. As I stated previously, "Discussions surrounding work and studio culture within the architecture community are nothing new. It would be foolish to say that those working within the industry at both the professional practice and academic levels are unaware of the highly problematic issues of labor and equitable working conditions."

As our editorial team continued to follow the events ...

Telling Milwaukee's Story Through Architecture

2020-01-27T13:04:00-05:00

This article was written by Genaro Armas

UWM’s School of Architecture is marking its 50th anniversary in a yearlong celebration that concludes with a gala weekend in April. To commemorate five decades of education, research and community engagement, architecture faculty members picked the most important structures built in Milwaukee during each decade since the school was established in 1969.

Milwaukee’s most iconic structure might be the Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum along Lake Michigan. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2001, the pavilion’s signature characteristic is the Burke Brise Soleil, a moveable, wing-like sunscreen that rests on top of the glass-enclosed Windhover Hall. Its wingspan is similar to a Boeing 747.

The pavilion’s futuristic design stands out in a downtown skyline dominated by more traditional architecture.

School of Architecture & Urban Planning faculty (from left) Whitney Moon, Mo Zell and Kyle Reynolds.

“What I...

Meet Hazel Ruth Edwards, Howard University's first female architecture chair

2019-03-04T18:34:00-05:00

“My journey with this institution began when I was seven years old when my mother started teaching at Howard,” [Edwards] says. “I am proud to know that some of the projects I worked on either as a student or as staff have shaped the campus.”

Appointed in 2016, Hazel Ruth Edwards is the first woman to chair Howard University's Department of Architecture in the College of Engineering and Architecture, ever since architecture education began at the school in 1911. She is also a third-generation graduate of Howard, where she received her bachelor of architecture degree.

With 30 years of experience as a researcher and a strong background in grantsmanship, Edwards has worked as a member of Howard's planning and development team and served as the principal designer for many projects that have influenced the campus. Some of her notable projects include the Founders Walk crime-mapping system, a shuttle circulation plan that is still largely intact today, and the seminal book “The Long Walk: The Placemaking Legacy of Howard University” that she co-authored with then-Vice President for University Administration Harry G. Robinson III. The book retraces the 127-year history of the campus' development.

Edwards' role as chairperson a...

Thom Mayne, co-founder of SCI-Arc, to return in a full-time faculty position

2018-12-17T19:14:00-05:00

After helping start the Southern California Institute of Architecture in the early 70's, Thom Mayne will be returning as a full-time "Distinguished Faculty", to teach and coordinate the SCI-Arc EDGE Design of Cities postgraduate program in fall 2019.

SCI-Arc has released the following statement discussing the new role and Mayne's previous accomplishments as an academic and architect/founder of Morphosis...

SCI-Arc is very pleased to announce that one of its founders, Thom Mayne, will be returning to SCI-Arc as a full-time distinguished faculty beginning fall 2019. Thom Mayne will be taking over the coordination of SCI-Arc EDGE's postgraduate program, Design of Cities. “It is wonderful to have Thom Mayne come back home. He is a major part of what SCI-Arc is, was, and will be," says Hernan Diaz Alonso, SCI-Arc Director/CEO. "Thom Mayne represents everything that we want our students to aspire to. Thom embodies the best aspirations of architecture as a historical, cultural, and politic...

Sylvia Lavin appointed as Professor of Architecture at Princeton University

2018-03-02T16:26:00-05:00

Princeton University School of Architecture announced today that Sylvia Lavin will be joining their faculty effective July 1, 2018. Lavin is currently a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and the Director of the Critical Studies M.A. and Ph.D. program from 2007 to 2017.

Lavin received her Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University in 1990 after having received fellowships from the Getty Center, the Kress Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Her most recent books include, Kissing Architecture, published by Princeton University Press in 2011 and Flash in the Pan, an AA publication from 2015.

Professor Lavin is also a curator: a recent exhibition, Everything Loose Will Land: Art and Architecture in Los Angeles in the 1970s, was a principal component of the Pacific Standard Time series supported by the Getty Foundation and traveled from Los Angeles to New Haven ...

NCSU Faculty Member Vincent Petrarca Receives ACSA Faculty Design Award

2014-02-17T11:13:00-05:00

For a Modernist house designed and built by his firm Tonic Design + Tonic Construction

February 17, 2014 (Raleigh, NC) -- Vincent Petrarca, an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Architecture at North Carolina State University’s College of Design and a founding partner of the Raleigh, NC-based design/build firm Tonic Design + Tonic Construction, has received a prestigious 2013-2014 Faculty Design Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) for his design of “Crabill Modern,” a Modernist, single-family house in Hillsborough, N.C.

Each year, the ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, and service.

The ASCA’s Faculty Design Awards honor built work that “advances the reflective nature of practice and teaching by recognizing and encouraging outstanding work in architecture and related environmental design fields as a critical endeavor,” according to the ACSA. Winning ...