Associate professor Thun and assistant professor Velikov served as faculty leads and professional advisors in the interdisciplinary, inter-institutional effort to deliver a technologically advanced, energy efficient housing model that responds to the demands of northern climates. “Team North” was based in Ontario and completed as a collaboration between the University of Waterloo, Ryerson University and Simon Fraser University; Thun and Velikov served as faculty members previously at Waterloo before joining University of Michigan. Velikov and Thun are continuing their design research to develop mass-customized solar prefabricated houses for northern climates at Taubman College.

North House scored well in the ten categories used to rank competing prototypes. Notably, it was awarded third place in net metering, because the amount of energy produced by the house exceeded the amount of energy it needed. Following North House’s debut in the Washington, D.C. competition, it has been invited by the City of Vancouver to participate in a sustainable urban design installation series associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics. Velikov and Thun will present their research in net-energy producing residential buildings to the Fourth Annual Energy Forum in Bressone, Italy, in December 2009. They are pursuing discussions with Japanese industry leaders in the field of mass-customized solar housing within the Great Lakes Megaregion. Last June, Thun and Velikov’s firm RTVR won the Canadian Professional Prix de Rome to study sustainable housing for a northern climate.

See: www.team-north.com and www.solardecathlon.org for more project information.

Taubman College 2008-2009 Architecture Fellows and partners of Future Cities Lab Jason Kelly Johnson (Oberdick), and Nataly Gattegno (Muschenheim), opened an exhibit at the Van Alen Institute in New York on Sept. 16, 2009.

THE AURORA PROJECT was funded in part by the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning’s Research Through Making Grant awarded in Feb. 2009 during their fellowship year at UM. The Research Through Making Grant is intended to fund research and experimentation through making.

Johnson and Gattegno’s work offers an index of shifting territorial resources in the Arctic and creates a speculative vision for a massive new energy infrastructure and settlement pattern. An innovative spatial representation of an imminent environmental condition, it suggests how contemporary political, social, and ecological trends might be channeled toward a more productive future for the region.

The exhibition comprises three related installations. “Aurora” interconnects the ephemeral qualities of the Arctic ice field with the dynamic behavior of its viewers, translating the shifting dimensions of the ice into an immersive system of flickering auroras and responsive luminescent skins. “Terra Incognita” is a map room consisting of original drawings, diagrams, and other materials that provide a view into how the Arctic region has been represented, claimed, and mythologized in the past and present. A smaller interactive instrument, “The Glaciarium,” engages visitors’ senses through the sight and sound of a melting ice core.

VAN ALEN INSTITUTE EXHIBITION: September 16–October 15, 2009
For updated info, visit here.

Institutions credited with supporting the exhibit, in addition to The University of Michigan Taubman College Research Through Making Grant:
The Van Alen Institute (NY Prize Fellowship in Systems and Ecology); The University of Michigan Map Library; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Grant; Columbia University Avery CNC Fabrication Lab; NYC College of Technology - CityTech @ CUNY.

Taubman College is pleased to announce the appointment of Tom Buresh as the Emil Lorch Collegiate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, commencing September 2009 for a three-year period. His appointment recognizes the significant contributions he has made to the profession and recently in providing outstanding academic leadership to the Architecture Program.

Last year, during his speech at commencement Tom Buresh uttered a single word: MATTER. This story summarizes his brilliance.

Tom's contributions to the field of architecture and American pedagogy have been extraordinary. His design work with Danelle Guthrie has left an indelible mark in the profession and his work as chair of the Architecture Program has been unparalleled.

His nominators said:

"Like Emil Lorch, Tom Buresh came to Michigan to lead the department of
architecture. His untiring dedication to the program and his ability to
unite the faculty have increased the national standing of our college."

"Tom's work as an educator and administrator provokes us all to matter... in the discipline, in the profession, and, foremost, in the world at large."

"He gently provoked critical questions that led me to imagine projects to best serve the students and the larger program."

Under his watch:
1400 students have graduated from the Architecture Program
39 faculty new members were recruited
9 faculty members were promoted and tenured

The Executive Committee and Dean Monica Ponce de Leon are very pleased to announce Tom Buresh as the 2009-12 Lorch Professor.

Taubman College welcomes the following fall 2009 named visiting professors:

Max Fisher Visiting Professors

Los Angeles architects Eric Kahn and Russell Thomsen, formerly of COA (Central Office of Architecture)—now IO (IDEA Office), will be the Fall 2009 Max Fisher Visiting Professors. Since 1987, their work has sought to engage a range of issues, from architecture and urbanism to technology and design.

Their recent work includes the donor wall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the lobby of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the winning entry in the Dead Malls Competition, a new student services building at Los Angeles Community College, the VPM prototype for the Dwell Home Invitational, and a series of compelling single family houses in Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo.

They were finalists in a housing competition for Livable Places, and the recipient of both the Young Architects Award and the Emerging Voices series sponsored by the Architectural League of New York. A monograph of their work was published in 1997.

Their work has been exhibited and published internationally, and is part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Kahn and Thomsen are both senior faculty members at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), and have taught at various other schools throughout the U.S., Europe, and in Japan.

The Netherlands Visiting Professor of Urban Planning

Henco Bekkering will join the urban and regional planning faculty this year as The Netherlands Visiting Professor of Urban Planning for fall 2009. He studied architecture at the School of Architecture of the University of Arkansas in the United States of America as a Fulbright Scholar and at the School of Architecture in the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Until recently he was the senior partner of HKB stedenbouwkundigen/urbanists Groningen Rotterdam for which he will continue to act as advisor. HKB works on all levels of scale of urban planning and design, integrating technical, social, political, economical and legal aspects, stressing contextualism, meaning and historical continuity in urban design.

Since 1995 he has been a professor of urban design in the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University in Delft. His areas of interest include city form and morphology, the relation between architecture and urban design (in large urban projects), exterior and interior public space, the integration of infrastructure in cities, and pedestrian use of city centers. Together with his colleagues in Delft he established the International Forum on Urbanism

or IFoU which brought together universities in Europe and the Far East including Tsinghua University in Beijing and the National Taiwan University in Taipei for further development of the discipline of urbanism internationally.

Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professor

Marlon Blackwell, FAIA practices architecture in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as professor of architecture at the University of Arkansas. Working outside the architectural mainstream, his architecture is based in design strategies that celebrate vernaculars and that draw upon them, and that seek to transgress conventional boundaries for architecture. Work produced in his professional office, Marlon Blackwell Architect, has received national and international recognition, numerous design awards and publication in books, architectural journals and popular magazines including Architectural Record (with the honor of having the Keenan TowerHouse featured on the cover of the February 2001 issue), Architect, Arquine, A+U, Detail, Dwell, Metropolitan Home, Contract, Residential Architect, Architectural Review (2002 ar + d prize winner for the Moore HoneyHouse) and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary Architecture (2004 & 2008).

His residential projects are featured in design books including Masters of Light, New Country House, Houses of Wood, Private Towers, House: American Houses for the New Century, The New American House 3, and The New American Cottage. The significance of his contributions to design is evidenced by the publication of a monograph of his work entitled An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2005. Marlon was selected by The International Design Magazine, in 2006, as one of the ID Forty: Undersung Heroes and as an “Emerging Voice” in 1998 by the Architectural League of New York.

At the University of Arkansas he has co-taught design studios with Peter Eisenman, Christopher Risher and Julie Snow. He has been a visiting professor teaching graduate design at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.

Most recently, he was the Ivan Smith Distinguished Professor at the University of Florida, the Paul Rudolph Visiting Professor at Auburn University, and the Cameron Visiting Professor at Middlebury College. He was the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and has also taught guest studios at Syracuse University and Lawrence Tech University. In 1994, he co-founded the University of Arkansas Mexico Summer Urban Studio, and has coordinated and taught in the program at the Casa Luis Barragan in Mexico City since 1996. He received his undergraduate degree from Auburn University and a M.Arch. II degree from Syracuse University in Florence.

New this fall, Taubman College announces the following tenure track appointments

Maria Arquero has been appointed as an assistant professor with a joint appointment in urban and regional planning and architecture. Originally from Spain, she is a licensed architect and urban designer. Her most recent work focuses on the interface between landscape and urbanism, and issues of interpretation and representation. Additional research interests include the use, management, and design of public open space with a strong environmental concern. Arquero has collaborated with Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, an urban design and architecture firm based in Cambridge, and also has an independent practice with projects in Bahrain, Mexico, and Spain. She received a degree in architecture from the ETSA Madrid, a master’s in landscape architecture from the ETH Zurich, and a master’s of landscape architecture in urban design from Harvard University GSD.

McLain Clutter is an architect and writer. He previously taught in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Clutter earned a bachelor’s of architecture, magna cum laude, from Syracuse University; and a M.Ed. from the Yale School of Architecture. At Yale, Clutter was awarded the Victor Everett Meeks fellowship for academic excellence, and he taught as a fellow in graduate and undergraduate studios. Clutter has worked in design offices in New York, Chicago, and New Haven, Conn. His design work has been exhibited in cities in the U.S. and abroad. Clutter has participated in academic conferences and symposia such as the Market of Effects symposium at Yale in 2007, and the 2004 American Association of Geographer’s conference in Philadelphia. His writings have appeared in Grey Room and the Architect’s Newspaper. Clutter’s current research includes a historical project detailing the use of film by the New York City Planning Commission in the late 1960s, and a project developing innovative urban modeling techniques using GIS software. He joins the college as an assistant professor of architecture.

Jen Maigret has been appointed assistant professor of architecture. She earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Hartwick College. She has a master’s of science in ecology and evolutionary biology as well as a master’s of architecture from the University of Michigan. She joined the Washington University-St. Louis faculty in 2006 as one of two inaugural Cynthia Weese teaching fellows and later as an assistant professor. Prior to this, she taught in the undergraduate program at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Her initial education and professional experience within the field of biology informs her current interests in exploring architecture as a component of broader environmental and social ecologies. She has worked professionally as a restoration ecologist and as a designer and project manager with PLY Architecture, where she was extensively involved in a number of nationally and internationally recognized projects including the Mies van der Rohe Plaza (Detroit, Michigan) and the Robbins Elementary School Competition (Trenton, New Jersey).

Martin Murray will join the urban planning faculty as a tenured full professor. He is a sociologist whose current research engages the fields of urban studies and planning, development, historical sociology, and African studies. His research covers diverse geographical areas of the world at different historical periods. After his first book on French colonialism in Southeast Asia, Professor Murray pursued a deep and abiding interest in the political economy of South Africa. In addition to four books and three co-edited volumes, he has produced nearly sixty journal articles and book chapters covering a diversity of topics such as urban South Africa; social, political, and economic issues associated with the post-apartheid transition; class formation in the rural countryside of South Africa; and the historical studies of rural transformation in colonial Indochina. His papers have appeared in a number of influential journals including the Canadian Journal of African Studies, International Sociology, Journal of Southern African Studies, and the Journal of African History. At Taubman College, Professor Murray will contribute significantly to the “Planning in Developing Countries” concentration offered by the Urban and Regional Planning Program. This concentration is currently led by Associate Professor Gavin Shatkin who focuses on South and Southeast Asia. Professor Murray will enable the Urban and Regional Planning Program to expand its developing country course offerings, and affords the program expertise in African urban development policy. He will also teach in the Center for African and African-American Studies (CAAS) in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Geoffrey Thün joins the faculty as an associate professor of architecture. Previously he was an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. His research ranges from the scale of regional ecologies and infrastructures to the development of high-performance prefabricated building systems. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario, B. Environmental Studies and a professional B.Arch. from the University of Waterloo, and a master’s of urban design from the University of Toronto. Current research is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy / National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NRCan, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA).

Kathy Velikov has been appointed assistant professor of architecture. She was an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and chair of the Canada Green Building Council’s Academic Education Committee. Her work and research focuses on complex ecological, economic, and social structures and processes and built environments that are shaped by advanced materials and technologies. She holds a professional B.Arch. from the University of Waterloo and a master’s of history of art and architecture from the University of Toronto. She joins the faculty as an assistant professor of architecture.

Thün and Velikov are partners in RVTR, founded in 2006, a research-based practice currently located in Toronto, Canada. Velikov and Thün were recipients of a 2008 Young Architects Forum Award for their portfolio of design from the Architecture League of New York, and a 2005 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence for SWAMP House, a prefabricated solar vacation home. The firm was awarded the 2009 Canadian Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture.

For more on Taubman faculty, visit www.taubmancollege.umich.edu/faculty

Ann Arbor, Mich., July 29, 2009 -- University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Dean Monica Ponce de Leon, selected last year as one of nine jurors for the 2009 National Design Awards, attended the White House ceremony for the winners and finalists of the 2009 awards. First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the White House ceremony and served as honorary patron for the awards program held July 24, 2009. An award ceremony will take place at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in the fall. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the awards.
 
Mrs. Obama addressed the event guests, including current and former award winners. “You are scientists and artists; your work is both technical and poetic, educational and inspirational. Thank you for inspiring the next generation,” she said.  
 
The National Design Awards were conceived by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum to honor the best in American design. First launched at the White House in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the annual Awards program celebrates design in various disciplines as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement. The Awards are national in scope–nominations for the 2009 Awards were solicited from a committee of more than 2,500 leading designers, educators, journalists, and cultural figures from every state in the nation.
 
Ponce de Leon is also a principal of Office dA in Boston; the practice has received over 30 design awards including eleven P/A Awards. In 2007, Office dA, led by Ponce de Leon and partner Nahder Tehrani, received the National Design Award for Architecture.  Distinguished by its interdisciplinary approach to architecture and innovative construction techniques, the firm works nationally and internationally on projects ranging from affordable housing to buildings for academic and cultural institutions. Commissions include the Villa Moda mixed-use building in Kuwait; the Tongxian Arts Center in Beijing; Northeastern University’s Multifaith Spiritual Center; Rhode Island School of Design’s Main Library; and most recently, the Macallen building, the first LEED-certified, environmentally sensitive, multi-housing building in Boston.
 
Previous UM graduates and winners of the National Design Awards include LS&A graduate Craig Robins, 2006 Design Patron Award, and SNRE graduate Martha Schwartz, 2006 Landscape Design Award.
 
The 2009 National Design Awards announced include:

• The Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing the work of an individual who has made a long-term contribution to the practice of design, was presented to Bill Moggridge. Moggridge is a co-founder of IDEO, a global design consultancy, which works to create impact through design.
• The Design Mind Award, recognizing visionary individuals or firms that have affected a shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship, recipient was Amory B. Lovins. An American physicist and 1993 MacArthur Fellow, Lovins has been active at the nexus of energy, resources, environment, development and security in more than 50 countries for 40 years, including 14 years based in England.
• The Corporate and Institutional Achievement Award, recognizing a corporation or institution that uses design as a strategic tool of its mission and helps to advance the relationship between design and quality of life, was presented, to a not-for-profit cultural institution, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
• The Architecture Design Award, which recognizes work in commercial, public or residential architecture, was given to SHoP Architects. The 60-person practice, founded by its five principals in 1996, has been a leader in the transformation of intricate theoretical design into easily understood construction model by rethinking architectural practice.
• The Communication Design Award, which honors work in graphic or multimedia design, was presented to The New York Times Graphics Department.
• Recognizing work in clothing, accessory or footwear design, the Fashion Design Award was presented to Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein Collection. Costa has worked since 2002 as the women’s creative director of Calvin Klein Collection.
• The Interaction Design Award, given for exceptional work using digital technology, was awarded to Perceptive Pixel Inc. Perceptive Pixel is dedicated to the research, development and deployment of multitouch interfaces for the knowledge worker.
• The recipient of the Landscape Design Award, which is presented for work in urban planning or park and garden design, was Hood Design. The firm is committed to issues that address the re-construction of urban landscapes within towns and cities.
• Given for work in the design of consumer goods, technology or home and office furnishings, the 2009 Product Design Award was presented to Boym Partners. Boym Partners brings a critical, experimental approach to a range of products that infuse humor and wit into the everyday.

 
In addition to Ponce de Leon, the other 2009 jurors and fellow National Design Awards winners, included:

• John Maeda, chair, president, Rhode Island School of Design
• Stephen Frykholm, vice president and creative director, Herman Miller
• Michael Maharam, principal, Maharam
• Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, Google Inc.
• Sigi Moeslinger, partner, Antenna Design
• Ralph Rucci, principal, Chado Ralph Rucci
• Margaret Stewart, user experience manager, YouTube, a subsidiary of Google Inc.
• Marc Tsurumaki, principal and co-founder, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis
•  Michael Van Valkenburgh, principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Learn more information about Ponce de Leon’s National Design Awards work.
 
For more information about the award, visit www.nationaldesignawards.org.

Careers in architecture, planning, and design have become more and more interdisciplinary, enabling professionals to do more with their degrees than they ever dreamed. Architects are environmental engineers on sustainability projects, city planners act as sociologists when creating or evolving communities, and regional planners or designers are lawyers as they interpret code and history. In addition to learning about the interdisciplinarity of architecture, planning, and design degrees within program curriculum, Taubman College offers dual degrees within UM, ranging from College of Engineering to School of Public Health.

To learn more about select dual degree options offered by Taubman and UM and to read about students within the programs, visit:
Architecture Dual Degrees
Planning Graduate Dual Degrees
Urban Design Dual Degree

Urban Planning Chair Jonathan Levine, and Real Estate Program Director Chris Leinberger to speak at SMART Transportation Summit.

Jonathan Levine, urban planning chair, and Chris Leinberger, real estate program director, of Taubman College will speak at this year's SMART Transportation Summit, November 9-12, 2009, in Ann Arbor.

Entitled "Moving Minds: The Next Transportation Infrastructure," the summit will give special attention to: "Moving Minds" -- understanding the cultural, psychological, and aspirational underpinnings of our relationship to transportation (for both users and leaders), and responding with innovative systems, policies, and business models that address these dimensions sustainability, equitably, and compellingly.

Learn more here.

Dean Monica Ponce de Leon was a featured contributor to on May 6, 2009, to talk about the needed changes in architecture curriculum.
The field of architecture is poised to undergo dramatic changes. Beginning in the 1990s, we saw the emergence of the "star" architect as a cultural force, along with the consolidation of architecture as an agent for physical and economic change in cities across the world. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were a culmination of this era, and a demonstration of the potential power of architecture. However, this model of practice has already shown its limits, its weaknesses, and its flaws. It is safe to say that a new generation of practitioners will not be able to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors—and more importantly, that it should not.
Most of us are aware that technological advances paired with economic forces are significantly altering the construction of buildings and the practice of architecture. Conventional techniques will no longer suffice if architecture is to remain a viable venture. In addition, architecture's role in the construction of culture has become globally associated with elite societies, and as a result, has remained outside of recent and dramatic cultural shifts.
It is not surprising that in the new economy, architecture has been one of the professions most badly hit. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, architects' unemployment rate for 2008 more than doubled from the previous year. With more than 50,000 architecture students in schools across the country, this figure should give us pause. At the same time, it is evident that architecture is being left out of the most critical issues on the national agenda, despite the fact that historically our field has proven to have the tools and expertise to address these very pressing problems (such as the environment, housing, and infrastructure, just to name a few). This has precisely coincided with a golden era of architecture in which we have demonstrated extraordinary abilities with an unprecedented sophistication in the use of digital technology. And thus, we must wonder if our concern for very narrow and mostly formal problems has led to our failure to engage the world.
The time has come to examine these issues and to begin to chart a course for the future of the discipline. This will require new approaches to cultural engagement, and for architecture to rewrite its own rules. These changes need to begin "at home" with our own cultural institutions—namely architecture schools. After all, at pivotal points in the history of our field, the academy has given us critical perspectives with which to measure and evaluate the impact of architecture upon the world. Academia provides a lens independent of the demands of the profession, and as such it has the potential to advance the field in extraordinary ways. But so far pedagogy is not living up to this potential: Our teaching methodologies and the predominant model of studio instruction has remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years. More importantly, in the last 20 years architecture has stagnated in the midst of architectural research that focused too closely on topics that proved to have little consequence.
The conundrum of academic specialization is not exclusive to our discipline, of course. Our current environmental, economic, and societal crises have exposed the limits of conventional notions of specialization as a mode of research and scholarship in every field. Many disciplines are beginning to recognize this, and are moving toward an interdisciplinary model of research and education. In no other area does this become more poignant than in the environmental arena. In this first decade of the 21st century, it has become painfully clear that by looking at technological advances in isolation during the 20th century, we missed their broader impact. Efficient production methods led to the global proliferation of goods, and it is now unambiguous that unbridled consumption has had disastrous consequences for our planet. This is certainly true for architecture as well. In the last century, as we exalted the benefits of new materials and methods of construction in terms of efficiency and economy, we overlooked how they impacted natural resources. For most of the 20th century, we promoted the comfort and convenience of the suburbs, while ignoring their effects upon a larger network of natural ecosystems. We have become rapidly aware that environmental degradation has no easy solution, and that the responsibility lies amid many fields. Transgressing the boundaries of academic disciplines may be the only way to address the complex challenges of our time.
Because of its history and its own nature, architecture is best suited to develop an academic model that works across disciplines. After all, unlike most other fields, architecture is an intricate area of study that indeed encompasses distinct branches of learning in the sciences and the humanities. It is not surprising that several schools of architecture mention interdisciplinarity in their mission statements. However, for most of them, this is limited to relationships between architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and urban planning. Instead, I believe that the discipline of architecture should re-examine its place within a larger body of knowledge and develop a new pedagogy as a means of advancing the profession. Only through new teaching methods that work across disciplines will we be able to allow future generations to look at design holistically, and in this way write a new chapter in the public mission of architecture.
These issues are particularly pertinent today not only because of the dose of reality the new economy has afforded us, but also because I believe architecture finds itself in the midst of deep-seated changes at its core. Educated in the 1980s, I experienced firsthand how digital technology altered the way that buildings are conceived and represented. In addition, this digital revolution fundamentally changed how we practiced, including our relationship to consultants and builders. For 20 years we argued that the new technology was simply a "tool," but the sobering fact remains that these tools (like any tool) have had a major impact on our design process at all levels. During this first digital revolution the reaction of the field was to strengthen disciplinary boundaries and to demonstrate what we are capable of. Much of our fascination with formal problems has been the result of this encounter with new technology. It is safe to say that during this period architecture looked inward, and technical concerns came to be understood as somehow independent of social engagement, almost with obstinacy.
Today, with accelerated advances in digital fabrication technologies and their widespread application, I believe that we find ourselves in the midst of a second digital revolution. Not unlike the 1980s, as we argue over the significance of these "tools," digital fabrication is fundamentally changing construction methods and transforming the building industry. This second time around, however, we have a remarkable opportunity to take a more critical stance toward technology and articulate its potential for social engagement, or else we risk perpetuating the divides that threaten to limit the relevance of architecture to the actual circumstances of the building industry—as the current economic downturn has demonstrated.
Other fields are wrestling with these very same issues. Not only will architecture be best served by entering into a conversation with these disciplines, but architecture will best serve and participate in the construction of culture. Much of what lies at the core of our discipline is already playing a central role in the redefinition of other fields. It is telling that design is now an integral part of the curriculum at top business schools across the country. Engineering departments have developed coursework around notions of creative practices, while schools of social work and public policy have aligned social activism with entrepreneurship and design thinking. The value of design has increased in all aspects of society, at the same time that the pertinence of architecture has decreased. By remaining hermetic and, dare I say, self-absorbed, we run the risk of relegating to other fields the cultural power of design as an agent for social change.

Professors Shaun Jackson of Taubman College and the School of Art and Design and Bill Lovejoy of the Ross School of Business and the School of Art and Design have won the Provost's 2009 Teaching Innovation Prize. The prize recognizes their outstanding work in team teaching the Integrative Product Development course offered by UM's Tauber Institute for Global Operations. Their course serves as a model for interdisciplinary teaching and demonstrates the strength of bringing together different kinds of expertise. For the duration of the semester, student teams from each of the three areas of the University collaborate to research, design, manufacture, price, and market a prototype of a fully functional, customer-ready product. At the end of the course IPD teams pit their products against one another in an online and campus trade show. Consumers vote on the viability and practicality of each product and campaign. As one of the only courses of its kind, IPD has been featured on CNN and in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times.

Disciplinary Transgressions
Comment by Monica Ponce de Leon
 
The field of architecture is poised to undergo dramatic changes. Beginning in the 1990s, we saw the emergence of the “star” architect as a cultural force, along with the consolidation of architecture as an agent for physical and economic change in cities across the world. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were a culmination of this era, and a demonstration of the potential power of architecture. However, this model of practice has already shown its limits, its weaknesses, and its flaws. It is safe to say that a new generation of practitioners will not be able to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors—and more importantly, that it should not.

Most of us are aware that technological advances paired with economic forces are significantly altering the construction of buildings and the practice of architecture. Conventional techniques will no longer suffice if architecture is to remain a viable venture. In addition, architecture’s role in the construction of culture has become globally associated with elite societies, and as a result, has remained outside of recent and dramatic cultural shifts.

It is not surprising that in the new economy, architecture has been one of the professions most badly hit. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, architects’ unemployment rate for 2008 more than doubled from the previous year. With more than 50,000 architecture students in schools across the country, this figure should give us pause. At the same time, it is evident that architecture is being left out of the most critical issues on the national agenda, despite the fact that historically our field has proven to have the tools and expertise to address these very pressing problems (such as the environment, housing, and infrastructure, just to name a few). This has precisely coincided with a golden era of architecture in which we have demonstrated extraordinary abilities with an unprecedented sophistication in the use of digital technology. And thus, we must wonder if our concern for very narrow and mostly formal problems has led to our failure to engage the world.

The time has come to examine these issues and to begin to chart a course for the future of the discipline. This will require new approaches to cultural engagement, and for architecture to rewrite its own rules. These changes need to begin “at home” with our own cultural institutions—namely architecture schools. After all, at pivotal points in the history of our field, the academy has given us critical perspectives with which to measure and evaluate the impact of architecture upon the world. Academia provides a lens independent of the demands of the profession, and as such it has the potential to advance the field in extraordinary ways. But so far pedagogy is not living up to this potential: Our teaching methodologies and the predominant model of studio instruction has remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years.. More importantly, in the last 20 years architecture has stagnated in the midst of architectural research that focused too closely on topics that proved to have little consequence.

The conundrum of academic specialization is not exclusive to our discipline, of course. Our current environmental, economic, and societal crises have exposed the limits of conventional notions of specialization as a mode of research and scholarship in every field. Many disciplines are beginning to recognize this, and are moving toward an interdisciplinary model of research and education. In no other area does this become more poignant than in the environmental arena. In this first decade of the 21st century, it has become painfully clear that by looking at technological advances in isolation during the 20th century, we missed their broader impact. Efficient production methods led to the global proliferation of goods, and it is now unambiguous that unbridled consumption has had disastrous consequences for our planet. This is certainly true for architecture as well. In the last century, as we exalted the benefits of new materials and methods of construction in terms of efficiency and economy, we overlooked how they impacted natural resources. For most of the 20th century, we promoted the comfort and convenience of the suburbs, while ignoring their effects upon a larger network of natural ecosystems. We have become rapidly aware that environmental degradation has no easy solution, and that the responsibility lies amid many fields. Transgressing the boundaries of academic disciplines may be the only way to address the complex challenges of our time.

Because of its history and its own nature, architecture is best suited to develop an academic model that works across disciplines. After all, unlike most other fields, architecture is an intricate area of study that indeed encompasses distinct branches of learning in the sciences and the humanities. It is not surprising that several schools of architecture mention interdisciplinarity in their mission statements. However, for most of them, this is limited to relationships between architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and urban planning. Instead, I believe that the discipline of architecture should re-examine its place within a larger body of knowledge and develop a new pedagogy as a means of advancing the profession. Only through new teaching methods that work across disciplines will we be able to allow future generations to look at design holistically, and in this way write a new chapter in the public mission of architecture.

These issues are particularly pertinent today not only because of the dose of reality the new economy has afforded us, but also because I believe architecture finds itself in the midst of deep-seated changes at its core. Educated in the 1980s, I experienced firsthand how digital technology altered the way that buildings are conceived and represented. In addition, this digital revolution fundamentally changed how we practiced, including our relationship to consultants and builders. For 20 years we argued that the new technology was simply a “tool,” but the sobering fact remains that these tools (like any tool) have had a major impact on our design process at all levels. During this first digital revolution the reaction of the field was to strengthen disciplinary boundaries and to demonstrate what we are capable of. Much of our fascination with formal problems has been the result of this encounter with new technology. It is safe to say that during this period architecture looked inward, and technical concerns came to be understood as somehow independent of social engagement, almost with obstinacy.

Today, with accelerated advances in digital fabrication technologies and their widespread application, I believe that we find ourselves in the midst of a second digital revolution. Not unlike the 1980s, as we argue over the significance of these “tools,” digital fabrication is fundamentally changing construction methods and transforming the building industry. This second time around, however, we have a remarkable opportunity to take a more critical stance toward technology and articulate its potential for social engagement, or else we risk perpetuating the divides that threaten to limit the relevance of architecture to the actual circumstances of the building industry—as the current economic downturn has demonstrated.

Other fields are wrestling with these very same issues. Not only will architecture be best served by entering into a conversation with these disciplines, but architecture will best serve and participate in the construction of culture. Much of what lies at the core of our discipline is already playing a central role in the redefinition of other fields. It is telling that design is now an integral part of the curriculum at top business schools across the country. Engineering departments have developed coursework around notions of creative practices, while schools of social work and public policy have aligned social activism with entrepreneurship and design thinking. The value of design has increased in all aspects of society, at the same time that the pertinence of architecture has decreased. By remaining hermetic and, dare I say, self-absorbed, we run the risk of relegating to other fields the cultural power of design as an agent for social change.

Monica Ponce de Leon

Monica Ponce de Leon, founding partner at Boston-based architecture firm Office dA, is dean at the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, and former director of the Digital Lab at Harvard University.

First & Liberty: thesis exhibition, fundraiser for Growing Hope

By Dave Askins
Ann Arbor Chronicle: May 5, 2009

A brief window of activity had given the corner some life over the weekend. But by Tuesday afternoon, the empty quiet had mostly returned in and around the greenhouse space adjoining Liberty Lofts at First and Liberty streets. The one exception was a  minivan mired in a pea gravel pit just inside the open garage door entrance. A crew of guys was strategically wedging 4×8  sheets of waferboard under the wheels to help the front wheels of the vehicle – already half buried in the loose fill –  gain some purchase.
 
The guys who were working to free the minivan – we stopped and watched long enough to see them succeed – work for the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and they were removing the last of the display panels used for the master’s of architecture thesis exhibit held on Saturday and Sunday. None of the thesis work remained.
 
It had disappeared from view just as surely as the notes of Ross Huff’s flugelhorn had faded away into Sunday’s sunny afternoon breeze. Huff, along with two comrades, provided the musical component to a parade that had wound down Liberty Street past the thesis exhibit into downtown, culminating in a cheesecake feast at Sculpture Park. The sidewalk stroll marked the 50th birthday of a Chronicle neighbor and Stopped.Watched. correspondent, Linda Diane Feldt, which she used as a fundraiser for Growing Hope.
 
The master’s of architecture exhibit was open to the public, and we were fortunate to stumble across a member of that public who knows something about the subject matter: local architect Marc Rueter. He pointed us in the direction of a thesis that had made an impression on him – though he hadn’t had a chance to take in all of the work at the exhibit when we talked to him. It was Javian Tang’s thesis, which Rueter described as offering “some interesting solutions to infill.”

International studios are an essential part of the course offerings within Taubman College, granting students the prospect of visiting other countries while gaining access to facilities, groups and individuals that might otherwise be closed to them. This year, students and faculty will be traveling to dozens of cities on six continents.

The 2009 spring half-term study abroad opportunities include:

* China with Mary-Ann Ray/Robert Adams
* Senegal with Coleman Jordan
* Barcelona with Craig Borum
* Paris-Rome with Dawn Gilpin
* Argentina with Gerardo Caballero/Juan Rois
* Holland with Malcolm McCullough
* Alaska with Steven Mankouche
* Iceland with Jonathan Levine

Check in often between May 5 and June 23 for updates on the groups and their experiences.

Mike Guido started his academic career at Dearborn, Mich.’s-Henry Ford Community College before transferring into Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning as an architecture major. Learn more about how students are making the leap from community college to university in the Detroit Free Press, March 28, 2009. Read the full article.

The University of Michigan Alumni Association is working to help Michigan alumni and their families deal with the challenges of today's economy. The association has created a new webpage (http://www.umalumni.com/economicresponse) that focuses on the benefits that alumni most need now. These include job postings, career counseling, career-focused podcasts, short-term health benefits, and other savings and discounts.

In addition, the site has a section highlighting ways that employed alumni can help others in the Michigan network by volunteering as career mentors and posting jobs at their companies. Alumni who have the means are encouraged to join the Association and contribute to the Economic Hardship Fund. Member dues and the emergency fund subsidize these complimentary memberships and all of the Association's programs and services.

The Alumni Association continues to support its members and future members in various ways, including outreach to students and the development of new programs and extension of current programs to respond to alumni needs. Please feel free to contact them with any questions.

Dean Monica Ponce de Leon is featured on the homepage of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) website:www.aia.org. This image is one of four that cycle on the front page.

Click on her picture and read an interview with Dean Ponce de Leon: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0116/0116dp.cfm

John Fetterman spoke at Taubman College on April 2, 2009. Fetterman is mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a town that many have fled since the collapse of the steel industry in the '70s and '80s. He is currently working on attracting new residents to the area from the artistic, urbanist, and creative communities.

Listen to his lecture: http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/umich-public.1618859774.01618859779.2028140308?i=1633206336

He has made a recent appearance on:
The Colbert Report,
The Daily Show,
NPR, and
The New York Times expressing the needs of Braddock.

Braddock, PA

John Fetterman is mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. In July of 2001, Fetterman started, and still directs, a program serving the dislocated youth from Braddock and the surrounding communities to earn their GED, secure employment, and receive intensive intervention and case management. In late 2003, he purchased an abandoned warehouse on Library Street for $2,000 and converted into a residential loft. In a 3-way race for mayor in the 2005 Democratic primary, Fetterman soundly defeated a two-term incumbent and ultimately won the election by a single vote over the other candidate, another life-long resident of Braddock.

As Mayor, Fetterman's main emphasis is threefold: improving the quality of life for the young people in Braddock, attracting the kind of outside energy, ideas, and interest from the artistic, urbanist, and creative communities, and subverting the $2.5 billion Mon-Fayette Expressway designed to run through the middle of Braddock. Fetterman's efforts in his first term are paying dividends for the Braddock community. Creation of a large community center and a major piece of public art are in the works. A garden now sits on what was once one of the town's most prominent over-grown lots. An influx of activity and interest of all sorts in the town from outsiders is generating a upswing in attention for this Southwestern PA municipality.

In early 2006 Fetterman enlisted Jeb Feldman as his Deputy Mayor. Feldman began working with Mayor Fetterman at the beginning of his term in January, '06. Feldman acts cooperatively with the Mayor and others in strategic planning, outreach and recruitment in Braddock renewal efforts. In October of 2006 Lou the Lincoln returned home to Braddock as the Mayor Mobile. Purchased and housed in Braddock for three decades, this '75 Continental was displaced to the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh where it was outfitted with chrome rims and tinted windows. Fetterman and Feldman purchased this car to bring it home as a symbol of Braddocc and its future. Lou the Lincoln is named after his Braddock owner of 30 years: Lou Azzolini.

Please join your fellow alumni on April 30 at 5:30PM for a Michigan Reception at the AIA National Convention in San Francisco. Help us celebrate the elevation of Elisabeth Knibbe, B.S.'76, M.Arch./M.U.P.'78 to fellowship in the AIA. If you live in the are please come, whether or not you are attending the convention.
We hope our urban planning and urban design alumni in the Bay Area plan to join us, as well. You are welcome to bring your spouse, a colleague, or friends and family. Let us know who and how many will be attending the reception.
RSVP to Beth Berenter at 734-764-1301 or berenter@umich.edu.

The University of Michigan's Urban and Regional Planning capstone class on Community-Based Sustainable Food Systems recently was awarded The Dow Chemical Company's Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge award. The student challenge award recognizes the Taubman College students for innovative sustainability efforts. The group will receive $10,000 to support further research.

UM's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning was selected as a finalist, competing with internationally known competitors that included Cambridge University, Northwestern University, Peking University, Tufts University, and the University of Sao Paolo as well as other U-M schools for the honor.

"Building sustainable environments is a fundamental component of the urban and regional planning field," said Jonathan Levine, UM's urban and regional planning program chair. "As municipalities and metropolitan areas plan for important cultural, physical, and social resources, sustainability needs to be a core value. Our curriculum builds it into many aspects of students' work."

Their winning entry is entitled "What is a Community-Based, Sustainable Food System? Defining Elements and Identifying Encouraging Examples for Application in Detroit." The product of their research will be a publication available online and in print. The first part of the publication will focus on defining elements of a community-based food system and identifying existing barriers.

The second part of the publication will profile sustainable food case studies, summarizing factual information and highlighting innovation. The third part will focus on applying these innovations in the context of Detroit. The final chapter of the publication will offer Detroit residents and decision-makers concrete suggestions and implementation strategies. The publication is intended to be an engaging resource for interested community residents, organizations, and municipalities interested in community-based food systems from diverse settings. The team is lead by assistant professor Larissa Larsen, who also holds an appointment at UM's School of Natural Resources and the Environment.

The winning team includes students Rachel Arndt, Rebecca Cheney, Jaimie Cohen, Allison Craddock, Stephanie Etkin, Caitlin Greeley, Brendan Moriarty, Nicholas Posavetz, Catherine Sanders, and Joshua Stacey. Eric Dueweke, community partnerships manager for the college, assisted as an additional faculty advisor.

Amy Atzmon will be representing Taubman College in the forthcoming movie Betty Anne Waters as an extra. She is pictured in the front center of the above photo. The movie stars Hilary Swank and Minnie Driver.

Students pictured from left: Shaneen Braswell (Space Systems Engineering), Minjoo Yoo (Electrical Engineering), Jacob Norman (Adrian College student), center front: Amy Atzmon (Architecture), and front right: Annemarie Friedo (undeclared)

In the November 2007, Taubman College hosted the International Architecture Workshop. The workshop, which was directed by assistant professor Gretchen Wilkins, was called "Borderlands," and the proposals and symposium proceedings have been released in the publication Entropia.The Borderlands workshop explored urbanism in Detroit, and Entropia is the product of that discussion.

Borderlands brought together over eighty architecture students and faculty from around the world to join students here at Taubman. The International Architecture Workshop is a consortium of architects and educators researching contemporary issues of architecture and urbanism through design and teaching. It is a collaboration between Taubman College at the University of Michigan; Tohoku University, Miyahi University, and Tohoku Institute of Technology (all from Sendai, Japan); the Royale Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT) in Australia; the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Montpellier (ENSAM) in France; and the Universitat Internacional de Cataluna, Barcelona, Spain. Hosted annually by one of the participating universities, each workshop focuses on architecture and urbanism as influenced by current technological, economic, or environmental shifts.

The Borderlands workshop included not only the students and faculty of the aforementioned universities but also representatives from four Detroit-area nonprofit organizations to develop proposals for a site in southwest Detroit. These proposals were the subject of a public exhibit and symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit (MOCAD) and the UM Detroit Center in December 2007.

Entropia, published in both English and in French, is the culmination of the proposals for Detroit, but it is also the result of having so many people speaking different languages working together for a common goal. As Gretchen Wilkins discusses in her forward to the publciation, "the Borderlands workshop...was an exercise in translations. French, English, Spanish, Japanese, and Swedish were the first languages for the students making the common language not one of words but of drawings...Most significantly, perhaps, and unforeseen, were the many translations of the term 'urbanism.'...In the end, what became evident during this workshop was that if the word urbanism 'was taken through the languages of the world, translating from one to another in turn until in the end you returned back to English,' it would not return to the same point. But perhaps potential is revealed by defining what something is not."

Entropia is available for viewing as an on-line flip book.

Taubman Charrette Featured in Detroit Free Press

Taubman College on WDET

Making one of Detroit's most historic and diverse districts economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable is the focus of an intense visioning exercise the weekend of February 6-8 involving architectural students and faculty from top local architecture and planning schools.

The three-day charrette, or planning session, is being conducted by The Villages Community Development Corp. (CDC), a 501c3 non-profit group that works to enhance the economic and social life of its east-side area. A Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan grant of $35,000 supports the planning session.

Comprising such historic neighborhoods as Indian Village, West Village, East Village, Islandview, the Gold Coast, and the Berry Subdivision, the Villages ranks among Detroit’s most economically, socially and racially diverse districts.
"In many ways, the Villages district is Detroit," said Kim Clayson, president of the Villages CDC board of directors. "Here we find historic architecture, beautiful views of the Detroit River and Belle Isle, and a mix of people and incomes unmatched anywhere in the city."

Students and faculty from Lawrence Technological University's School of Architecture, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and the University of Michigan Taubman School of Architecture and Planning will participate in the charrette, joined by local professionals. The students, faculty, and professionals will divide up into several teams to design concepts that will aid in future planning by the Villages CDC.

Many charrettes focus strictly on increasing urban density through new development. But in a unique feature, the Villages charrette will target non-traditional land uses including urban agriculture, greenways, and bicycle lanes to make use of vacant land in the district and to increase the environmental sustainability of everyday life.

"The future of Detroit calls for a greener, more sustainable lifestyle in urban neighborhoods," said Sheu-Jane Gallagher, a Villages CDC board member and chair of its charrette committee. "By focusing our participants on these non-traditional land uses, we hope to educate ourselves, and the wider city, about these potential solutions for Detroit."

The charrette will begin on Friday, Feb. 6, with an introductory bus tour of the Villages district for all participants. Then students, faculty, and professional advisers will retreat to the Gleaners Community Food Bank, for around-the-clock discussions and designing sessions. The teams will make final presentations to the Villages CDC board and guests at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, at the Gleaners Community Food Bank. Prior to the charrette, the Villages CDC is engaging key community stakeholders such as Adult Well-Being Services, Capuchin Soup Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm, and Detroit Waldorf School to gather important research that will help inform the students and ensure actionable results.

"Many communities are more or less in the dark when trying to plan for the future of their districts," Clayson said. "The charrette will illuminate several possible futures for us and help us take some big steps toward that change."
Once completed, the work of the students and their advisers will enhance efforts by the Villages CDC board to work with the City of Detroit, foundations, and other stakeholders in future planning and development of the district.

About the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan:
The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan is a permanent community endowment built by gifts from thousands of individuals and organizations committed to the future of southeast Michigan. The Foundation works to improve the region's quality of life by connecting those who care with causes that matter. The Foundation supports a wide variety of activities benefiting education, arts and culture, health, human services, community development, and civic affairs. Since its inception, the Foundation has distributed more than $324 million through more than 30,000 grants to nonprofit organizations throughout Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Washtenaw, St. Clair, and Livingston counties. For more information, please visit www.cfsem.org.

About the Villages CDC:
A 501(c)(3) organization that was formed in 2006 to accelerate economic development within the Villages neighborhoods, the Villages Community Development Corporation (CDC) includes representation from Indian Village, West Village, Islandview Village, East Village, Berry Subdivision, and the Gold Coast (riverfront) communities. For more information, visit www.thevillagesofdetroit.com.

For more information about the charrette, please contact Kirsten Ussery of the Villages of Detroit at 313-348-5777 or kaussery@gmail.com.