The Progressive Architecture (P/A) Awards were announced last month, and Taubman College was represented well. Dean Monica Ponce de Leon's private firm Office dA won for Thunder Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, and former Muschenheim Fellow Michael Meredith's office MOS won for their Drive-In and Park in Marfa, Texas.

This was the year of the 55th Annual P/A Awards. According to ArchitectMagazine.com, the awards are designed to change over time. "Every year for the past 55 years, a jury of architects and architectural experts has accepted the herculean task of reviewing hundreds of submissions of unbuilt building projects to identify a handful that together embody the term 'progressive architecture.' No juror ever serves twice, new projects get submitted every year, and architecture itself is in a constant state of evolution, so each jury inevitably arrives at a different definition of progress.

For a full list of winner, check out www.architectmagazine.com.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

EXHIBITION: THE FIVE SENSES
13 March - 3 April 2009
Work Ann Arbor
Exhibition Opening Reception Friday 13 March 6:00-9:00pm

Submissions in all media are being solicited for a juried exhibition at the UM School of Art & Design's gallery on State Street, Work Ann Arbor. Entitled "The Five Senses," this exhibition examines the wonders of each of our five senses. Areas for exploration include works that confuse the senses (ex. when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color) or other phenomena that convey/communicate the capabilities of our senses to delight, astonish, and confound.

Deadlines:

Deadline for submission of work for on-line review
Submissions must be received for on-line review by 8 February 2009, sent to fivesenses@umich.edu, and must include a brief statement about the work, not exceed 100 words, and one image in JPG format. Medium, size and installation needs must also be included.

You will be notified of acceptance by 14 February 2009. For questions contact fivesenses@umich.edu

Entries for Time-based Work
PLAYGallery is the A&D exhibition outlet for time-based work, on TV and on the Web. All single-channel, time-based work will be accepted on playgallery.org. Selected work will be featured on the site. Short work (:30-2:50) will be eligible to be chosen for PLAY TV broadcast television and for the PLAY reel at the gallery.

All videos must be submitted by 8 February 2009
Visit //www.playgallery.org/submit for instructions. Entrants will be contacted to arrange delivery of high-resolution work. For questions contact: Katherine Weider 764-7314,

Wes Janz, Ph.D. '95, lectured at the Universidad Catolica Santa Maria la Antigua USMA in Panama. He was also invited to give his talk "Towards a Humane Architecture" at the Allegro Gallery in downtown Panama City. Janz is currently an architectural educator at Ball State University.

As she discusses her goals for Taubman College and her ideas about architecture education, Ponce de Leon states the need for a move toward interdisciplinarity and diversity within architecture education and the industry. Here is a glimpse of her conversation with writer Heather Livingston: What drew you to the position of dean at the Taubman College? I thought of this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The University of Michigan is a public university that has a tremendous reputation and history, especially in architecture and urban planning. It's very large and very heterogeneous. It has a great, diverse faculty and student body.
 
I am interested in examining the state of architecture in education and in reinventing the way that we educate architects, and I thought that the University of Michigan would be one of the few places in the U.S. where I could do that. In particular, I'm interested in educating architects by bringing together different disciplines. When architects talk about interdisciplinary work, they usually talk about architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and planning, but the opportunity here is to work with experts in engineering, the arts, and the environment so that you actually bring different disciplines that are integral to architecture and have the field be enriched by working directly with them.
 
The University of Michigan has a very strong School of Natural Resources, where they're looking at human impact on the environment from a scientific point of view. I think that as architects, when we talk about sustainability we leave out science as opposed to having the science be really integrated. This applies not only to the scale of buildings, but the scale of the materials that compose our buildings and also how our buildings are placed on the landscape and impact sites.

Professors June Manning Thomas and Margaret Dewar have been selected by the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) for an inaugural NCID Distinguished Diversity Scholarship and Engagement Award. This award recognizes senior faculty members whose nationally recognized diversity scholarship has promoted social change in line with the NCID's core mission of bridging diversity scholarship and multilevel engagement.

Wallpaper.com has announced that Office dA, Dean Monica Ponce de Leon's private office, has been chosen as the Best New Restaurant in the 2009 Design Awards.

Read more here.

University of Michigan's President Coleman announces Semester in Detroit. View the video.

The University of Michigan will begin a new “study abroad” opportunity for students in winter 2009, but students will not be far from their friends, nor faculty far from classes: the new academic program is in Detroit, Michigan. For the winter semester 2009, around fifteen students will live, work, study, and play in Detroit, just as if they were abroad. They will live in a dormitory of Wayne State University, work at various community organizations two full days per week, and take their courses at the UM Detroit Center. Courses include two required classes and several electives. The program is called “Semester in Detroit.”

Two years ago undergraduate students from UM’s Residential College (RC) came up with the idea in a course in the Urban Community Studies minor. They talked with many faculty about their desire for a semester in Detroit and found Margaret Dewar and Charlie Bright (faculty director of the Residential College) interested in making the idea a reality. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before now? Dozens, if not hundreds, of programs affiliated with the University of Michigan are involved in Detroit, from tutoring opportunities to literally cleaning up the streets. The university has an outstanding relationship with the city of Detroit; why not let the students experience the city for an entire semester?

As professor of urban planning and director of the Ginsberg Center, Margaret Dewar was eager for such an opportunity. The Ginsberg Center manages many programs through which students are able to engage in community service, and her urban planning courses are focused in Detroit. Dewar believes in a university “where community service and civic engagement are embedded in teaching and research and where every student has opportunities to participate in service that advances the student's education and the community partner's agenda.” Dewar is working with Charlie Bright, director of the Residential College and professor of history and social science, to make Semester in Detroit a reality. The RC is a living-learning community at UM and offers students the opportunity to “take the initiative in shaping their own education, to participate actively in classes and in extra-curricular programs and to engage with the University community as well as the outside world.”

Semester in Detroit (SiD) combines the goals of the Residential College, the Ginsberg Center, and even the urban and regional planning program. One of the two required courses for the program will concentrate on the city planning of Detroit and will be taught by June Manning Thomas, centennial professor of urban and regional planning at Taubman College. The course will focus on the past, present, and future of planning in Detroit and will be taught at an introductory level, so it is open to all students participating in SiD.

The other required course is a reflection seminar, allowing students to consider the ideas they have learned and issues they have come across in their internships in community organizations. Other courses include “Detroit Connections,” taught by Assistant Professor Nick Tobier of UM’s School of Art & Design; an RC Urban Community Studies course in public history taught in collaboration with Mosaic Youth Theatre by Assistant Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies Stephen Ward; and a creative writing course called "Writing in Detroit" taught by RC Creative Writing faculty member Lolita Hernandez. In addition, arrangements are being made with Wayne State University's department of urban planning and geography to create opportunities for SiD students to select from a range of courses.

In addition to coursework, students are also expected to participate in community service. Detroit is home to hundreds of community-service and cultural arts organizations that reach the nearly one million people who reside in the city. A core experiential component of SiD, each student will be placed in an internship with a community service or arts organization that matches his or her interests. The required reflection seminar will allow students to discuss the opportunities and lessons they have learned in their work.

The Architectural History + Theory area of the Architecture Doctoral Program will be well-represented by faculty and alumni at the next meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians in Pasadena (1-5 April, 2009). The following faculty will be presenting papers:
Claire Zimmerman, "Photographic Architecture, Cold War Export"
Will Glover, "Mid-20th-century New Towns in India and Changing Conceptions of the Social"
Lydia Soo, "A Restoration Academy? The Places of Architectural Discourse in late 17th-Century London"
Andrew Herscher, "Cultural Heritage and Political Activism in Post-Yugoslavia"
Recent graduates of the area will also be participating:
Itohan Osayimwese (University of Washington, Seattle), co-chairing the session "German Architecture and the Non-Western World During the Kaiserreich and Weimar Period"
Vandana Baweja (Oberlin College), presenting the paper "Koenigsberger’s Exile in Mysore and Tropical Architecture"
The H/T area will also be holding a University of Michigan Reunion at the meeting, on Friday, 3 April, 6-8 pm in the Westin Pasadena Hotel (Living Room, Upper Level Bar). All alumni and friends are invited to attend, as well as students interested in learning more about the Architecture Doctoral Program at the University of Michigan. For further information, please contact PhD candidates Kristina Luce (kluce@umich.edu) and Stephanie Pilat (spilat@umich.edu), who are organizing the event.

Christopher Leinberger, director of Taubman College's Real Estate Certificate program, was interviewed on National Public Radio's All Things Considered on December 10, 2008. Listen here: www.npr.org

Michigan Architecture has three fellowships available for 2009:

William Muschenheim Fellowship/Design

Walter B. Sanders Fellowship/Research

Willard A. Oberdick Fellowship/Project

Michigan Architecture Fellows are appointed as lecturers, spend one year in residence, and teach three classes in addition to pursuing their fellowship interests. Review of application materials began November 1, 2008 and ends January 15, 2009.

For more information, visit our fellowship page.

Michigan Architecture is seeking tenured or tenure-track faculty in environmental building technology.

One position in environmental building technology, with a focus on passive and active building performance, energy-efficient building and building systems integration. The demonstrated ability to conduct research and contribute to doctoral studies in this area is desired. Candidates should have a record of teaching, scholarship, publication and/or related professional experience. A Ph.D. is desirable.

For more information, visit our faculty search page.

The University of Michigan Alumni Association (UMAA) is pleased to announce the launch of the University of Michigan Association of Jewish Alumni (UMAJA) in partnership with the University of Michigan Hillel. Together, UMAA and UMAJA are able to offer numerous benefits and opportunities. Please check out the website at www.umaja.org, join, and tell all your friends. UMAJA is free to join, and they have many exciting plans in the works, including a mentorship program and a great Homecoming weekend. Members of UMAJA will also receive a monthly e-newsletter (the e-JewBlue), which will include updates on Jewish alumni, students, and campus events.

Former dean Doug Kelbaugh was featured in the blog Contemporary Expression on November 16, 2008. Nancy VanReece discusses Kelbaugh's support of New Urbanism -- and of porches. She says, "[i]n a world highly mediated by technology, face-to-face, Kelbaugh says that live interaction between people is 'important glue in building community and sustaining it'." For more on this blog post, visit Contemporary Expression.

We are pleased to announce Gloria Robinson, FAICP as Taubman College's winter 2009 Sojourner Truth Visiting Professor. She will teach a course entitled "Big-City Politics and Planning," where she will impart her thirty-year career as a planning and economic development professional, which includes positions in both the public and private sectors.

Gloria W. Robinson is currently chief operating officer for Heritage Vision Plans, where she has worked for three years, serving as a consultant for 18 months before moving to chief operating officer in 2006. Since joining Heritage, Robinson has worked with the company on many organizational development and process improvement activities, including leading the proposal effort that enabled Heritage to successfully win the Ford Motor Company Salaried Vision Program for a second three-year contract term.

Prior to Heritage, Robinson served in the administration of former Detroit Mayor Dennis W. Archer, first as director of planning & development, and later as group executive for economic development. Under her leadership, the city attracted over $20 billion in new development, including many of the major development projects in the city, such as the Compuware World Headquarters, General Motors World Headquarters, Campus Martius Park and surrounding development, Ford Field, and Comerica Park.

In addition, Robinson also served in the administration of former President Bill Clinton as an appointee. She was assistant to the secretary for community empowerment at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., where she led the Urban Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Initiative under the leadership of HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Vice President Al Gore. She also assisted the vice president in organizing and conducting several business round tables.

Gloria Robinson holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, where she was elected to the Mortarboard Senior Women's Honorary Society, and she holds a Master of Urban Planning from Michigan State University. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a registered community planner in the State of Michigan. She was elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2004.

Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning is now podcasting archived lectures on iTunes. The college's fall 2008 lecture series can now be heard on iTunes U at http://arch.umich.edu/newsandevents/lectureseries/ . Past lectures will continue to be archived, and future lectures will be posted immediately after each lecture takes place.

When the links are clicked, iTunes U will open. Note it will take a moment to launch iTunes, so please be patient.

An alternative way to access the archived podcasts is to simply open iTunes on your computer, then visit the iTunes Store and search for "Taubman College". This will launch the Taubman College lecture series.

If you should come across any technical problems, please contact us at tcaup-comm@umich.edu. For now, enjoy!

The graduate options studio led by visiting lecturer Jason K. Johnson (Oberdick Fellow) visited Los Angeles for five days in October. The students' visit focused on sites in and around LAX airport, as well as other landmarks in the area. Tours included the home of Charles and Ray Eames in Pacific Palisades, the Schindler House in West Hollywood, and the Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry. The students were also given a tour of the BP Helios House designed by Taubman College's Dean Monica Ponce de Leon's design practice Office dA. The Helios House is a prototype for a new class of environmentally sensitive fueling stations. In addition to its innovative design, the Helios House features a photo-voltaic canopy that will provide approximately 15,000 kWh of energy to the station each year, a green roof, and water collection cisterns. The students also visited with USC Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, who is the the Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) and the inventor of a building scale 3D printing technology called Contour Crafting. Student travel was generously supported by The Wells Bennett Memorial Fund and Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning.

Professor Doug Kelbaugh will be speaking at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design's symposium Re-imagining Cities: Urban Design after the Age of Oil, November 6-8. Professor Kelbaugh's panel is entitled "An agenda for urban design education." Admission to the conference requires advance registration, and space is limited. For more information, visit their website: http://www.upenn.edu/penniur/afteroil/

Dean Monica Ponce de Leon will be speaking at the Creative Cities Summit 2.0, held in the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, on Wednesday October 15, 2008. The lecture/panel presentation is entitled "The Future of Creative Expression for Cities."
Creative practitioners are drawn to places with ecologies that can sustain and invigorate what they do. Creative and cultural activity can revitalize neighborhoods, allow residents to re-imagine the place they live, and shape a new identity for a place in the face of competition for talent, investment, and recognition. "The Future of Creative Expression for Cites" will explore the value and impact that practitioners working across the fields of art, design, architecture, urban planning, and new technology are making on cities now and will discuss the implications for the future. Join our group of panelists as they share examples, inspiration, and insights from their work and participate in the debate.

Moderator:
Cezanne Charles, Director of Creative Industries, ArtServe Michigan
Featuring:
Monica Ponce de Leon, Dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Steve Dietz, Artistic Director of ZER01 San Jose, CA
Lewis Biggs, Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK

For more information, visit Creative Cities Summit 2.0.

Each year, in conjunction with the University of Michigan's homecoming weekend, Taubman College pays tribute to their alumni with special events, including lectures, reunions, and plenty of food. In addition to celebrating its many accomplished alumni, the college honors one alumnus in particular with the Distinguished Alumnus Award. This is the highest award from the college, celebrating the person’s accomplishments after graduation. A person must be a leader in his or her field and have an interest in assisting students and maintaining a network of opportunity for current and past students of the university.
This year's Alumni Weekend began with a presentation from the 2008 Taubman College Distinguished Alumnus, Jorge Pérez. Pérez graduated with a master's in urban planning in 1976 and is now the founder, CEO, and chairman of The Related Group. He and his company have built Miami into the 24-hour metropolis it is today. Pérez spoke to an audience of over 150 students, alumni, faculty, and staff on October 3rd at 12pm about his success in his career. He began by complimenting the University of Michigan, stating his time at the College of Architecture + Urban Planning helped him to mature. He continued to describe his early work as a community developer at the age of 26 when he headed the neighborhood planning program in Miami. Once The Related Group was established in 1979, Pérez turned his attention to developing condominiums downtown.
Jorge Pérez gave some advice to his audience: First, persistence is absolutely essential. "You can’t let them get you down," he says. Second, a person cannot be the best just by working hard; passion is required to succeed. "Hard work is unrewarding and real success will never come" without being passionate about what you do.
Following his presentation Pérez participated in a panel discussion with alumni David Neuman, B.Arch.'70, of the University of Virginia; Malik Goodwin, B.S.'97, M.Arch./ M.U.P.'02, from Detroit; and Megan Gibb, M.U.P.'96, of Portland, Oregon. Jonathan Levine, chair of the Urban and Regional Planning Program; and planning student Joshua Brugeman also participated in the panel. The panelists discussed, among other things, the role of public private partnerships, and lessons learned in Miami that might be applied in Detroit.

University of Florida Press will publish Fernando Luiz Lara's first book, The Rise of Popular Modernist Architecture in Brazil at the end of October. Fernando is assistant professor in architecture.
The publisher writes the book is that this "original and significant contribution to the field counters the traditional historiography of modernist architecture and has broad applicability in examining the importance of the style throughout Latin America." The Rise of Popular Modernist Architecture in Brazil serves as a bridge to understand the complexities of the location and context of popular modernism in Brazil, as well as how modern buildings labeled "popular modernist" really are. For information on the book, visit University Press of Florida.
Fernando will have a book signing and reception hosted by Shaman Drum Bookshop on November 11th. For more information on the event, visit our events page.

A3C principals and Taubman College alumni, Dan Jacobs, M.Arch 1975, and Jan Culbertson, B.S. 1977, M.Arch 1979, have been highlighted in the Ann Arbor Observer this month. The firm has recently remodeled their Ann Arbor office at 210 East Huron to make it more sustainable, which led Ann Arbor writer Grace Shackman to explore the history of the 155-year-old building. With project manager Brian Winkler, Jacobs and Culbertson have earned Ann Arbor’s first LEED-CI Gold Certificate by reducing their carbon footprint. Among many alterations, the team maximized use of natural light by installing skylights wherever possible, installed dual-flush toilets and sense faucets to conserve water, and replaced the insulation with old blue jeans. Now A3C is working on redesigning their green roof. The environmentally-friendly and aesthetically pleasing rooftop garden can be enjoyed outside with deck chairs or inside in their “UrbEn Retreat,” a glass-walled conference room, which is available for use by nonprofit organizations and the government.
For more information on A3C’s remodeling and on the history of 210 East Huron, download the 210EHuron.pdf.

University of Michigan Taubman College Centennial Professor of Practice Mary-Ann Ray and Robert Mangurian, both principals at Studio Works in Los Angeles, were selected by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), in collaboration with the Cities Programme of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), as the winners of the third international competition for the James Stirling Memorial Lectures. Their proposal is entitled “CAOCHANGDI Urban Rural Conundrums : Off Center People’s Space in the Early 21st Century Republic of China - A Model for the Momentous Project of the New Socialist Village.” The Caochangdi project includes the contributions of more than 20 TCAUP students. The James Stirling Memorial Lectures on the City were conceived in homage to architect James Stirling, who believed that urban design is integral to the practice of architecture and a vital topic for public debate.

Ray and Mangurian will develop their research project and present the Stirling Lecture in fall 2008 at the CCA in Montréal, and at the London School of Economics in fall 2009. Their project opens up an original discussion of issues of development in China, going beyond a concern with extreme densification, and addressing a dynamic urban context in a way that is both historically-informed and clearly oriented to emerging social, political and cultural processes. The jury highlighted the innovative character of this project, its collaborative strengths, and its experimental approach to practice and was impressed by the range, originality and quality of the proposals, the international scope, critical links to practice, and engagement with key political, social and design issues in contemporary cities.

The International Studios of Taubman College are featured in NAFSA's September/October 2008 issue of International Educator Magazine. Both Jonathan Levine, chair and professor of urban planning, and Tom Buresh, chair and professor of architecture, are interviewed, as well as alumni Orri Gunnarsson, leader of the Taubman's International Studio in Iceland. The article discusses the importance of studying abroad as a student, as well as a professional architect or urban planner.

NAFSA's International Educator

Princeton Architectural Press recently published Associate Professor of Architecture Keith Mitnick’s book, Artificial Light. The publisher writes that the book “… suggests an alternative type of critical theory consisting of personal and fictitious anecdotes, real and fake photographs, and mini-essays that addresses prevalent themes in architecture such as immediacy, affect, abstraction, realness, and banality. With a narrative style reminiscent of other unconventional writers on design such as Paul Shepheard, Roger Connah, and Rebecca Solnit, Artificial Light is the beautifully written and visually engaging debut of a dynamic new voice in the world of architectural criticism.” Mitnick was recently granted tenure by the regents of the University of Michigan and promoted to the rank of associate professor of architecture.

Keith will have a book signing and reception hosted by Shaman Drum Bookshop on October 2nd. For more information, visit our events page.

Congratulations to the winners and thank yous to the many other participants from our college!

Taubman College was very well represented among the winning contestants in the Work/Play competition:

"C-ing Energy" - First Prize
Scott Curry, Graduate urban planning student
Larissa Larsen, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning

"WorkPlay Ground" - First Prize
Adam Constantino, Undergraduate architecture student
Ai Kawashima, Undergraduate architecture student
Michael Jen, Undergraduate architecture student

"The Hub" - Honorable Mention
Nicholas Senske, Doctoral student in architecture

"Fire & Ice" - Honorable Mention
Shaun Jackson, Associate Professor of Architecture
Richard Tursky, Graduate architecture student
Amanda Winn, Undergraduate architecture student

The intention of five north campus deans, who sponsored the competition, is that the two teams that shared first place will work together to to combine their ideas into a scheme that will be built.

Read about this in the Ann Arbor News article from August 29, 2008.