Awards

The Center for Rural Design received a 2006 honor award from the Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association for its work with Livonia Township in Sherburne County. The center sought to define a model of "community vision," as both process and product that could be applied, with citizen engagement, by other townships in Minnesota.

The Center for Sustainable Building Research won a Crystal Achievement Award for its Commercial Windows Web site (www.commercialwindows.umn.edu/). John Carmody and Kerry Haglund were responsible for the design of the site.

Doug Lew (Architecture) won best of show for the 26th International Exhibition of the San Diego Watercolor Society. Lew also won first honor for the Louisiana Watercolor Society's Annual International Exhibition.

Barbara Martinson (DHA) received a first place award for "Clandestine Incantations" at the 2006 Minnesota State Fair fine arts exhibition.

Marc Swackhamer's (Architecture) poster "Drape house," was accepted by the review committee for Affordable Design: Convening the Conversation Forum.

Lee Tollefson's (Architecture) firm received a national AIA Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture design award for its design for the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas.

Appointments

Bill Angell (DHA/Midwest Universities Radon Consortium) has been invited to serve on the steering committee of the Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner's Asthma Advisory Committee and to serve as chair of the environment work group.

Renée Cheng, (Architecture) and Marc Swackhamer (Architecture) have joined the Digital Design Consortium (DDC) as associate members. The DDC is one of only a few efforts in the academic world to bring together specialists who have backgrounds in both design and information technology.

Renée Cheng (Architecture) was chosen to participate on the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Academic Leadership Program during the 2006-07 academic year. The program develops the leadership and managerial skills of faculty on CIC campuses who have demonstrated exceptional ability and administrative promise.
-- Cheng has also been chosen to serve on the McKnight Foundation Advisory Committee for the 2006-07 academic year.

Sauman "Sue" Chu (DHA) has been selected as one of the Innovation Fellows in Technology ("iFellows") by the U's Office of Information Technology for 2006-07.

Joanne B. Eicher (DHA) has been appointed to the International Scholarship Advisory committee. She is serving on the subcommittee for fellowships.

Mary Guzowski (Architecture) is the recipient of the Renewable-ARCHITECTURE Education Initiative (RAEI). The initiative brings together the expertise of CDes's School of Architecture and Center for Sustainable Building Research; AIA Minnesota, in cooperation with their Committee on the Environment (COTE); the Green Institute; the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society (MRES); and the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA).

Kerry Haglund (Center for Sustainable Building Research) has been elected to the board of directors of the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC). Haglund and John Carmody (Center for Sustainable Building Research) have been actively involved in NFRC's activities for many years as part of their windows and glazings research.

John Koepke (Landscape Architecture) has continued his work on the Laurentian Vision Project with communities and mining companies on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Work on the project recently took him to Portland, Oregon, where senior research fellow Chris Carlson (Landscape Architecture) and he completed work on a $10,000 grant associated with the project.

Richard Kroeker's (Architecture) design for the children's theatre in Cheticamp Cape Breton has won the Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor's Masterwork Award.

Karen LaBat (DHA) was elected chair of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Regional Research Project, NC170, "Personal Protective Technologies for Current and Emerging Occupational Hazards." Marilyn DeLong (DHA) is the research group's administrative adviser. The research group will hold its annual meeting on the U of M campus next summer.
-- LaBat has also been selected to serve as a scientific excellence advisor for the National Textile Center (NTC) for a second year. The NTC is a research consortium of eight universities with collaborative research funded by the federal government.

Lin Nelson-Mayson (Goldstein Museum) has been elected as vice president/president-elect of the Association of Midwest Museums board.

Julia Williams Robinson (Architecture) served as a juror on the Fifth Annual AIA Minneapolis Merit Awards.
-- Robinson's painting "Rockport Breakfast" has been selected by jurors to be part of the Best of Northstar Watercolor Society's Fall Members Show Dec. 4-29 at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans' building in downtown Minneapolis.

Grants

Bill Angell (DHA/MURC) received a $200,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for various radon training initiatives. Angell is the principal investigator for the project, which involves Auburn University, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Kansas State University, and Rutgers University.

The Center for Sustainable Building Research's John Carmody and Billy Weber received a grant from the McKnight Foundation to create a regional green affordable housing knowledge base, which will serve as a clearinghouse for information on sustainable housing design and construction.

Arthur Chen (Center for World Heritage Studies) received funding from Cranbrook Archives and Cultural Properties for a project to advance Cranbrook's program of conservation through its nomination for World Heritage Inscription by UNESCO.

Brad Hokanson (DHA) and the College of Design were awarded a $61,000 Service and Process Improvement Fund Award to develop a plan to increase technology enhanced learning in the college.

Using funds from a 2004 U of M Grant-In-Aid award, Daniel Jasper (DHA) collaborated with textile designers Susan Walter (BS '04) and Chris Batagglia to fabricate quilts that recreate photographic images of women soldiers and marines who have been killed in the Iraq War. Pixilated digital images of the service women are transformed into large-scale patchwork quilts. The Casualties of War: Karina S. Lau Quilt is part of a traveling exhibit entitled Insult to Imagery.

The Metropolitan Design Center has received $200,000 in funding for two projects from the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Federal Highway Administration to examine urban design issues around transportation infrastructure.

The Goldstein Museum of Design was awarded fiscal year 2007 Institutional Support funds from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Publications

Renée Cheng (Architecture) published an article, "Questioning the Role of BIM in Architectural Education," in AECbytes (July 26, 2006).

Sauman Chu (DHA), Mauricio Arango (DHA), Chuck Yust (former IT staff) have coauthored an article entitled "A Case Study: Creating and Designing a Bilingual Resource Web Site for Somali Immigrants," which has been published in the book, Advances in Universal Web Design and Evaluation: Research, Trends, and Opportunities, by Sri Kurniawan and Panayiotis Zaphiris.

Thomas Fisher (Dean) has recently written the following articles:

• "Practice with a Larger Purpose," Architecture Minnesota Jan./Feb. 2007;
• "Divine Plan Book," Faith and Form, Vol. 39, No. 4;
• "Design Futures," Design Intelligence, Nov. 2006. He also wrote the catalog introduction,
• "Reconciling Art and Design," for the Praxis/Practice faculty/student exhibition, Nash Gallery.

Louise Goldberg (Center for Sustainable Building Research) published "Foundations-The Base of Sustainable Residential Building Design" in the Journal of Green Building, vol. 1, no. 3, 2006.

Tasoulla Hadjiyanni's (DHA) paper, "Bounded choices -- Somali women constructing difference in Minnesota housing," has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Interior Design.

Brad Hokanson (DHA) has contributed a chapter to the Handbook of Visual Languages in Instructional Design (Idea Group, forthcoming, 2007,) called "The Virtue of Paper."

The Karina S. Lau and the Tyanna Avery-Felder quilts by Daniel Jasper will be published in a book by Steven Heller and Mirco Ilic, The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design (Rockport Publishers; forthcoming, February 2007).

Barbara Martinson and Sauman Chu (DHA) have a chapter in Designing Effective Communications: Creating Contexts for Clarity and Meaning (Allworth Press, 2006).

Julia Williams Robinson (Architecture) "Domesticity to Oppression: Values & Appropriate Housing Design" in Shehayeb, D., H. R. Yildiz and P. Kellett, 'Appropriate Home': Can we design 'appropriate' residential environments?, Cairo, Egypt: HBNRC, Housing and Building National Research Centre, 2006: 1-8).
-- Robinson's book, Institution and Home: Architecture as a Cultural Medium, was published in fall 2006 by Techne Press of Delft, the Netherlands as a part of the Transformations Series.

"In Wonder," an essay by Leslie Van Duzer (Architecture) has been published in a new book, Archipelago: Essays on Architecture (Rakennustietoi, Finland, 2006).

Exhibitions and Presentations

Bill Angell (DHA/MURC) received invitations to present at "Radon Mitigation and Training" at the North American Radon Action Month Workshop in Ottawa, Canada, sponsored by Health Canada from January 22-23, and "Future Directions in Radon: International Continuums and Choices" at the Radon Risk: Time for More Effective Action conference in London, UK, sponsored by Informa from January 29-30.

Sauman Chu (DHA) presented the project "A Case Study: Creating and Designing a Bilingual Resource Website for Somali Immigrants" at the Outreach Scholarship 2006 Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in October.

John Comazzi (Architecture) presented a paper -- "Detroit's Midway Urbanism" -- at the ACSA West regional conference. The paper looks at new forms of urbanism in Detroit that orbit around large-scale events and event structures. Comazzi also had an essay, entitled "(re)Moving History," published in the Magazine on Urbanism (MONU), in Germany. The essay details the issues of urbanism and monumentality in Budapest, Hungary following the dismemberment of the former Soviet Union.

Joanne B. Eicher (DHA) presented "Writing a book for National Geographic Society" to Phi Upsilon Omicron, Alpha Chapter.

Dean Thomas Fisher made the following presentations this fall:

• Chronicle of Higher Education "The Sustainable University," panel discussion, Boston
• Chronicle of Higher Education, "Technology and Higher Education Facilities" symposium, Las Vegas, NV
• Build Boston, "BSA Research Awards, Iconic Buildings in Boston," panel discussions, Boston
• AIA California Desert Practice Conf. "Architectural Practice and the Paradigm Shift," keynote address, Palm Springs, CA
• American Society of Landscape Architects, "F. L. Olmsted and Public Health" lecture, national convention, Minneapolis

The Goldstein Museum's exhibit, "American Fashion Transformed," was featured on the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's National Design Week Web site.

Brad Hokanson (DHA) was a guest on the University of Minnesota's Tech Talk "Gadget" show. Produced to help community members learn more about digital technology, the episode will air Sunday, December 17 at 9 p.m., on Twin Cities Public Television Channel 17. The show will also be podcast through the University's Tech Talk Web site.
-- Hokanson (DHA) presented a symposium entitled "The role of creativity in the instructional design program" at the conference of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology in Dallas, Texas. In the parallel International Visual Literacy Association Conference, he presented a workshop "Teaching creativity: Research and observations."
-- Hokanson also presented two papers on the use of games in learning at the recent International Textiles and Apparel Association annual meeting in San Antonio.

Visiting faculty member Benjamin Ibarra (Architecture) attended the opening of AR&PA 2002 by the Queen of Spain who gives the international prize -- the "Queen Sofía" -- for conservation and restoration of cultural heritage.

Daniel Jasper's poster Solar Bear, on the environmental theme of "desertification," will be on exhibit Nov. 2006 through Jan. 2007 at the International Biennial of the Poster in Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico.
-- Jasper's The Casualties of War: Tyanna Avery-Felder quilt was exhibited at the DPI: Digitally Propelled Ideas exhibit at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Jasper's research paper about the Casualties of War series, entitled "Information is Anti Poetry: The Visual Display of Qualitative Information," was selected for presentation at Wonderground: The 2006 Design Research Society International Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

Steven McCarthy (DHA) has had digital videos from his Commercial Rhetoric Art Project juried into the Paris/Berlin International Meetings.

Laura Musacchio (Landscape Architecture) was an invited speaker at the Chicago Botanic Garden's Janet Meakin Poor Research Symposium in October. She spoke about her current research project: the regreening of the Twin Cities' metropolitan landscape.
-- At the October 6-12 American Society of Landscape Architects/International Federation of Landscape Architects meeting in Minneapolis, Musacchio led a sold-out tour of the significant restoration sites in the center city of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Poster Offensive 3 (www.posteroffensive.com) an exhibition of screenprint posters was held in September at the Frank Stone Gallery in Minneapolis and included work by James Boyd-Brent (DHA), Bill Moran (Design Institute), and DHA alumni Anchalee Chambundabongse, Ben Hribar, Steve Jokisch, Katie Kirk, Steve Marth, Nate Strandberg, Adam Turman, Jason Walzer, and Dustin Yerks.

Julia Williams Robinson presented two papers at the Society for Teaching and Learning's 6th Annual International Conference in London -- "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Incorporating Faculty Conceptions and Multiple Perspectives on Course Redesign to Promote Student Engagement," coauthored with Valerie Ruhe and architecture graduate student Marc Beitz, and "Designing Research: The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning in Large Lecture Courses," co-authored with Valerie Ruhe, Sue Wick, and Paul Baepler. The proceedings are to be published in early 2007.

Dewey Thorbeck (Center for Rural Design) presented on the topic of rural design and UMore Park at the AIA Minnesota Convention on November 15.

Leslie Van Duzer (Architecture) and her brother, magician and associate professor of education Eric Van Duzer, have a paper accepted by the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Education. The paper, "Perceptions of Deceptions," describes the 2006 free lab they co-taught at Dalhousie University in July 2006. In the two-week course, architecture students applied techniques used by stage magicians to study the distance between real and perceived space.

Students

Architecture, interior design, graphic design, human factors, and more join together in Places to Go: Bathrooms of the Twin Cities, an exhibition produced by Rebecca Noran, M.F.A. candidate in interactive design. The exhibition-which runs at the Hennepin History Museum until Dec. 30-explores more than 80 visually compelling commodes in the Twin Cities metro through photos and actual bathroom fixtures.

Xinle Wang and Jonathan Mason are recipients of the first Design Democracy Fellowship in Architecture. Each will receive a $5,000 fellowship. Finalists were Scott Aspenson, James Wheeler, and Mike Perrizo. The Design Democracy Fellowship, for second year M. Arch. students, recognizes exemplary projects that reflect the values of good design, every day, for everyone. The fellowship, a permanent endowment, was established through gifts to the College of Design from alumni, firms, and allied professionals, as well as from Target Corporation.

Students in the architecture design studio taught by Tom Westbrook and John Dwyer worked with Tulane University, Katrina's House of Care, and the Hands On Network on three Hurricane Katrina projects during the summer of 2006.

Clothing design students swept all three awards in the 2006 Safety Products Student Design Challenge sponsored by the Safety and Protective Products Division of the Industrial Fabrics Association International. The products entered in the competition were developed in the functional clothing design course taught by Karen LaBat. The third place award went to the team of Laura Domholt, Chau Luong, and Jenny Olson for design of "Rock Climbing Pants." The team of Alyssa Cogan, Dan Roedler, and Lisa Venne won the second place award for design of the "K-9 Bullet-Resistant Vest." The first place award winners were Stephanie Amann, Theresa Lastovich, and Angela Martin for the design of "Smart Roofing Pants."

Clothing design seniors designed live during the opening of "Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator," at the Weisman Art Museum, October 13.

Clothing design juniors working with local culinary students presented chocolate-inspired designs at the Twin Cities Chocolate Extravaganza, November 11-12 at International Market Square.

Amy Kampf (retail merchandising undergraduate) received honorable mention for her undergraduate research paper from the International Textile and Apparel Association.

Student work from Kathy Olmstead's (Architecture) undergraduate design studio opened this summer at the Soap Factory gallery.

Clothing design senior Lisa Venne received one of four scholarships presented by Fashion Group International during its annual upper Midwest career day in October.

Alumni

Colston Burrell (M.L.A. '95) was featured in a September New York Times article about native plants.

Rachel Carlson (B.S. clothing design '04) and Amy Michielle Freeman (B.S. Retail Merch. '98) participated in Macy's "Distinction in Design" competition.

Richard T. Murphy (B.L.A.'75) was honored for his teaching with a public service award from the Minnesota Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (MASLA).

Peter MacDonagh's (B.L.A. '85) work on green roofs was featured in a StarTribune article (www.startribune.com/1375/story/620461.html). MacDonagh also authored the green roof issue of Implications Newsletter (Vol. 4, Issue 8); a first for a landscape architect. MacDonagh also helped complete the site and water guidelines for the new version of the State of Minnesota's Buildings, Benchmarks, and Beyond (B3) sustainable building design guidelines. The guidelines are used by all state-bonded projects within the state.

Susan Sokolowski (DHA Ph.D. '99 with apparel emphasis) was promoted to the position of innovation director of women's apparel for Nike. She is responsible for project management of all women's performance wear for the company.

Geoff Warner (B.Arch. '89) has garnered considerable media attention (www.weehouses.com/press.htm) for his prefabricated weeHouse structures (www.weehouses.com/interest/downloads.htm).

Transitions

John Comazzi joins the architecture faculty as assistant professor. Comazzi received his master of architecture (1998) and a master of science in architectural history and theory (1999) from the University of Michigan. From 2001 to 2006, Comazzi was a lecturer in architecture at Michigan.

Metropolitan Design Center Dayton-Hudson faculty fellows for 2006-07 are

• Jeffrey R. Crump (DHA) designing housing markets
• Brad Hokanson (DHA) developing, planning, and presenting the second conference on wireless state of the cities
• Ann R. Markusen (HHH Institute of Public Affairs) creating missing arts space for Minnesota's native Americans
• Laura R. Musacchio (Landscape Architecture) Restoration in City: Developing theory, methods, techniques, and tools to measure urban design and planning performance of regreening efforts in the Twin Cities, Chicago, and Phoenix
• Julia W. Robinson (Architecture) proposal to investigate contemporary housing and urbanism in the Netherlands
• Leslie Van Duzer (Architecture) preparation of an international competition for ideas on design for an aging population
• Rachel Iannacone (Architecture), currently teaching at Ithaca College, joined the faculty as a visiting assistant professor teaching history lectures and seminars for the next academic year.

The following practitioners, recognized as leaders in the profession, join the architecture faculty as professors in practice; all taught during fall semester 2006 in upper level graduate studios:

• Tom Meyer received the Ralph Rapson Award for Distinguished Teaching from CALA in 1990. He is a principal in the firm Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Ltd., which has won numerous awards including the 2005 AIA Honor Award. Meyer teaches design studio courses.
• Bill Blanski is a design principal with Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. For the past 18 years, he has successfully designed projects for the arts, education, health, technology, and research facilities throughout the United States.
• Scott Davidson is a senior associate at Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. He is at the forefront of their digital architecture initiatives where the exploration and adoption of new technology and practices are developed. Davidson is actively involved as a healthcare planner and architect and he works on projects both locally and nationally.
• Jennifer Yoos is an architect and partner in the firm of Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA). Her work integrates design practice with research and explores the interconnections of social, cultural, and environmental issues with the built environment.
• Mic Johnson is design principal of RSP Architects and a partner of the firm. Johnson is a former adjunct professor of architectural design at the University of Oregon. After leading his own architectural practice in Portland for several years, he joined Ellerbe Becket as design principal in 2002.

Diogo Burnay (Portugal) and John Fernandez (MIT) were visiting Cass Gilbert professors fall semester, part of the Cass Gilbert Design Catalyst Program. Also visiting this fall were Blair Satterfield, (Rice University), Pedro Ravera (Portugal), and Jorge Spencer (Portugal).

Deaths

Russian-born architect Valerius Michelson died August 3, 2006, at age 90. Michelson studied with some of the leading modernist architects of the 20th century. While working in the New York office of Marcel Breuer in the late 1950s, he first came to Minnesota as resident architect for Breuer's Abbey church at St. John's University in Collegeville. Upon its completion, he settled in the Twin Cities. Some of his principal works include St. John's Prep School (Collegeville, 1962); St. Paul's Priory (now Monastery) (Maplewood, 1964); Itasca Community College (Grand Rapids, 1986); the restoration of Sullivan's National Farmer's Bank (Owatonna); remodeling of Stewart Hall, St. Cloud State University; and West 7th Multi-Service Center (St. Paul, 1985). Michelson taught classes at the School of Architecture from 1963-85.

Virginia Currie, (Architecture, 1936), died in June 2006. Her husband, Leonard, (B.Arch, '36) died last year. Leonard was dean at the University of Illinois and at Virginia Polytechnic; he worked with Gropius and Breuer.