Cover story

Greening and the College of Design
The College of Design (CDes), in the business of envisioning and creating what is both workable and beautiful, has been in the vanguard of efforts to integrate and focus initiatives on campus and beyond for what can be a sprawling idea--sustainability. Sustainability covers all the areas CDes addresses, pointed out Dean Thomas Fisher: "the built environment, what we use and wear and package. So there's a feeling in the college that we can do something to make a difference," he said. Full story

Features

College of Design Advisory Board
The College of Design Advisory Board serves to enhance the relationship between the college and its constituents. Board members serve as informed advocates in the greater community for the advancement of the college. Full story

Alpha Alpha Gamma
In November 1920, the women of the University of Minnesota School of Architecture sent an announcement to the Minnesota Daily telling the campus and any other interested parties that they had formed a sorority, Delta Phi, "composed of architects and interior decorators." Just after the New Year 1921, this group held a Japanese pledging tea at the home of a faculty member. After a brief induction ceremony, the women, wearing kimonos and sitting on cushions on the floor, "listened to weird Oriental music," cooled themselves with Japanese fans handed out as party favors, and talked about their future careers as architects and designers, according to a sorority memory book written several years after the event. Full story

Here By Design III
Since the "Here by Design" exhibit premiered in 2001 at the Goldstein Museum of Design, the world that Minnesota designers inhabit has changed radically. "There's been a huge shift in design technology in terms of digital fabrication and rapid prototyping," explained curator James Boyd-Brent, associate professor of graphic design. "It really wasn't on the radar six years ago and now it's unavoidable." Full story

Profile: Joanne Eicher
An internationally renowned researcher and scholar on the cultural aspects of dress, Eicher delivered the Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholars Lecture November 13 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Center. Sponsored by the Office for University Women, her presentation was "Beyond the F Word: Fashion, Dress, and Cultural Meaning." Eicher recounted her adventures in Nigeria, West Africa, and Asia as she built a body of work that includes more than 200 books, articles, and other publications, numerous honors and awards, and decades of teaching. The Ada Comstock award is extremely competitive, said Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, assistant professor of interior design and a member of the committee that selects the honorees. Nominees must be regents professors, distinguished McKnight professors, or members of academies to even be considered. Full story

10 things you should know about the new CDesK
With 235 new studio desks--CDesKs--installed at the beginning of the 2007 fall semester, Rapson Hall is looking good. Full story

Columns

Dean Fisher
At the College of Design, we have definitely focused on solutions. Making sustainability the theme of the year, we have several leading-edge research efforts under way, many of them led by staff from our Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR). We have started to green the college, with staff and students looking at ways to recycle waste and reduce our carbon footprint, and we have begun to plan a University-wide sustainability effort, including mapping all the environmental efforts under way at the institution. Full story

Around the college
Named-spaces event honors donors... Preparing for the inconvenient truth... Sacred sites: A symposium on architecture, ethics, and spiritual geography... Response to the I-35W bridge collapse... Full story

Architecture
The School of Architecture's class of 2010 includes students just accepted to the undergraduate major and the students entering our graduate program. To those of us in education, these students are a very real reminder of our responsibilities toward the 2010 Imperative. While well-intentioned, we don't find it feasible (as proposed in the national 2010 Imperative) to require all studio curricula to address sustainability. We are adapting the 2010 Imperative to more holistically integrate sustainability across the curriculum. We believe that in this way, we will more likely meet the extremely challenging goal of carbon-neutral buildings by 2030 while also emphasizing the importance of core design thinking. We see the opportunity for a more integrated approach that does more than simply add the words sustainable design to an already full curriculum. Full story

Landscape Architecture
Department of Landscape Architecture students and faculty are particularly excited about this year's sustainability theme. The concept is not new for landscape architects: We like to say that sustainability is not an add-on. From Fredrick Law Olmstead's early designs in New York and Boston, to H. W. S. Cleveland's plans in Minneapolis and St. Paul, to the work of today's leading professionals, the focus is on designing environments that sustain both humans and the natural environment. Full story

Design, Housing, and Apparel
The ethic of sustainability is instilled in the work of students, faculty, and staff in the department. Given the range of disciplines within the department, sustainability is interpreted broadly. Below are examples of work in sustainability involving different perspectives by faculty and students in design, housing, and apparel. Full story

News
Awards... Appointments... Grants... Publications... Exhibitions and presentations... Students... Alumni... Deaths... Full story

Annual fund: Sustaining the College of Design
Private giving makes it possible for CDes to transform the lives of those who are touched by its teaching, research, and outreach. Full story

Alumni
2007-08 Design Student and Alumni Board... Stay connected... Star volunteer--Grant Eull... Join the Alumni Society--Enhance the student experience... Legislative network and annual briefing... Attendees of the MLA class of 1987 20th anniversary reunion... Save the dates... Full story

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