Awards

The School of Architecture tied for seventh nationally among private and public architecture programs and fourth in public programs (with University of California, Berkeley) in the 2007 DesignIntelligence Dean's Survey of America's Best Architecture and Design Schools. More than 84 school leaders participated in the survey.

The Center for Changing Landscapes has received an honor award from the Minnesota Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (MASLA) for its work on the Gitchi-Gami State Trail (p. 17, top left). The award was presented at the MASLA award banquet April 20 at the Walker Art Center. This is the center's third consecutive honor award.

The collaborative teaching project, Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas: Lifestyles and Ecologies, was one of three recipients of a 2007 AIA Education Honor Award for Excellence. As a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas, William Conway (Arch) led one of the project's three design studios, which explored transit-oriented development and sustainability issues in rapidly growing northwest Arkansas.

The Corridor Housing Initiative won the 2007 National Grassroots Planning Award from the American Planning Association. The project is convened by the Center for Neighborhoods and the Metropolitan Design Center (MDC), under the direction of Ann Forsyth (MDC), who provides design expertise.

Phillip G. Koski (Arch and Inland Office for Tomorrow's Architecture) is one of six architects to receive the 2007 Young Architects Award for leadership in design and service. Koski was appointed by the Minneapolis City Council to serve on the volunteer Historic Preservation Commission, which he currently chairs.

ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING -- New Cartographies of Networks and Territories, published by the Design Institute, was chosen as one of the best books of 2006 by Slate.com and as number one book of 2006 by Archinect.com contributing editor Javier Arbona.

Appointments

Janet Abrams (Design Institute)

• served on the futures committee reviewing the University of the Arts' Graphic Design program in Philadelphia December 5¿6.
• has joined the Brain Trust of Art Center College of Design's (Los Angeles) graduate media design department at the invitation of Ann Burdick, its new chair.
• steps down as a trustee of Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture, New York, in December 2007, after a cumulative decade of service.
• has recently joined the board of trustees of the Soap Factory, a nonprofit contemporary arts venue in Minneapolis.

Marilyn Bruin (DHA) has been invited to participate on the Homelessness Resolution Team for the Presbyterian Church USA. The team is writing a position paper advocating for additional funding for holistic housing and services for homeless individuals and families.

Arthur Chen (Arch) served on an expert panel for UNESCO in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the city's historic district.

Joanne B. Eicher (DHA)

• has been appointed to the Scholarly Advisory Council of the Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona.
• is editor-in-chief of a forthcoming 10-volume publication, Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, for Berg Publishers, Oxford, United Kingdom. Eicher has also been asked to serve on the advisory board of the Textile Research Center associated with the Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, Netherlands. The center has an extensive collection of ethnic and regional dress and textiles, with an emphasis on Islamic apparel.

Ozayr Saloojee (Arch) served as a juror for the Midwest Home and AIA Minnesota Architect of Distinction and Emerging Talent of the Year Awards. Additionally, Saloojee served as a jury member for the Site/Life Mapping exhibition, which is currently on display at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He was cocurator of the interdisciplinary exhibit entitled Praxis/Practice at the Nash Gallery.

Leslie Van Duzer (Arch) has accepted a three-year academic appointment as an external reviewer at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. She will be responsible for visiting the architecture and planning faculty one to three times each year to assess their curriculum.

Grants

Marilyn Bruin (DHA) received a grant from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to conduct and evaluate home ownership pre-purchase workshops for Latino communities in Faribault, Mankato, and Rochester.

John Comazzi (Arch) received a grant-in-aid of research, artistry, and scholarship from the Graduate School to develop a manuscript on the career and work of Balthazar Korab, one of the most prolific photographers of 20th-century architecture. The grant will assist Comazzi in travel for interviews and the assembly of work spanning more than 50 years of photography from around the world.

The Goldstein Museum of Design received a Preservation Assistance Grant for Small Museums from the National Endowment for the Humanities. "Preserving the Goldstein Sisters' Legacy: A General Collections Assessment" will provide funds for a preservation consultant from the Midwest Arts Conservation Center of Minneapolis to conduct a thorough preservation assessment of the museum's historically significant design collection.

Barbara Martinson (DHA) has been awarded a grant-in-aid from the Graduate School for her proposal titled "Good work in craft and design: Exploring ethical issues in creative production." Martinson will research ethical issues faced by crafts persons, graphic designers, and craft and design educators in their day-to-day work.

Lance Neckar (LA) is coprincipal investigator and will write the summary synthesis report for a $1 million interdisciplinary grant to the University's Center for Transportation Studies from the American Institute of Architects. The grant, managed by the Federal Highway Administration, will document cases that explain how several design aspects of transportation projects enhance communities. CDes grant investigators include Ann Forsyth (Metropolitan Design Center) on visual/scenic/aesthetic values, John Carmody (Center for Sustainable Building Research) on environment and sustainability issues, and Neckar. Other faculty principal investigators include John Adams (Geography), Barb VanDrasek (Geography), Carissa Schively (Humphrey Institute), and Gary Davis (Civil Engineering). Robert Johns (Center for Transportation Studies), principal investigator for project management, has organized the project and helped Neckar assemble the winning team.

Ozayr Saloojee (Arch) was awarded a faculty minigrant from the Metropolitan Design Center.

Publications

Ritu Bhatt's (Arch) "Aesthetic or Anaesthetic: Competing Symbols on the Las Vegas Strip" will be published in Instruction as Provocation, or Relearning from Las Vegas, edited by Aron Vinegar and Michael Golec, to be published by the University of Minnesota Press.

Marilyn Bruin (DHA) published "Social Capital, Housing Planning, and Rural Community Vitality" in The International Scope Review, vol. 8, no. 13, pp. 1¿15. 2006.

Joanne B. Eicher (DHA) has published two book reviews in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute: "Arctic Clothing, London: British Museum Press" and "Clothing as Material Culture."

Tom Fisher (dean) has recently published the following articles:

• "Design in Your Future," M, Winter 2007;
• Innovation in Higher Education," DesignIntelligence, December 13, 2006;
• "Signs and Symbols: St. Croix Lutheran High School Chapel" and "True North: University of Alaska Museum of the North," Architecture Minnesota, March/April 2007.

Steven McCarthy (DHA) has had a refereed paper, "Curating as Meta Design-Authorship," published in visual:design:scholarship, the research journal of the Australian Graphic Design Association.

The January/February 2007 issue of Architecture Minnesota contains an article written by Nancy A. Miller (Arch) about Dewey Thorbeck (Center for Rural Design) and the Minnesota 2058 Thriving by Design project that will create a regional and state vision for the next 50 years and try to answer the question, "What is the design of Minnesota in 2058 and what is the role of the University of Minnesota in helping citizens create and attain that design?"

Innovative by Nature," an article in the January/February issue of Architecture Minnesota by William Weber (Center for Sustainable Building Research), highlights Marc Swackhamer's (Arch) graduate studio, which explored the emerging field of biomimicry and its impact on design and the design process. Swackhamer is developing that course work through a seminar called "Bio-inspired Systems" cotaught with Vincent James, VJAA Architects.

Becky Yust (DHA) and Marilyn Bruin (DHA) published "Housing Needs in Rural Communities" in Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 98(4), 15¿19.

Exhibitions and presentations

Bill Angell (DHA) chaired an American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists board meeting, met with EPA staff about building a census-based professional community and a grant-funded project, and met with Council of Radiation Control Protection Directors (CRCPD) about the joint 2008 AARST International Radon Symposium/CRCPD National Radon Meeting.

John Comazzi (Arch) presented the lecture "Designing for Youth and Children" as part of a symposium at the Minnesota Children's Museum. The symposium was cosponsored by the American Society of Interior Designers and International Interior Design Association.

Jeff Crump (DHA) testified on the issue of predatory lending and foreclosure before the Minnesota House Labor and Consumer Protection Committee March 9, and before the Minnesota House Committee on Commerce and Labor and the Minnesota Senate Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection March 20.

Kate Daly (DHA) spoke on the Cities 97 morning show on December 7, 2006, about her retail merchandising course's participation in Project Holiday at Bachman's.

Tom Fisher (dean) was the featured guest on Minnesota Public Radio's "Midmorning" show with host Mariann Combs on December 22, 2006. The topic was the state of design, as related to the design series Combs is putting together and for which Fisher has been interviewed.

Wendy Friedmeyer (Design Institute) participated in the Learning by Design Conference on school design in Minneapolis, October 11-13, 2006. She joined the American Architectural Foundation and the Chicago Architecture Foundation October 27¿28 for the Architecture and Design Education Network (A+DEN) meeting in Chicago, where she presented the DI's Design Camp.

The February 8 lecture by Eames Demetrios in conjunction with the Goldstein Museum of Design's current exhibition, Design Redux: Eames as Paper, attracted 110 guests.

Brad Hokanson (DHA) presented a peer-reviewed paper, "By Measure: Creativity in Design," at a conference in Cardiff, Wales, entitled "Creativity or Conformity: Building Cultures of Creativity" in Higher Education, January 6, 2007.

At the University's first-ever Quality Fair, Brad Hokanson (DHA) presented his poster, E-scholarship as an Engine for Change and Innovation, and Virajita Singh (Arch) presented her poster, Greening the College of Design.

Daniel Jasper (DHA) presented his work associated with "The Casualties of War Series" at the National Art Education Association conference in New York City on March 17. 2007. In February, one of the quilts from Jasper's series was published in a book entitled The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design by Steven Heller with Mirko Ilic (Rockport Publishers).

Karen LaBat and Karen Ryan (DHA) presented information on the Human Dimensioning Lab's capabilities and current research at the quarterly meeting of the North Plains chapter of Orothotists and Prosthetists. They are exploring the use of body scanning in developing better fitting orthotics and prosthetics.

Steven McCarthy (DHA) will have several assemblages on display in a juried exhibition at the Altered Esthetics gallery in Minneapolis, April 5¿26, 2007. Entitled "Art Reincarnated," the show features works that reuse or reconfigure elements because, according to the gallery¿s Web site, "the modern world is full of waste and clutter."

Three works from Barbara Martinson's (DHA) current series "Housing After the Turn of the Century" have been selected for juried exhibitions. "Greenspace=Bluespace" is in the 28th Contemporary Craft Exhibition at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona. "Where do you live?" is in "Quilts=Art=Quilts" at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, New York. "East Bank/West Bank" will be in "Form, Not Function: Quilt Art" at the Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Indiana.

Paintings by Joon Mornes (ALA librarian) were exhibited at the Gallery Lounge, College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. "Colors of the Wind: Paintings by Joonja Lee Mornes," is part of the 2006¿07 visual arts series of the St. Benedict and St. John's fine arts program. The selected works were done between 2004 and 2006.

Stephanie Zollinger (DHA) presented "Transformations of a Textile Innovator: Jack Lenor Larsen" at the 2007 Conference of the National Association for Humanities Education in San Francisco.

Students

A team of graduate students competed in the national Urban Land Institute's Student Urban Design Competition. The multidisciplinary team represented three different colleges: College of Design, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and the Carlson School of Management. Team members included Kristin Raab (LA) team lead, Laura Baker (LA and urban and regional planning), Whitney Parks (Arch), Ben Schein (business), and Ellison Yahner (urban and regional planning). Rebecca Krinke (LA) was the faculty adviser. CDes faculty members Ann Forsyth (Metropolitan Design Center), Lance Neckar (LA), and Bob Sykes (LA) provided review. The team's proposal, "Re Generate," consisted of an urban plan for a piece of land in downtown Los Angeles bisected by the Los Angeles River, and a development proposal for a smaller area of the site.

Design, housing, and apparel interior design students won five of the eight national awards in Target's "Design Me" competition. The competition focused on designing a dorm room. Entries were judged on creativity, unified theme, and use of Target product categories. Rachel Bickel and Chiharu Miller were grand prize winners; Laura Hennings and Stephanie Volberding won first place prizes. All four are seniors in Caren Martin's DHA 4607 (section 1) class. Sarah Theisen, a senior in Mike English's DHA 4607 (section 2) class won a first place prize.

Design, housing, and apparel students, taught by Kris Layon (DHA), designed a logo for Will Steger's Global Warming 101 Expedition (p.19, top left). The final logo combines the polar bear, representing all wildlife endangered by global warming, with the Inukshuk, symbolic of the stone monuments the Inuit use for land navigation and for designating sacred areas.

The student group Greenlight organized and hosted a sustainable design workshop the weekend of January 19, 2007, with about 50 people attending. Attendees included CDes students, professionals, and Cold Spring, Minnesota, community members. The workshop was sponsored by Cold Spring Granite Company, and the resulting four presentations will guide the development work for downtown Cold Spring. Faculty advisers to Greenlight are Virajita Singh (Arch) and Stephen Weeks (Arch).

The landscape architecture urban design studio, led by Clint Hewitt (LA) and Kristine Miller (LA) worked with fine art, geography, and theater graduate students in February to explore the Dania Hall site in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. Students developed and recorded their impressions of, and ideas about, the Dania Hall site -- and its environs -- an important historical multiuse building that burned down several years ago. The work will be used by theater arts students to create a performance about the site's history and future. The project was sponsored by the Art Design and Social Engagement Collaborative, Space&Place, and the Institute for Advanced Study.

Alumni

Lisa Burdeski (Clothing Design '05) was promoted to evening wear handbag designer at BCBG, Los Angeles, California.

Colleen (Simmonds) Davis (DHA '93) www.dcreativeinc.com was recently recognized as Financial Women International's (FWI) 2006 Partner in Success. This award is presented each year to an organization instrumental to FWI (www.fwi.org) and its causes.

The Minneapolis Art in Public Places and the Minneapolis Library Board dedicated "Turning Leaves," three benches by Marjorie Pitz, FASLA (BLA '74) at the grand reopening of North Regional Library on January 27, 2007.

Patrick Redmond (DHA MA '90; www.PatrickRedmondDesign.com) of St. Paul-based brand identity and design firm Patrick Redmond Design, designed a trademark logo for Michael Hauser Flamenco & Classical Guitar, Minneapolis. The logo was chosen as a winner in the American Corporate Identity 23 competition "showcasing the best corporate identity and design in America" and will be published in American Corporate Identity 2008, distributed worldwide by HarperCollins Publishers.

Brandon Sigrist (BA Arch '85; MArch '89) recently took top honors from Writers of the Future for his story "Life on the Voodoo Driving Range."

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors has elected R. Randall Vosbeck (Arch '54) as the 2007 recipient of the Edward C. Kemper Award, which recognizes individuals who contribute significantly to the profession of architecture through service to the institute. Vosbeck, FAIA, principal of Vosbeck, Vosbeck, Kendrick & Redinger, served as the Institute's 57th president in 1981. During his tenure, Vosbeck worked to raise awareness of the role architects play in reducing energy consumption in the built environment.

John Cary (BA Arch '99) was awarded the Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. He will be in residence there from February through July 2008, exploring the Italian tradition of social activism among architects and designers. Cary was also inducted in fall 2006 as a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council. Senior fellowship is conferred on up to 10 industry or environmental leaders annually in recognition of "significant contributions toward the understanding of changing trends, new research, and applied knowledge leading to innovative design models that improve the built environment and the human condition."

Transitions

The Design Institute (DI) welcomes Scott Christensen, research fellow working on the new product design degree program, who joined the DI in November. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Christensen is a practicing product designer who has most recently taught in the University of Wisconsin-Stout¿s industrial design program.

Deaths

Oliver Sievert Hansen (Arch '29), 100, died November 1, 2006, in San Diego, California. Hansen worked as an architect and builder for more than 35 years in California.

Richard J. McLaughlin (MArch '78) died December 31, 2006. McLaughlin was an architect and town planner and a tireless advocate for new urbanist planning principles. His firm, Town Planning Collaborative, was a pioneer in creating compact, walkable communities.

Charles N. "Charlie" Nelson (BArch '68), 61, died in January 2007. Nelson was the Minnesota state historical architect for 34 years and Past Eminent Grand Commander of Knights Templar.

Rosella Qualey (BS home economics '39), 89, died February 18, 2007. Qualey was a University of Minnesota Extension Service assistant director responsible for the Twin Cities area counties. She retired in 1982 and established a scholarship in what was then the University's College of Human Ecology. In 2000, the college named her one of the 100 individuals who had contributed most to the college¿s success.