1998 Research Symposium Panel Tom Fisher's Presentation

Outline of presentation made by:

Thomas Fisher
Professor and Dean, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota		(l to r) Symposium panelists Mike Martin and Thomas Fisher

Research at the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota

1. The nature of Federal funding is changing, requiring more hybrid partnerships, often with industry or the profession

• We are in discussions with the National Science Foundation about starting an industry/university partnership, which require 10 corporate partners in order to leverage NSF investment.
• We are among several universities involved in HUD's national accessibility study, with funds flowing through private research firm -- Steven Winter Associates.
• We have developed a web site on site on windows and glazing, with DOE support and the cooperation of the window industry.

2. State, county, municipal, and foundation support is increasingly available, although almost entirely for applied research of benefit to a geographical area

• Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources has funded us to do POE's on some of their buildings, using this as leverage to seek state funding to make all of their facilities more functional and sustainable.
• The state has also provided us with seed money to set up water quality cooperatives in rural areas, in which owners with failed septic systems give tax-deductible land easements to a state-wide foundation, which in turn allows regional water cooperatives to set up alternative forms of waste water treatment on the land.
• The state has funded a Center for Rural Design, jointly supported by our college and the college of agriculture, to look at housing, pollution, transportation, and economic development issues in rural communities.
• The state, as well, has funded a Design Initiative with recurring money to foster design-based programs, industries, and community outreach.
• Hennepin County has funded us (and HOK) to develop a sustainability rating guide for use in all county buildings and as a design guide for architects and landscape architects.
• The city of St. Paul has established a Design Center and is partnering with our college in developing a digital model of the city for use in planning and development.
• Six suburban municipalities have funded us to do long-range planning and analysis, including the development of GIS planning tools with the goal of creating more livable communities.
• Two foundations, one regional and one national, have funded two parts of a multi-year study of the problems and prospects of older, "first-ring" suburbs. One part will look at economic and physical planning, the other at the rehabilitation of first-ring housing stock.

3. While research funding is ample, it also creates difficulties of various sorts

• There is a trend, both among foundations and government sponsors, to resist paying the indirect cost recovery required by the University. Our faculty has discussed applying a tax on proposals that do not include ICR to cover overhead.
• Faculty find it difficult to balance the time requirements of teaching with the time demands of especially applied research. An infrastructure of research fellows to serve as project managers has helped the situation.
• Some faculty who have been largely teachers do not always have the research and writing skills needed for scholarship, so training is important.
• While partnership with the design professions is critical to establishing research agendas and to the transfer of research information, some professionals remain leery of sharing knowledge or are skeptical of the value of research. We must cultivate an architectural culture that sees itself as a profession sharing knowledge rather than a trade with secrets.
• The profession and discipline also have inadequate information transfer mechanisms. Architectural Research Quarterly (ARQ), a quarterly refereed research journal covering design, history, theory, technology, practice, and environment behavior published by Cambridge University Press is one effort to address that lack.

13 November 1998, Washington, DC

Back to ARCC Homepage | Back to Research Exchange

To top of page

This page was last updated on 22 April 2008.
http://www.polaris.net/~arcc/web/fish98.htm