Category Archives: ARCC Member Reports

Virginia Tech Architecture students awarded $4,000 in scholarships from Mid Atlantic Chapter of RCI

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Students from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies’ School of Architecture + Design recently competed for $4,000 in scholarships sponsored by the RCI Mid Atlantic Chapter, an affiliated chapter of RCI, Incorporated, which is an international association of professional consultants, architects, and engineers who specialize in the specification and design of roofing, waterproofing, and exterior wall systems. This work was part of two competitions developed and juried by School of Architecture + Design faculty members Elizabeth Grant, Mario Cortes, and James Jones, along with Matthew Innocenzi, president of the Mid Atlantic Chapter of RCI. One competition involved Grant and Cortes’ third-year design lab and the second was a research competition open to all students in the school.

The undergraduate design competition was a 10-week-long exercise assigned to students enrolled in Grant and Cortes’ design lab. Their challenge was to design a building envelope museum for one of three urban sites in Roanoke, Va. The proposed museums were to celebrate the design of building enclosures from traditional practices to new technological developments in the building sciences. On November 8, 2012, the students presented boards and models of their designs at the RCI Mid Atlantic Chapter’s Educational Seminar held in Squires Student Center.

The research competition involved a presentation and display of proposed research related to the design of the building envelope. The competition represented work by graduate and undergraduate students in the School of Architecture + Design seeking new inquiry targeted at improving the built environment. The posters from the research competition were also displayed at the meeting.

In the design competition, $1,000 was awarded to first-place winner Alise Willis, of Raleigh, N.C; $750 to second-place winnerOluwafemi Ibitoye of Middletown, N.Y.; and $500 to third-place winner Thomas Doorn of Cary, N.C. All three are third year architecture majors.

Daeung Kim of Bucheon, South Korea, a PhD student in Architecture and Design Research, was awarded $1,000 in the research competition for his winning entry dealing with computational fluid dynamics at roof parapet conditions. Entrants in both competitions who did not win an award were granted $50 each by the chapter for their contributions.

The winning students each presented their work to a group of architects, engineers, roof consultants, and material suppliers as a part of a session dedicated to the competitions during the RCI Mid Atlantic Chapter’s Educational Seminar. Earlier in the year, the Mid Atlantic Chapter decided to award scholarships to aspiring students studying architecture or engineering who are pursuing a career related to the building envelope. The scholarship program was initiated and chaired by Michael Violette, chairman of the RCI Mid Atlantic Chapter scholarship committee.

Both the Mid Atlantic Chapter of RCI and the RCI Foundation, a national philanthropic organization committed to education and research, are partners with the School of Architecture + Design’s Center for High Performance Environments. The chapter and the foundation have collectively contributed $15,000 to date to the advancement of student research and scholarship. Through its student scholarship program, the RCI Foundation also fully sponsored the attendance of three students, Kenneth Black, Kongkun Charoenvisal, and Ana Jaramillo, at the RCI 27th International Convention and Trade Show held in Dallas, Texas in March 2012.

Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies is composed of four schools: the School of Architecture + Design, including architecture, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture; the School of Public and International Affairs, including urban affairs and planning, public administration and policy and government and international affairs; the Myers-Lawson School of Construction, which includes building construction in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and construction engineering management in the College of Engineering; and the School of the Visual Arts, including programs in studio art, visual communication and art history.

EXHIBITION AS RESEARCH: AN INTERIOR AFFAIR: A STATE OF BECOMING

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An international exhibition of creative works that challenge our preconceptions of ‘the interior’ through a diverse range of research projects. www.interiorbecomings.com

This research exhibition aims to encourage expansion in the fields of research practices and ultimately their audiences, in concert with the official bodies that measure research output, in order to locate and define a research model for interior architecture/interior design disciplines. The curators’ fundamental intention is to connect the research ideas with the broader public beyond scholarly publications. We believe that creative works provide a wider and diverse range of media and experience to communicate the enquiries that inspire the researcher/s.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjo22EpFuAU&feature=share&list=UUqleqbNFNUPnClHexaqN79A

An Interior Affair: A State of Becoming is an IDEA (Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association) exhibition hosted by Curtin University and curated by Professor Marina Lommerse, Jane Lawrence, Sven Mehzoud  and Stuart Foster, in collaboration with FORM.

Designers – Researchers

Trish Bould, United KingdomLynn Churchill, AustraliaLorella Di Cintio, CanadaJoel Day, Australia

Karen ann Donnachie, Australia.

Penelope Forlano, Australia

Stuart Foster, New Zealand

Anthony Fryatt, Australia

Rachel Hurst, Australia

Roger Kemp, Australia

Jane Lawrence, Australia

Marina Lommerse, Australia

 

 Sarah Breen Lovett, AustraliaNatalie McLeod, New ZealandJane Lawrence, AustraliaAndrea Mina, Australia

Belinda Mitchell, United Kingdom

Antony Nevin, New Zealand

Jonsara Ruth, United States

Dianne Smith, Australia

Igor Siddiqui, United States

Nancy Spanbroek, Australia

Reena Tiwari, Australia

Amanda Yates, New Zealand

 

FORM GALLERY 7 SEPTEMBER – 6 OCTOBER 2012, PERTH, AUSTRALIA

An Interior Affair: a State of Becoming explores, extends and challenges the world of the interior as a state of constant and dynamic ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’. With the focus on the interior in flux, this exhibition draws attention to the following questions: How do our windows to the virtual world – the computer, the mobile phone, facebook, and their precedents, the book, the magazine, the camera, the ‘big’ screen and the television – drive our expectations, vision, desire and experiences of ‘real’ interior space? Where is the value in constantly ‘becoming’ new? Entropy followed by death and renewal is the natural cycle. How do we reconsider ‘the old’? What is adaptive re-use? What and how do we recycle? How do we re-vision the history of interiors in the light of ‘becoming’? What are the potential roles and responsibilities for interior designers / interior architects in addressing becoming homeless and ‘being’ disadvantaged?

The exhibition is entirely research-based and explores the interaction between the interior and the researcher, not as a monogamous engagement , but rather as a ménage á trois. This complex arrangement includes the researcher’s engagement with the work and exhibition, the reader as a voyeur, and the curator’s commitment to the researcher/s, the creative works and the public. Entwined in this ménage á trois are other equally intimate relationships or affairs that the researchers have with their creative works. Collectively, through the metaphor of an interior affair, the works in the exhibition can be categorised as intimate, remote, critical, platonic, strained, estranged, violent and/or familial affairs with or within the interior.

Creative works as research exhibits include Sarah Breen Lovett’s

Interior: reframed with expanded architecture which is a documentary exploring the use of moving image installation as a device for understanding the architectural interior. By re-framing, re-focusing and re-projecting the architectural interior back on itself, these Expanded Architecture installations continue a lineage of art practice from the 1920s to the present and explore the shifting, unfolding nature of the architectural interior. http://www.interiorbecomings.com/interior-unfolding-with-expanded-architecture.html

SKEWED SCREEN

 PHOTOGRAPHER – SARAH BREEN LOVETT, 2010

 

From New Zealand Designer-Researcher – Amanda Yates exhibits Topographical Interiors which focuses on research into the interior as a partial or temporal condition that is always in flow. Underpinning these spatial enquiries is a theoretical inquiry into the Oceanic concept of wa (between-ness) and Western theories of becoming. The exhibition installation incorporates a transient temporality through the use of shifting images inset within the topographical table surface. http://www.interiorbecomings.com/topographical-interiors.html

TOKATEA

 PHOTOGRAPHER – PAUL MCCREDLE, 2009

 

A final example is Dis[Place]Ment: A Woman’s Perspective by Designers-Researchers – Marina Lommerse, Lynn Churchill, Dianne Smith, Karen ann Donnachie and Joel Day. By collaborating with women who have experienced displacement, this research intends to affect the kind of places women find themselves in when they are fragile, disempowered, and at times invisible. The installation constructs ‘place’ as a series of narratives and transactions of self, to offer some insight into how women-at-risk may perceive certain environments. http://www.interiorbecomings.com/displacement-a-womanrsquos-perspective.html

UNTITLED STILL LIFE

UNTITLED STILL LIFE

 PHOTOGRAPHER – KAREN ANN DONNACHIE, 2002

 

 

Human-environment-technology interactions and the lower Mississippi River delta

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Assistant Professor of Sustainability, Meredith Sattler, is conducting research on human-environment-technology interactions within the constructed system of the lower Mississippi River delta. Pursued simultaneously through nested design studios, seminars, and independent scholarly research, this work has been supported by the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio (CSS), a University-wide research initiative focusing on collaborative trans-disciplinary proposals for coastal Louisiana geographies. Through the studio, faculty and students from the Schools of The Coast and the Environment, Earth Sciences, Renewable and Natural Resources, Engineering, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Law, Economics, Geology, Geography and Anthropology collaborate on regional to community scale research. Her work through the CSS is part of a larger research trajectory examining methodologies and implications of designing within complex constructed environmental systems.

As a follow-up to her 2011 presentation at the ARCC Conference “Learning from Lafitte: An Interdisciplinary Place-based Approach to Architectural Research and Education”, which mated an NSF funded Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) framework with the 1977 Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour research methodology developed in “Learning from Las Vegas,” she and her students presented their findings to the City Council of Lafitte, Louisiana. Numerous strategies for designing built infrastructures that adapt to fluctuating water levels, which emphasize the integration of ecological and socio-cultural dynamics, time, and feedback loops (essential considerations within the dynamic deltaic system, but often overlooked), were presented to suggest that long-term resilience may not be possible relying entirely on structural (levee) flood control mechanisms. A set of design proposals tailored to the geography were also presented, which catalyzed an engaging discussion about the trade-offs between structural and non-structural flood protection infrastructures. Recently, Lafitte received news that their ring-levee proposal was not included in the State of Louisiana 2012 Coastal Master Plan, which means the town will have to self-fund their proposed ring-levee, or re-consider alternative flood control measures similar to those developed as part of the research trajectory.

In the last year, she continued to advance this work through a collaboration with Carol Friedland, Assistant Professor of Construction Management, and a team of trans-disciplinary students, where they examined the relationship of flood depths, building codes and community sustainability. The project was initiated by the realization that currently, two regulated standards guide building design in coastal areas:  one set protects against flood events and the other protects against wind events. Under these divergent standards a normal building (e.g. home or business) experiences a 45% probability of being destroyed by a flood that exceeds its designed expected life,i while the same building faces only an 8% probability of being destroyed by a wind speed that exceeds its designed expected lifeii

Storm surge is the single most destructive force to buildings; currently, it is not economically feasible to construct buildings to withstand these flood loads, the only viable alternative is to elevate buildings above the surge. In response, she and her team developed a new methodology that more accurately determine flood elevations for higher flood levels and longer return periods and then utilized these new design elevations to project possible sustainable and resilient community design solutions for Grand Isle, and other vulnerable coastal communities. The design embraces, rather than ignores, natural cyclical disturbances. Through testing the architectural implications of their teams’ flood elevations in context they proposed a community transformation responsive to landscape changes typical of barrier islands.

 

Images were created with the assistance of LSU Architecture student Carolina Rodriguez and Landscape Architecture student Elsy Interiano

Prof. Sattler is currently working on an analysis of the State of Louisiana 2012 Coastal Master Plan development process and is examining points of contact between sustainable design frameworks and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. This research is supported by the State of Louisiana Board of Regents.

(i) Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2006). “Recommended residential construction for the Gulf coast.” Rep. FEMA P-550, Washington, DC.

(ii) ASCE. (2010). “Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.” ASCE, Reston, VA, 7–10.

(iii) Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2009). Multi-hazard loss estimation methodology, flood model: HAZUS–MH MR4 technical manual, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC.

 

UTSA Architecture Researchers Study Sustainability in San Antonio Neighborhoods

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A team of researchers and students led by Associate Professor Hazem Rashed-Ali at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) College of Architecture has partnered with the City of San Antonio’s Office of Environmental Policy to study sustainability throughout San Antonio. Their Neighborhood Sustainability Index offers a baseline comparison of key performance indicators outlined in the SA 2020 and Mission Verde plans.

Rashed-Ali and his team collected existing GIS data from a variety of city agencies and other organizations in San Antonio to develop the Neighborhood Sustainability Index. They studied 29 sustainability indicators for each of 275 neighborhoods in San Antonio then pared down those indicators into seven sustainability indices: environmental impact, transportation choices, housing equity, supporting existing communities, valuing communities, economic competitiveness and leveraging federal investments. Finally, they used the indices to develop the master Neighborhood Sustainability Index.

The development of this Neighborhood Sustainability Index will help planners, policy makers and other stakeholders evaluate the long-term environmental impacts of their decisions. Using the data, these different stakeholder groups can compare available planning alternatives, select optimum ones, develop new alternatives to address issues identified in the analysis and generally make more informed planning decisions.

Preliminary analysis of the study results showed an apparent correlation between the proximity of the zone to the down town area and its average Neighborhood Sustainability Index score. The maximum overall score was achieved by the Downtown neighborhood, followed by some of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding downtown, while the lowest scores were achieved by the lower density neighborhoods at the northern edge of the city. Detailed project results can be found on: http://sa-neighborhoodsustainability.org

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program and the City of San Antonio’s Office of Environmental Policy and conducted in partnership with the City of San Antonio Planning Department, VIA Metropolitan Transit, San Antonio Water System, the San Antonio River Authority, the San Antonio Bexar - County Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Bexar County Appraisal District.

UTSA Professor Publishes a Book About The Historic Center Of Lima, Peru.

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Professor Angela Lombardi, who recently joined the faculty of College of Architecture, University of Texas at San Antonio has published a book titled: “Lima. The Historic Center. Analysis and Restoration. Centro Histórico. Conocimiento y restauración. Centro storico. Conoscenza e restauro, Roma: Gangemi editore” . The book focuses on the endangered architectural heritage of the City of Lima and how to preserve it.

Lima, until the beginning of 19th century, was the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the largest and richest city in the Spanish colonies of Latin America. The center of Lima, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1988, is today a heritage of great historical and artistic value, currently in an advanced state of decay, threatened by speculative pressures and not protected by appropriate laws and regulations.

The book presents the approach developed in the joint research carried out in the year 2009‐2012 by a team of Italian and Peruvian scholars including Mattos Cardenas, Pimentel Gurmendi. Its publication was made possible by the support of World Monuments Fund. The research focused on identifying and evaluating the endangered heritage preliminary to the rehabilitation process and intends, with the greatest possible efficiency, to bring to the attention of the institutions responsible for the conservation the cultural and monumental values of the architectural heritage of the city of Lima.

Part one introduces the historic city since its foundation by the Spaniards, also identifying tracks and remains dating before the Spanish period, well worthy of protection for future generations, through the use of hitherto unpublished maps.

The second part presents the conservation issues facing the historic center of Lima and, more generally, the theoretical and methodological tenets for the restoration/rehabilitation of historic urban areas; followed by an overview of endangered heritage, the examination of some case studies, and significant rehabilitation works carried out in the city in the last ninety years.

Part three analyzes the typical local construction techniques based on earthen materials and some of the related methods of preservation, with the aim of pointing the way of recovery and conservation, including as an example the restoration works funded by World Monuments Fund at the Casa de las Columnas: with the statement that every architectural restoration is a special case, and cannot be considered as replicable, the study, the design, and the implementation of a project should be engaged with this in mind, and remembering also that if a work of architecture is studied in its individuality, the better the restoration will be able to keep its authenticity.

The book, published in three language (English, Spanish and Italian), wants to be representative of the productivity and vigor of the international partnership and collaboration between three cultural institutions, it also includes a DVD to involve the interest of a wider public and contains an interactive map of the historic center by Angela Lombardi and Patrizia Montuori and four videos, two of them produced by the Faculty of Architecture of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, made by Angela Lombardi and the videomaker Carlo Tomassi.

PALMERIO Giancarlo, LOMBARDI Angela, MONTUORI Patrizia (eds), 2012, Lima. The Historic Center. Analysis and Restoration. Centro Histórico. Conocimiento y restauración. Centro storico. Conoscenza e restauro, Roma: Gangemi editore, pp. 126

Language: English, Spanish, Italian

sLAB Costa Rica: building a recycling center for Nosara

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Design-Build project, currently under construction, 2012

Project Leader: Tobias Holler, Assistant Professor of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology, Principal,

HOLLER architecture

Student Design Team: Eiman Alsakha, Vinny Ciaramella, Crystal Eksi, Karen Gomez, Jessica Jardinel, Karolina Kopiczko, Michael Koutsoubis, Dimitrios Malliakas, Wagdy Moussa, Austin Reed, Alfonso Rodriguez, Omar Serrano, Timothy Severance

Student Construction Team: Crystal Eksi, Austin Reed, Dimitrios Malliakas, Karolina Kopiczko, Michael Koutsoubis, Karen Gomez, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jessica Rose Jardinel, George Holz, Victoria Torres, Daniel Horn, Kelly Kuplicki, Janeille Calnick, Chris Goodwin, Keven Melara, Elizabeth Weintraub, Sean Dickens, Andy Christoforou, Kris Pomilla, Ted Solages, Adriana Martinez, Talha Kirmani, Cindy Chan, Natalie Jaggernauth, Xingmei Ni, Samuel Lee, Alex Alaimo

Architect of Record: Salagnac Aquitectos, Nosara, Costa Rica

Costa Rica, known for its biodiversity, national parks, and a thriving eco-tourism sector, has a severe municipal solid waste management (MSWM) problem, threatening the health of local communities and destroying a fragile ecosystem whose well-being is of critical to those who live there as well as to the planet.

Starting in 2009 when I visited the village of Nosara for a research project that focused on the biomimetic potential of the dry tropical forest ecosystem in Northwestern Costa Rica, I’ve been hoping to develop a design-build project that would have a positive impact on the local community and that would involve my students from New York Institute of Technology.

sLAB Costa Rica is that project. The design-build initiative of the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) is lead by my studio, Holler Architecture. Based on our research we developed designs in the Fall of 2011 for a communal recycling and education center in Nosara, Costa Rica- to be built by my students over the summer 2012. To jumpstart this under-funded community project, we designed a student competition featuring an innovative online-voting process on Facebook, reaching over 43,000 people from 19 countries within one week and setting the stage for the next phase, a web-based fundraising campaign. To aid in the student’s expenses for food, housing and making a documentary film about the initiative we set up a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $21,000 in four weeks.

Developed in close collaboration with local community leaders from the Nosara Civic Association, and the Nosara Waste and Recycling Association, the Nosara Recycling and Education Center project is a key component in the long-term solution to the local waste management problem, enabling the diversion of valuable resources from the waste stream. The project has the potential to become a model of sustainable waste management practices for communities in all of Costa Rica, and other tropical countries. It is also a wonderful design problem for architecture students, forcing them to become “recycling experts” along the way. Moreover it is a project that is educating and inspiring the community about environmental stewardship, which is probably the most important contribution to any community designers can make.

To bring in many different ideas, I organized a school-wide design competition for the project in November 2011, as part of the sLAB (student-led architecture build) community service initiative at the School of Architecture and Design at NYIT. A group of nine winners, partially selected through an public voting process on the project’s Facebook page, was sent to Costa Rica in January 2012, to present their initial design ideas to the local community, and to solicit feedback. We also visited two existing recycling centers in San Jose, documented the project site, and reviewed the student’s designs with Salagnac Architectos, the local architects for the project. We presented the project at Veritas University in San Jose, who serves as the local academic partner for the project. In the Spring 2012 we finalized the design, and completed the construction documents, collaborating with NYIT engineering students and faculty, and organized the fundraising campaign on kickstarter.

There is tremendous momentum and support for the initiative in the local community. The land to build - adjacent to the existing garbage dump - was donated by the local Civic Association, local construction professionals are offering their services pro-bono, and funding is available to begin construction, with more fundraising currently underway.

Over the course of a ten-week period this past summer (June 15 – August 31), more than 35 students traveled to Nosara and donated their time and skills to help build the project. Each student stayed approx. 2-3 weeks, at different times during the overall duration of the project, so that at any time a group of 10 students was working on the construction site, under the supervision of local construction professionals. The students paid for their own flights, but accommodation and food expenses were paid for with the proceeds from the kickstarter fundraising campaign, thus enabling all interested students to participate, including those with lesser financial means. In addition to helping build a much needed community service project, they gained invaluable construction site experience. We were able to complete site grading, foundation and concrete block work, and began the installation of the wooden roof structure. While we are now back in the US for our Fall semester, the local construction professionals continue to build the project, and we are planning to join them again during our Winter break in January 2013, to help finish the construction.

The building design

The final design is decidedly modern, but inspired by local passive tropical design strategies. An elongated building form, consisting of three zones (a sorting facility, an open lobby, and support spaces) under a common roof is placed horizontally along the existing slope of the site, minimizing excavation, and impact to the site. An open entry lobby with a wall made out of up-cycled aluminum cans, and a landscaped seating area with views into the recycling area will enable the community to engage with and become knowledgeable in the process of recycling.

The sorting facility will be equipped with a compactor for plastic, metal and cardboard, and a crusher for glass, which the center can then sell to companies that trade in recyclable materials.

The building’s narrow plan is oriented to maximize passive cooling through cross ventilation. The roof geometry is optimized to capture prevailing breezes but protect building from the Papagayos, seasonal gale-force winds. The high ceilings and reflective roofing materials will further reduce heat buildup. The building’s structure is made from local pochote trees sustainably grown and harvested on the project site, and processed in the local sawmill. Salvaged wood and corrugated metal will be used whenever possible for the walls and roof. During the wet season, rainwater will be collected on the large roof, and stored in cisterns, for 100% of the facility’s water needs.

 

More info and project updates can be found here:

http://hollerarchitecture.com/

Research Projects at Mississippi State: Prof. Alexis Gregory

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Assistant Professor Alexis Gregory is currently working on research and an elective course on the impact of service learning on architecture education with her colleague Associate Professor Dr. April Heiselt in the College of Education at Mississippi State University. Issues such as designing for underserved populations, integration of universal design into single-family homes, and working with non-profit organizations are the core of this research being explored through classes with students designing new house prototypes for the local Habitat for Humanity.

Professor Gregory (School of Architecture) is also working on research into integrated practice in architectural education through two different projects. This first is an integrated practice project with Associate Professor Beth Miller, Department Head of Interior Design at Mississippi State University, Instructor Michele Herrmann from the Building Construction Science Department at Mississippi State University, and Assistant Professor Dr. Jarrod Moss in the Psychology Department at Mississippi State University. The research is on a yearly three-week charrette and the implications to design education and the integration of the allied arts of building science in a studio project. The second project is the integration of architecture and building construction science students in a studio environment to build student knowledge of building assemblies, systems thinking, and comprehensive design. Professor Gregory is partnering with fellow School of Architecture faculty member Assistant Professor Hans Herrmann and Associate Professor Chris Monson, RA in the Building Construction Science Department at Mississippi State University.

Lastly, Professor Gregory is working with Dr. Moss on another research study into the learning processes of architecture and building construction science students in her lecture course “Assemblages.” Professor Gregory and Dr. Moss are collecting data on the knowledge retention of students in a lecture course on construction technology in relation to hands-on course such as design/build elective courses. This research is in support of Professor Gregory’s past research into haptic learning and its influence on knowledge retention of construction technology techniques in architecture students.

New Essay Collection Investigates Public-Interest Architectural Internships

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Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Gap: Public-Interest Architectural Internships, a collection of 19 essays, by contributors from across the United States, brings together the best in current practice and thinking regarding public-interest architectural internship and advocates for new models that will have the power to profoundly change the architectural profession and our communities. The volume is edited by Professor Georgia Bizios (North Carolina State University) and Katie Wakeford.

The essays in this collection address a broad range of considerations regarding public-interest internships, outlining the issues, identifying the benefits, confronting the challenges, and offering lessons from the field and dreams for the future of public-interest architecture. Some contributors challenge the architecture profession to embrace its ethical responsibility for contributing to the public good and train new generations to do so. Other writers present successful examples of innovative internships provided by academic institutions and nonprofits. Several authors inspire with personal accounts of the joys and satisfactions of community engagement work, even in the face of disappointments and compromises. While the collection is not intended to be exhaustive, its breadth is sufficient to fuel a vibrant conversation in the hope of inspiring the creation of new public-interest internships and informing the ongoing updates to the Intern Development Program (IDP).

The importance of this topic and this investigation is reflected in the positive responses from academics and professionals. Professor Daniel Friedman, past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture writes:

“Bizios and Wakeford have assembled a timely, convincing, and highly useful collection of essays that demonstrates the power of public service to expand the education of architects through direct community engagement, greatly multiplying the dividends of internship. Bridging the Gap enriches the literature on public-interest practice, and establishes the relevance of social equity to our continuing discourse on professional development.”

Clark Manus, President of the American Institute of Architects, highlights the significance of this exploration of public-interest architectural internships.

“Bridging the Gap offers tremendous value in addressing the important linkage between architectural internship and public service. As such, this discourse has the ability to positively influence the emerging generation’s conception of practice and the value that design thinking has in serving society.”

The advantages to developing new public-service internships are clear. The challenges are surmountable. Bridging the Gap will inspire further discussion and investigation of public-interest architecture and internship in the years to come.

Bridging the Gap: Public-Interest Architectural Internships is available at www.lulu.com.
For more information, please contact bridging_the_gap@ncsu.edu.

Ball State and the Greening of Campus IX

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Ball State

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEP Associates To Be Platinum Sponsor of Greening of the Campus IX
Worldʼs Largest Closed-loop Geothermal Heat System Designed By MEP Associates
To Be Dedicated On March 20 As Part of Event at Ball State University

Muncie, IN – February 23, 2012 — MEP Associates, a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm specializing in the design of complex facilities, will be the Platinum Sponsor for the Greening of the Campus Conference IX on March 18 to March 21. Hosted by Ball State University (BSU) in Muncie, Indiana, the Greening of the Campus Conference brings together more than 300 representatives from colleges and universities across the country.

MEP Associates is proud to have Jeff Urlaub, President and CEO and Mike Luster, senior
mechanical engineer, and the project manager of the geothermal project at BSU, present at Greening of the Campus on Tuesday, March 20, at 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time. The presentation is titled Campus Conversion to Geothermal – A Case Study: Ball State Universityʼs Conversion to a Campus Geothermal System.

Headquartered in Eau Claire, WI, MEP Associates led the design and construction of the nationʼs largest closed-loop geothermal heat pump system, which will be dedicated at Ball State on March 20, 2012. Geothermal heating and cooling uses the near-constant temperature of the earth starting approximately ten feet below the surface of the ground to assist with heating in winter months and cooling in summer months.

“Ball State University is a leading innovator of environmentally-centered initiatives in higher
education,” said Urlaub. “We are pleased to have led the design and construction of the geothermal system for Ball State and to support the University and its Greening of the Campus Conference.”

According to Mike Luster, PE, LEED AP, senior mechanical engineer at MEP Associates who led the project at Ball State, geothermal systems offer college and university campuses a number of benefits. Those include operational energy cost savings, reduced system maintenance and associated costs, avoided costs the for handling the ash that would otherwise result from burning coal as a fuel; and reductions of the carbon footprint that otherwise would result from the use of fossil fuels to heat and cool campus buildings.
At Ball State, the geothermal system will heat and cool all 45 buildings on the 660-acre campus.

The geothermal system is expected to save BSU approximately two million dollars per year in operating costs at todayʼs pricing and will insure future avoided costs for Carbon Taxing. The system will replace four coal-fired boilers and reduce the universityʼs net carbon footprint.

“Beyond the substantial economic and environmental benefits of this campus-wide installation, the geothermal project also is serving as a platform for field-based research and education,” said Professor Robert Koester, Director of the Center for Energy Research/Education/Service and Chair of the Council on the Environment at Ball State University. “Faculty and students are working across disciplinary boundaries; the university is connecting with its counterparts to share its findings; and our industry partners continue to help as we advance our collective understandings of the best practices in the use of this technology.”

BSU hosts Greening of the Campus March 18 to March 21 on the university campus in Muncie, Indiana. The four-day conference will draw two-year and four-year colleges and universities from the U.S. and abroad to examine trends in sustainability, advances in environmentally-centered practices for college campuses and trends in education for sustainability.

About Ball State University:
Founded in 1918, Ball State is a state-assisted residential university in Muncie, Indiana, and offers a wealth of academic opportunities, including about 180 undergraduate majors and pre-professional programs and more than 100 masterʼs and doctoral degrees. Programs in architecture, telecommunications, landscape architecture, education, entrepreneurship, and an online masterʼs degree in nursing are consistently ranked among the best in the nation. About 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students enroll each year in diverse academic programs on and off campus.

About MEP Associates:
MEP Associates, LLC, is a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm specializing in the design of complex facilities. Design services include geothermal, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection as well as commissioning services.

Media Contact for Ball State University:
Robert J. Koester AIA, LEED AP
Professor of Architecture
Director of Center for Energy Research/Education/Service
Ball State University
765.285.1135 office

Media Contact for MEP Associates:
Mike Luster, P.E. LEED AP
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Project Manager for the closed-loop geothermal system at Ball State University
507.281.6328 direct