Episteme and Techne

Walt Disney Imagineering is coming to Savannah. They have internship opportunities in Architecture, Project Management, Digital Design, and Interior Design.

San Francisco based Ardica is the leading developer of miniaturized portable power systems, and we have developed some radical new technologies in Battery, Fuel Cell, and Hybrid power systems. Our latest introduction, the Moshi Power System, generates 40W of power from a lightweight, flexible and portable planar array of lithium ion batteries. This system can power and charge a wide variety of electronic devices while simultaneously delivering comforts like heat and sound to garments, bags and more!

This contest aims to reach out to the best and the brightest in the fields of engineering, industrial design, art, architecture, fashion and beyond to develop new platforms with which the Ardica Moshi System will enable us to see, do, feel, and hear more under power and off the grid. This portable system offers a world of new opportunity to stay powered or charged longer. Ardica wants to see where you can go! What can Ardica enable YOU to do?

Congratulations to Professor Alexis Gregory who had two paper proposals accepted to the 2009 Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) meeting in Mobile, Alabama, (October 21-24, 2009).

The first paper proposal was accepted as part of the “Small Town, Big Design: Methods and Processes for Design Research” session and was entitled “Complexity In Situ: Architecture Studio Design in Smaller Cities and Towns.”

The second paper proposal accepted was entitled “The Mausoleum: How Can Architecture Be Used to Help Deal with Death?” for the session “The Infinite Finite: Depictions of Death in Western Art”.

Today I will begin highlighting examples of the award winning student work from the Thesis Exhibition held at the Department of Architecture Eichberg Hall in May. The final exhibition show is the culmination of the M.Arch degree program thesis investigation whereby students identify, research, frame, and ultimately apply an idea to architecture.

Michael Mankin is a recipient of the Faculty Thesis Award, ‘awarded to a graduate thesis project as selected by the faculty members of the Department of Architecture for superior achievement and presentation in the development of a thesis project. Projects for the Faculty Thesis Award are nominated by faculty members of the Department of Architecture.’ Michael’s project is titled, “Methane: When Innovation Meets Aesthetic” and is set in Los Angeles, California

Take a moment to relax and watch this incredible video of the world’s second largest aquarium tank.

SCAD Department of Architecture Prof. Alexis Gregory has had two recent occasions to promote her research on women in the profession of architecture.

Professor Gregory served as the moderator of a panel discussion at the 2009 AIA South Carolina Spring Meeting in Charleston, SC. The panel topic is “Overcoming Obstacles to Women’s Achievement in Architecture in South Carolina.” The panel was based on Professor Gregory’s current research on the attrition of women in the field of architecture.

As well, Professor Gregory recently completed an article with a fellow Clemson University School of Architecture alumnus in the 2009 South Carolina AIA Magazine. The article is entitled “Architecture Looks to It’s Feminine Side” and was based, in part, on her Master of Science research at Clemson University.

The simplest of design principals is taught to architecture students in some of the earliest design studios they experience, and yet for some, it is only at the end of their formal education when they are reminded and coerced into returning to these principles that they impact and influence work. This is one of the more beautiful and perplexing aspects of architectural education; that the synthesis of material must happen at the student’s moment of choosing, it cannot be forced, it can only be inspired to occur. Some simply sit and let the knowledge wash over them in waves rather than arranging the various and disparate contributors (client, program, technology, theory, formal ordering) into inspiring architecture; this is the purview of the developing mind. Others engage the conversation readily, and begin to use the knowledge as the basis of their next endeavor. However, all are able… the question is when will they employ the tools?

My studio dictum: As simple as it can be, as complex as it needs to be…

“On the occasion of the exhibitions Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward and Learning By Doing, the Guggenheim and Google SketchUp invite amateur and professional designers from around the world to enter Design It: Shelter Competition. From now until August 23, you can submit a 3-D shelter for any location in the world using Google SketchUp and Google Earth.”, Guggenheim Museum

A friend of the department is having an exhibition of recent and revisited drawings and prints at Gallery Espresso. John Metcalf’s work will be on display from June 29th through July 29th. Go check out the work of this talented artist!

Department of Architecture alumni Andrew King, M.Arch 2009, is currently working in Valencia, Spain for Menis Arquitectos. Firm principal Fernando Martin Menis, formally of AMP Arquitectos, has been published in multiple works, including Architecture Now: 5, which featured a multi-page spread on the AMP project, Magma Arts Center & Congress in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.

While the firm works in multiple programs, including cultural, religious, residential, sports, urban and installations, currently Andrew is working on a 4000-seat music hall in Torun, Poland. Andrew sent us this link to Dezeen architecture and design magazine, where the project is discussed with several visuals to accompany the article.

Congratulations to Andrew on his accomplishments!

WPA 2.0: an open design competition for working public architecture organized and sponsored by cityLAB

cityLAB, an urban think tank at UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, announces a call for entries to “WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture.” WPA 2.0 is an open competition that seeks innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery. WPA 2.0 recalls the Depression-era Works Projects Administration (1935-43), which built public buildings, parks, bridges, and roads across the nation as an investment in the future—one that has, in turn, become a lasting legacy. We encourage projects that explore the value of infrastructure not only as an engineering endeavor, but as a robust design opportunity to strengthen communities and revitalize cities. Unlike the previous era, the next generation of such projects will require surgical integration into the existing urban fabric, and will work by intentionally linking systems of points, lines and landscapes; hybridizing economies with ecologies; and overlapping architecture with planning. This notion of infrastructural systems is intentionally broad, including but not limited to parks, schools, open space, vehicle storage, sewers, roads, transportation, storm water, waste, food systems, recreation, local economies, ‘green’ infrastructure, fire prevention, markets, landfills, energy-generating facilities, cemeteries, and smart utilities.