|
|
 |
| |
| |
|
July 10, 2008
Tempe, Ariz.—Arizona State University has announced that College of Design Dean Wellington Reiter, FAIA, will be the fourth President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The position is effective August 25. Reiter has been dean of the College of Design since 2003.
During his time at ASU, Reiter has been a leader in design education, an advocate for the urban and built environments especially on behalf of ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus, and a force for creative design.
Reiter has placed ASU’s College of Design in a regional and national leadership position through the creation of two major initiatives—the Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory and the Master of Real Estate Development program. Through community outreach and professional development, he has gained the strong support of the local and regional design, real estate development, and planning sectors as evidenced by the growth of attendance in the annual Design Excellence Dinner, a premier ASU event. Dean Reiter is also responsible for shaping the future of the university’s Downtown Phoenix campus, orchestrating a new relationship with the City of Phoenix that unites academic and civic agendas and is a model of first-rate urban design.
Now in a leadership position for design in Chicago, Reiter hopes to make stronger connections between the two cities and use his experience here in Phoenix to assist Chicago Mayor Daly with the planning for the city’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.
“Given the legacy of the city, the institution, and the advancement of art and design within a very ambitious urban agenda established by Chicago’s Mayor Daley, this was an intriguing convergence of opportunity that I simply could not ignore,” says Reiter, who also is known as “Duke.”
Provost Elizabeth Capaldi will shortly be appointing an interim dean and will also begin the process of searching for a permanent dean.
“Since the day Duke Reiter arrived on our campus six years ago, he has been a force within ASU and in Metropolitan Phoenix, says ASU President Michael Crow. “It is no wonder that other institutions have had their eye on him. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago could not have picked a better leader than Duke.”
Link to Chicago Tribune article
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
A library, an office building, a historic building. To most high school students, these are just bricks and mortar. But a group of Valley sophomores, juniors, and seniors who participated in ASU College of Design’s Summer Design Workshop now look at buildings “not just as a place used on a daily basis but as a place that has a purpose and a reason why it is the way it is,” says Metro Tech student Andrea Perez.
This is the second year the workshop has taken place thanks to the generous financial support from local architects, design professionals, and other sponsors. Conducted at the college’s Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory located in downtown Phoenix, 20 students worked with College of Design faculty, staff, and students for three weeks in June. Each week of the workshop featured field trips to architectural sites, talks by design professionals, and hands-on projects learning about space, place making, structure, and the effects of using shade and water in the desert.
“We wanted to expose students to all facets of design and help them look at the world in a different way, as environments in a landscape, ” says architect Mark Ryan, a faculty associate in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
The design projects, built primarily with cardboard and glue, challenged students to work as teams to construct large structures that you can walk into and small-scale models of two buildings with an open space between that had to be “designed” from what the students had learned. Each student also had to present their ideas and model to their classmates and to the faculty that includes Jose Bernardi, Associate Professor in the Department of Interior Design.
Nicholas Tehrani, a BioScience High School student back for a second year, described his open space area as a “destination.” “Because traveling is so expensive now,” Tehrani says, “I wanted to create a space with shade and water that would be relaxing.”
The program wrapped up on June 27 to a packed house of parents, students, three alumni of program, donors and supporters, and faculty and staff from the College of Design.
Several supporters of the program found out about it at the college’s annual Design Excellence Dinner that was held in April of this year and stepped up to make sure that these students had scholarships to participate in the program.
Many of these students are from central city neighborhoods who would be the first generation to be college bound. In addition to learning about design, they also learned that they have friends at ASU, like program coordinator Tim Kniseley, to help them figure out how to get to college and what a college experience can be.
"I have no doubt that I will be welcoming many of these high school students into Athena, the college's residential program, in a few years," says Kniseley who also leads that program.
View the video produced by City of Phoenix KNOW Channel 99. Thank you to producer Chuck Emmert for his fine work.
Link www.phoenix.gov/know99/99vidsummerdesign.html
|
| |
 |
|
Channel 12 News Features Wendell Burnette's "Cool" Sustainable House
>Link to video +
>Link to Burnette faculty page |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
May 20, 2008
Kristin Burger, Housing and Community Development graduate, and Amanda Kaminsky, Master of Real Estate Development graduate, were awarded $1,000 scholarships from AZCREW (Arizona Commercial Real Estate Women), a founding chapter of the national organization CREW Network. The . scholarships were presented at the AZCREW monthly luncheon on May 20 at The Arizona Biltmore. AZCREW created the scholarship program for women looking to pursue a career in commercial real estate or a related field at an Arizona university.
As a new addition to the CREW Careers program, AZCREW offered the scholarships to deserving undergraduate and graduate students with a real estate focus. “We want to make sure that every girl has access to the right support and education that enable her to fulfill her career dreams” says Sherry Sentgeorge, AZCREW president.
Kristin Burger is graduated from the ASU’s College of Design with a BSD in Housing and Community Development with honors and an overall GPA of 3.83, as well as a minor in Urban Planning. She is currently pursuing her Professional Real Estate Development Certificate through the Urban Land Institute and her Arizona real estate license. During her time at the university, Burger was an active member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Lambda Alpha International Student Association, Urban Land Institute, and the HUD Coalition. Last summer, Burger interned for Newland Communities during which she developed a construction waste management program to reuse and recycle 75 percent or more of the construction waste generated by homebuilders within Newland’s communities. The company continues to develop the program even after she left and are now implementing it at their master planned communities.
Amanda Kaminsky graduated from the Master of Real Estate and Development (MRED) program. One of the early woman pioneers of the program, she graduated with a 3.67 GPA. Kaminsky is an active member in the Urban Land Institute and the National Housing Conference and was the treasurer of Lambda Alpha International Student Association. Kaminsky received her bachelor’s degree from the Arizona State University’s College of Housing and Community Development before pursuing her master’s in the MRED program.
For more information about AZCREW, go to www.arizonacrew.org.
|
|
|
| |
May 20, 2008
The College of Design is pleased to announce the appointment of Kurt Creager as the new director of the Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family. Creager was most recently the CEO of the Vancouver Housing Authority in Vancouver, Washington, where he was responsible for producing over 3,500 housing units over a 15-year period. The announcement was made at the Stardust Center Advisory Board meeting on April 29.
Kurt Creager has more than 25 years experience in nonprofit affordable housing, private development, and government-based public housing authorities. As the former Chief of Housing and Economic Development for King County, Seattle, Washington, he created a countywide Housing Opportunity Trust Fund, which has since invested $150 million in over 9,000 affordable housing units in over 40 localities. Creager has been active in Phoenix for the past few years as senior vice president for Housing Development for CDK Partners. He also has his own consultancy, Urbanist Housing Solutions LLC, where he is engaged in transit-oriented and sustainable master planned communities in Scottsdale, Arizona; Beaverton, Oregon; and Kootenai County, Idaho. Urbanist Solutions is also retained by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles to help diversify their portfolio to include a significant inventory of workforce housing for communities.
“Kurt Creager brings an entrepreneurial spirit to the intersection of public and private enterprise,” says Conrad Egan, President of the National Housing Conference and Stardust board member. “He has a lifelong commitment to increasing and supporting good, affordable homes to families and the organizational, managerial, and leadership skills to bring the Stardust Center to a higher level of performance.”
Creager has a vision for the future of the Stardust Center that builds on ASU President Michael Crow’s commitment to social embeddedness and support and mission of founding donor Jerry Bisgrove and founding director, nationally known architect, Michael Pyatok.
“Stewardship is important” says Creager. “The Stardust Center needs to extend its reach into the community to leave it in a better condition than how we find it. We will remain grounded in the local community but will be striving to increase the visibility and applicability of the center’s work to the national and international stages.”
Wellington Reiter, dean of the College of Design, says that Creager is coming to Arizona at an pivotal time for housing and real estate development. “He has the knowledge of the complex financing and development strategies vital to the development of affordable and workforce housing. In today's economic climate, we will need his experience and leadership to ensure that the Stardust Center will continue to be at the forefront of solutions to today’s challenges in housing and sustainable development.”
Creager was a Fannie Mae Fellow in the State and Local Public Executive Program in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and is a graduate of the Institute for Public Policy and Management at the University of Washington. He received his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Planning & Architectural Graphics at Western Washington University. Creager lends his time and energy to a variety of boards and associations. He was president of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and continues to sit on the board of governors. He represented the organization’s non-governmental organization at the United Nations. He also serves on the board of the Housing Development Law Institute and on the advisory board for Affordable Housing Finance magazine. He has been an entrepreneurship trainer for Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, and the Public Housing Authority Director’s Association in Washington, DC.
Since January 2005, when it first opened its doors, the Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family has established a strong reputation for applied design and research in affordable, sustainable housing. The Stardust Center has built two successful demonstration projects—in the Phoenix area (Guadalupe) and on the Navajo Nation. Through research, educational outreach, advocacy, and design innovation, the Stardust Center supports organizations, neighborhoods, and professionals in their efforts to improve the growth of quality affordable homes and sustainable communities.
|
| |
|
| |
The College of Design is honored to name Gena P. Trimble as its 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award recipient.
Gena Trimble is a long-standing proponent of community education and outreach for excellence in urban and regional planning. Through her leadership, Gena has been a catalyst for emerging ideas for the future of the region as past Chair for the Arizona District Council for the Urban Land Institute (ULI), member of the Board of Trustees for the Urban Land Institute International, and past President of the Phoenix Chapter of Lambda Alpha International (LAI), an honorary land economics society.
During 2005–2006, Gena led the College of Design’s Council for Design Excellence (CDE) as president and cemented the college’s relationship with both ULI and LAI. Gena also inspired the CDE membership to become more engaged in the success of the annual Design Excellence Dinner, a fundraising event that grew exponentially that year through the support of many sectors of the design, development, and real estate industries.
Gena’s advocacy for educating future real estate decision makers is evident from her participation in ULI’s UrbanPlan program, which provides high school students with a hands-on experience in developing realistic land-use solutions to urban growth challenges. Gena is also a founding member of the advisory board for the ASU Master of Real Estate Development program, an accelerated degree program that educates the next generation of real estate professionals in design, law, business, and construction.
Gena currently is the Communications and Community Relations Manager of SRP. In this capacity, she is responsible for Corporate Communications, Media Relations, Advertising, Corporate Relations, Community Outreach, Communications Research, and Corporate Philanthropy. In her previous position as SRP’s Land Manager, she was responsible for overseeing all land transactions and property management services. This included acquisition and disposition of land rights and all functions associated with the management of real property rights. Gena also was the Managing Executive of Papago Park Center, a wholly owned land development subsidiary of SRP. Under her management, the subsidiary was successful in attracting corporate entities resulting in over 4,000 new professional jobs in the city of Tempe.
In addition to those named above, Gena currently is on the boards and executive committees of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. She also is on the Board of Directors for the Arizona Foundation for Women and is past Chairman of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce and a past Commissioner of the Tempe Transportation Commission. In 1997, Gena was voted the City of Tempe’s Business Woman of the Year by the Tempe Chamber of Commerce.
For her inspiring public service, exemplar leadership, and commitment to education, the College of Design is proud to award Gena P. Trimble with this honor.
Trimble will accept the award at the College of Design Convocation ceremony at the Wells Fargo Arena on May 8 at 5:30 pm.
|
| |
|
| |
The College of Design Alumni Chapter is pleased to award Marci Scronic Lange the Alumni Service Award in 2008 for her enduring commitment to ASU, the college, and the professional community.
The College of Design alumni chapter established the alumni service award in 1998 to recognize a graduate of the college for personal accomplishment in service to his or her profession, the college, and the community.
Marci Lange graduated from the ASU Interior Design program in 1998. She has successfully applied her skills to contribute to the community on professional, educational, and philanthropic levels. Since graduating, Marci has given her time and energy back to the students of the College of Design.
For the past eight years, she has taught the five-week “CHAIR”-ity portion of the fourth year Interior Design Studio. This has involved teaching students about designing a unique chair, about working as a team, and about domestic violence. The students design and build these beautiful chairs, which they then donate to the City of Phoenix Family Advocacy Center to auction to raise money for victims of domestic abuse. Last year, chairs from this auction raised $15,000 to provide services to Family Advocacy Center clients. Marci has done this all while working as a full-time professional interior designer.
In addition to her educational service on the Program Advisory Committee for the interior design program, she is passionate about helping to advance the Interior Design profession. Among various professional involvements and contributions, her most notable is her commitment to the International Interior Design Association, which she served as the Southwest Chapter’s Board President for several years.
Marci has helped a vast array of charitable causes throughout the Valley. In recent years, she has been actively involved in raising awareness and funds for Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Sojourner’s Center, Youth Evaluation and Treatment Centers, and Habitat for Humanity, in addition to the Family Advocacy Center.
Marci has demonstrated leadership with each charity she has been involved. She has a passion for helping others, and it shows in everything that she does. Her involvement has made a lasting impact on the lives of all the youth and families. We congratulate her for her accomplishments.
|
| |
|
| |
Congratulations to the outstanding graduates of the College of Design for 2008. Each of these students has been nominated by a member of the faculty for their academic and/or community service achievement above and beyond what is expected by even our high-achieving students!
(Click on the student's name to see a photo of the student and read the nominating statement.)
William Atwood Bachelor of Science in Design, Industrial Design
Maria Cagnina Master of Urban and Environmental Planning
Emily Callaghan Master of Science in Design, Industrial Design
Larisa Cherny Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture
Patrick Devinger Master of Real Estate Development
Mark Dudlik Bachelor of Science in Design, Visual
Communication Design
Susan Goldsmith PhD in Environmental Design and Planning
Michael Illies Bachelor of Arts in Design Studies
Mitchell Karren Bachelor of Science in Design, Housing and
Community Development
Cindy Louie Bachelor of Science in Design, Interior Design
Lucia Miranda Bachelor of Science in Planning
Jennifer Millerd Master of Architecture/Master of Science in
Building Design
Kelly Vanyo Bachelor of Science in Design, Architectural
Studies
|
| |
|
| |
May 1, 2008
In front of a rare standing ovation at the International Interior Design Association Southwest Chapter's annual PRIDE Award event,
Jose Bernardi, Associate Professor of Interior Design, received the first IIDA Southwest Industry Appreciation Award given to an educator for his work bridging the academic and professional communities. The award ceremony took place May 1, 2008 at the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale.
Former ASU Interior Design student and current member of the firm of Richard + Bauer, Stacey Crumbaker presented the award to Bernardi. Crumbaker is currently enrolled in the college's master of architecture degree program.
The evening was an acknowledgement of the many collaborative projects that Bernardi has been involved in including:
Frame a Dream: Each year for the past five years, a studio of Interior Design students take the written or recorded "dreams" of children in the care of Phoenix Children's Hospital and build representational sculptures that "frame" the child's wish. Many of these pieces are whimsical with movable parts and always take into account the age of the child. These pieces are then passed onto the children through staff at the hospital.
Professional Trips Abroad: For three years, Bernardi has organized and choreographed trips to Europe to help promote new connections between industry professionals and reengergize their work. Participants in these two trips have also funded scholarships for two Interior Design students to join the professionals in their travels. A good partnership for both students and practicing pros!
Desert Architects Lecture and Exhibition Series/Barcelona Exhibition: A small idea begun with Kelly Bauer of Richard + Bauer has taken wing under Bernardi's enthusiast leadership. This College of Design exhibition and lecture series began in the fall 2007 with the packed house for the Richard + Bauer lecture and exhibition, carried by another full house for a late winter lecture and exhibition by Jack DeBartolo II and Jack DeBartolo III, and will continue this fall with lectures and shows by Wendell Burnette and John Kane. In spring 2009, Eddie Jones will exhibit and in fall 2009, the series will finish with Will Bruder. Underlying this local series, Bernardi has coordinated a joint exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, with Barcelona architects and co-curators Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores that will be held at the Col.legi de'Arquitectes de Catalunya for these architects and designers, along with Arizona-based architects and artists Darren Petrucci, Ron McCoy of McCoy and Simon Architects, Mayme Kratz and Mark Ryan, Matthew and Maria Salenger of coLAB studio, Laurie Lindquest, and Phil Weddle and Michael Gilmore of Weddle Gilmore Architects. Flores and Prats Architects is also designing the exhibition in Barcelona. The exhibition will take place in September and October 2008, with a lecture series by the exhibitors in Barcelona on October 10, 2008. It is anticipated that this exhibition will also be installed in Phoenix at some later time.
Bernardi was also recently nominated for the 2008–2009 ASU Centennial Professorship Competition. He was cited as demonstrating exemplary work both in and out of the classroom.
Congratulations to Professor Bernardi for his committment to his profession, to his students, and to the academic arena.
|
| |
| |
April 16, 2008
InnovationSpace was honored at the President’s Recognition Reception and Award ceremony April 16 in the Carson Ballroom of Old Main with the President’s Award for Innovation. ASU President Crow and Associate Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Matthew McElrath presided over the festivities.
This award recognizes ASU individual employees or teams for innovations that improve educational, administrative, or other organizational processes through creative approaches. The innovation is an original program, project, initiative, or technique that has been implemented and demonstrated sustainable results.
InnovationSpace is an entrepreneurial joint venture that involves the College of Design, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, and W.P. Carey School of Business. The goal of this transdisciplinary education and research lab is to teach students how to develop products that create market value while serving real societal needs and minimizing impacts on the environment.
The award includes current and founding team members Kate Benjamin (currently Director of Marketing for Boon, Inc), Prasad Boradkar (Department of Industrial Design), Emily Callaghan (College of Design MSD student), Tamara Christensen (College of Design PhD student), Thomas Dueningt (Entrepreneurial Programs Office), Adelheid Fischer (InnovationSpace coordinator), Mark Henderson (Polytechnic Departmetn of Engineering), James Hershauer (Department of Management), Mookesh Patel (Visual Communicatin Design), the late Paul Rothstein (Department of Industrial Design and founding director of InnovationSpace), and Philip White (Department of Industrial Design).
|
| |
|
|
April 21, 2008
The faculty of the Department of Visual Communication Design has announced its student scholarships and awards for 2008. Congratulations to all the students for their outstanding work.
Kenneth L. and Jo Ann White Memorial Scholarship 2008
Jason Geiger
Jin Hwan Kim
Mario Trejo
Kenneth L. and Jo Ann White Memorial Scholarship 2008 in memory of Rob Roy Kelly
Matthew Siyu Mang
Shelby Sandler
Jean Wong Memorial Endowment in Graphic Design
Emily Diane Parcell
MLK Award
Men at Work Team
Matthew Berry
Jason Geiger
Nevin Pontius
Marco Rodriguez
Mario Trejo
Tanner Woodford
Outstanding Fourth Year Student Performance Award
Mark Dudlik
Outstanding Third Year Student Performance Award
Nevin Pontius
|
| |
|
| |
The Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) announced that Visual Communication Design junior Joseph Clay was chosen as this year’s First Place winner in the Print category for PSAid: Public Service Announcements for International Disasters. Clay was awarded $6,000 for his efforts.
The competition asked student filmmakers and graphic designers to create broadcast and print PSAs demonstrating the importance of monetary donations rather than in-kind donations in response to international disasters.
Clay’s entry—“Donation Facts”—uses the template of a nutritional ingredients label to tell the “facts” about disaster-relief giving. The entry was punctuated by photographs of needy children framing the “label.” The first place winner’s entry may have his PSA distributed nationally to newspapers and magazines.
“I am delighted and proud of Joe,” says Mookesh Patel, chair of the Department of Visual Communication Design. “He is a wonderful sensitive designer, and I believe he deserves the award. I would also like to thank every one at CIDI and USAID for organizing this wonderful award program. The department is committed to explore relevant, inspirational, and appropriate communication messages for the community at large. This program provides the perfect opportunity for all our students to learn through this project. We plan to integrate PSAid contest in our curriculum again next spring.”
The entries from students across the country were reduced to five finalists per category, which were chosen by public vote through the PSAid.org website. The winning PSAs will be used to educate the public about appropriate donation response during international disasters.
“Cash does not clog supply channels like in-kind donations, cash is always socially appropriate, and cash can be used to buy the exact items needed in a disaster area while also giving the local economy a much needed boost,” Kate Houston, media contact for CIDI explained in a press statement.
For more information about the students competition, see PSAid.org website.
Link to ASU State Press article. |
| |
|
| |
Members of the Digital Phoenix 3D modeling team with Mayor Gordon. Shown here (left to right) are Mike McDearmon* (BA program), Christopher Grasso* (Industrial Design MSD), Nick Wood, Mayor Phil Gordon, Yoshihiro Kobayashi* (SALA), Janet Holston* (Herberger Center for Design Research), Reid Baker* (SALA undergraduate).
*indicates members of the Digital Phoenix team
The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce was looking for great images to show the 1,000-plus audience for the annual Mayor's State of the City Address what is in store for Phoenix in "2008 and Beyond," the theme of this year's speech. And they certainly found it in the rendering from the Digital Phoenix team. The three-minute video opened the mayor's talk at the April 16 luncheon event, held at the Phoenix Convention Center and impressed the crowd with its ability to show not only what Phoenix looks like today, but also the density and skyline of tomorrow's Phoenix.
Chamber representative Katie Pushor gave the project excellent recognition at the event.
The Digital Phoenix Project has developed an innovative integrated visualization platform to better understand the impacts of policy choices as they play out in patterns of growth and in the quality of life of Phoenix residents. It has created a visual planning tool with keen insight into urban dynamics in the Phoenix metropolitan area through the use of state-of-art visualization, computation, and informatics tools, combined with detailed social, economic, and environmental data. For more information about the Digital Phoenix Project, contact Janet Holston, Director, Herberger Center for Design Research, at janet.holston@asu.edu. The event was captured by Phoenix Channel 11 and will be rebroadcast many times in the upcoming weeks. Please check back for rebroadcast dates and times.
Congratulations to the team for a job well done.
|
| |
|
| |
Industrial Design named to U.S. News Top Graduate School List
Close on the heels of its ranking in BusinessWeek magazine as one of the top 60 global schools of design for the second year in a row, programs in the College of Design are being highly ranked by surveys that evaluate and assess the quality of its programs and graduates.
Confirming its reputation and strength among its peers, the Industrial Design program is ranked 10th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 2008. U.S. News produces its rankings by surveying 220 art and design school deans and top academics who are asked to rate the quality of the programs. In 2008 America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools, published by Design Intelligence, the Industrial Design graduate program was ranked fourteenth nationally and third in the West, and the undergraduate program was ranked number seven nationally and second in the western region. In addition, the Industrial Design program was notably nationally ranked in two subcategories—it was ranked first for students’ understanding of ecodesign practices and principles and fifth ranked for academic balance.
Design Intelligence ranked the Master of Architecture program number five in a highly competitive and academically strong western region. The undergraduate Interior Design program was ranked number tenth nationally and fourth in the western region, with the graduate program ranked seventh nationally and fifth in the West.
The same publication named College of Design Dean Wellington Reiter one of 2008’s “Most Respected and Admired Educators” through a survey of professional practice firm presidents and respected educators. The nominations were cited for the candidates balancing practice, theory, and technology; inspirational and engaging; innovative and visionary; leadership that attracts and retains top talent; and agents of change. Reiter will also receive one of the American Institute of Architects’ highest honors, induction into its academy of Fellows, at a ceremony in May 2008.
In a special article, Design Intelligence focused on ASU’s Master of Real Estate Development degree program, citing it as “the first ‘transdisciplinary’ program of its kind nationwide because it goes beyond issues of design and finance to incorporate two additional disciplines that are essential to real estate: construction and law.” Only in its second year, the accelerated master’s degree program has become nationally known and is competitive with established programs from MIT, USC, and Columbia University for students.
Design Intelligence is the publishing arm of the Design Futures Council, a global network of design and construction industry leaders whose mission is to explore trends, changes, and new opportunities in design, architecture, and building technology to advance innovation and leadership.
The America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools study ranks accredited undergraduate and graduate programs from the perspective of practitioners. The survey queried design firm leaders who, during the past five years, have had direct experience hiring and performance of recent design school graduates. Respondents were asked about which programs have best prepared students for today’s real-world practice. A cross-section of US firms with a disbursed geographic profile participated in the survey, including firms that are leaders in their market sector (i.e., healthcare, commercial, institutional, etc.) and that have won major national, state, local, and market-sector awards.
In October 2007, the College of Design was named one of 60 top global schools of design for the second year in a row by BusinessWeek magazine—only one of 36 US schools cited in the list of “Best D-Schools for Creative Talent.” Again, the BusinessWeek list was compiled by surveying top industry leaders and recruiters from corporations such as Whirlpool, Siemens, and BMW who hire new design talent in addition to surveying both design and business school faculty and design and innovation consultants from across the globe.
One reason that schools were cited in the BusinessWeek listing is their close partnerships between design, business, and engineering programs—a hallmark of the College of Design’s InnovationSpace program, which partners industrial design, visual communication design, business, and engineering undergraduates to work on new product ideas. Professors from each of the four disciplines also teach the InnovationSpace class. The BusinessWeek article specifically cited InnovationSpace program’s $30,000 Intel Corp.-funded project, which focused on products for aging baby boomers. InnovationSpace currently has other project support from Herman Miller Inc. for product concepts that improve acute-care and ambulatory-care environments for patients and healthcare providers. Top companies have connected with the InnovationSpace concept because their own teams reflect a multidisciplinary approach for product innovation and development.
Given its growing reputation and solid programs, the College of Design has also seen its community and professional support grow across the design, planning, and real estate industries and, as a result, the success of its students in the job market. In a lecture sponsored by the College of Design, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, argued that the greatest economic and social value in the future will come from right-brain or creative thinkers—giving design schools and students the edge in the world of the future.
|
| |
|
| |
For more than 50 years, RECORD has presented an annual collection of projects from around the globe that represent exemplary residential design. For its 2008 Record Houses awards program, they took a new approach: they looked for built, single-family dwellings that not only were aesthetically striking, but also employed innovative strategies for achieving environmental sustainability. In selecting this year’s nine winners, their jury evaluated criteria such as water efficiency, energy consumption, and indoor air quality. The “green” focus resulted in two of the projects likely ranking as the smallest ever presented in a Record Houses issue.
Darren Petrucci and wife (SALA Assistant Professor) Renata Hejduk's Martha's Vineyard house is one of nine homes chosen for this recognition and is featured on the homepage of Architectural Record at archrecord.construction.com/.
Details of the VH R-10 gHouse can be found at archrecord.construction.com/residential/recordHouses/2008/08VH.asp.
Congratulations Darren and Renata for creating a beautiful and sustainable home.
More coverage:
Boston Magazine (Summer 2008)
www.bostonmagazine.com/home_garden/articles/outside_the_box/
|
| |
|
| |
The Applied Research Collaborative Studio in the School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture was the recipient of the prestigious NCARB prize for 2008. ASU was one of five winners this year receiving $7,500 for the work done in collaboration with the School of Sustainability and the University Architects’ office on the adaptive re-use of the old Nursing Building. This was the first year that the transdisciplinary Applied Research Studio was conducted, and the project was recognized for it collaborative excellence.
The Applied Research Collaborative Studio is a transdisciplinary design graduate thesis studio that includes students from the various schools and departments in the College of Design—Architecture, Energy, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Planning, and Visual Communication Design. In turn, these students collaborated with faculty and administrators from the College of Design, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Global Institute of Sustainability, School of Sustainabiity, Nursing, and the University Architects’ office.
Six prize winners were selected for awards. The NCARB Prize Grand Prize—a cash award of $25,000—will be presented to the Department of Architecture, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Five submissions were selected as NCARB Prize winners and recipients of $7,500 each: individual submissions from the School of Architecture, Arizona State University, and the Department of Architecture, the Savannah College of Art and Design; a joint submission from the School of Architecture, University of Arkansas, and the School of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis; and two submissions from the School of Architecture, Clemson University.
The 2008 NCARB Prize jury is comprised of members of the Council's Practice Education Committee and six academic representatives (deans, heads, or chairs) from schools with architecture programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) nominated by NCARB's regional leadership. The jury considered 31 entries representing 22 different colleges and universities. when they met March 26–27, 2008 in Houston, Texas.
Both entries and jurors were divided into two groups based on regional location. Each team evaluated a set of anonymous submissions and selected finalists, which were then reviewed by the entire jury. The jury’s decision was announced during the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony, March 28, 2008 in Houston, Texas.
Click here for a link to the NCARB site.
|
| |
|
| |
Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. Financial columnist James Surowiecki has researched this phenomena for his book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Surowiecki will speak at the College of Design annual Design Excellence Dinner on April 10, 2008, which will take place at the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa.
Surowiecki uses the example of the jar filled with jelly beans to illustrate how “invariably the group’s estimate is superior to the base majority of the individual guesses.” In an experiment, a jar that held 850 beans was estimated by individuals in the group to hold 871. Only one of 56 people in the class made a better individual guess. And if the experiment is conducted several times, it will not be the same person who guesses correctly each time.
Even “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” is scrutinized for this hypothesis. With the three choices that the contestants had to answer questions—fifty-fifty shot, expert friend on the phone, or poll the audience, the random crowd picked the right answer 91 percent of the time, where the expert friend was only right 65 percent of the time.
As a twice-monthly financial writer for The New Yorker and past contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Wall Street Journal, many of the cases that he examines in The Wisdom of Crowds are focused on a business audience—how businesses work, how new ideas are advanced, how global economies cooperate, and how our daily lives are affected by group decisions. “There are a lot of hurdles—both institutional and psychological—that make it hard for organizations to change,” Surowiecki says.
Surowiecki describes systematic ways to organize and aggregate the intelligence available in an organization to arrive at superior decisions—often better than those that individuals would make, even if they are “experts.”
“The college is pleased to host James Surowiecki for this year’s Design Excellence Dinner, especially in this time of an unsettled stock market, housing market, and global business environment—all arenas that operate through the wisdom of crowds. His presentation should give our supporters fresh insights into how groups operate and offer practical methods that really serve their organization’s goals,” College of Design Dean Wellington Reiter says.
Proceeds from the dinner benefit the Dean’s Academic Enrichment Fund, which provides support for college programs and student scholarships. For more information about table sponsorship or attending the Design Excellence Dinner, visit the website at design.asu.edu/dinner2008 or contact Sharon Haugen at Sharon.haugen@asu.edu, 480.965.6384.
Link to the Design Excellence Dinner website.
|
| |
| |
Congratulations to Tamara Christensen and Qiawen Wu
ASU GPSA Teaching Excellence Award Winners
The Graduate and Professional Student Associatian (GPSA) annually recognizes graduate and professional students at the ASU Tempe campus that exemplifies excellence in education and classroom instruction. This year, 22 teaching assistants were recognized, partially as a result of the increasing number of truly excellent instructors and TAs in the university.
The College of Design is proud to recognize Tamara and Qiawen Wu for their dedication and energy in the classroom. The awardees were recognized March 19 at a luncheon in their honor at teh University Club on the ASU Tempe campus.
Link to the GPSA announcement.
Link to ASU news article.
|
| |
|
| |
March 25, 2008
NBC highlights ASU School of Sustainability
Features SALA Professor Harvey Bryan and Students on the roof of College of Design South building
ASU’s School of Sustainability is continuing to garner national attention, this time featured on NBC Nightly News.
Anne Thompson, NBC's Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent, highlighted how the nation's first-of-its-kind school is providing a highly unique approach to education, the challenges for this generation of students, and the opportunities that await graduates in the green economy.
NBC spent two days at ASU in February. The comprehensive visit gave them an in-depth look at key facets of ASU's sustainability portfolio including:
• Student activism (ASU's Student Sustainability Coalition)
• Entrepreneurship and jobs in the green economy
• Tipping points in population behaviors (water consumption and urban growth)
• Urban heat island research
• Campus sustainability; reducing ASU’s carbon footprint
The producers interviewed undergraduate students, School of Sustainability students, professors, administrators, and ASU President Dr. Michael Crow.
Watch the video. |
| |
|
| |
SALA Professor Max Underwood is one of three cochairs leading the 2008 ACSA/AIA Teachers’ Seminar: Deep Matter—The path to meaningful and provocative architectural research. Underwood is collaborating with Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake, both of Kieran Timberlake Associates. The seminar will take place June 19–22, 2008 at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The three renowned cochairs will blindly review each of the submitted papers and format the sessions around the accepted papers. The call for papers deadline was March 5, 2008.
Underwood has a long history of teaching excellence, as the recipient of the ACSA National Distinguished Professor Award, the AIA Arizona Educator Award, and has received three National AIA Honor Awards for his teaching innovations.
The themes for the Deep Matter seminar include:
1. Defining Architectural Research in the Academy and Practice. What is interesting and why?
2. The Emerging Methods of Research Innovation. What are the networks, collaborations, visualization opportunities, strategies and tactics?
3. Case Studies of Bleeding Edge and Innovative Applied Research. What are the acknowledged in depth current case studies of projects or groups which are redefining the integration of research into practice and education?
4. Open Submissions. What areas of research innovation outside of architecture might inform the way forward? What arenas within architecture might the first three categories not capture?
For more information, see the ACSA website.
|
| |
|
| |
Richard Loope far left with MRED students in NYC
The National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) Research Foundation announced the appointment of Richard N. Loope, FAIA, as a Distinguished Fellow effective January 1, 2008. Loope, Director of the Master of Real Estate Development and Housing and Community Development degree programs, is also a professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Loope is also the president and CEO of HL Design Build LLC.
The NAIOP Distinguished Fellows program serves as a bridge between the practicing commercial real estate community and the academic community.
Link to NAIOP press release.
|
| |
|
| |
Exhibition March 17 through April 5
Gallery of Design, College of Design South
Opening Reception March 18
5:00 pm Gallery of Design
Symposium April 5
9:00 am–2:00 pm ASU Art Museum
See the PURL event website for more information about location and attending.
The Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory is collaborating with the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the University of Washington to bring to the College of Design Sites of Transition, an exhibition exploring the rapid urbanization of the Mojave Desert near Las Vegas. The exhibition, which will open at the German Architecture Center in Berlin before traveling to PURL and other U.S. venues, features sixty photographs by Ralph Stern, associate professor of architecture at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and Nicole Huber, associate professor of architecture at the University of Washington. Part of an extensive and ongoing research project by Stern and Huber, the photographs document the effects of recent development on the outskirts of Las Vegas and in the surrounding valleys, capturing the uneasiness of social dislocation, the fragility of history, and the loss of memory.
In conjunction with this exhibit will be a one-day symposium on April 5 featuring Stern and Huber; prominent art writer Lucy Lippard; Matthew Coolidge, the director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles; and Mark Klett, photographer and professor of art at Arizona State University.
This exhibition is currently running at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum in Berlin through February 8.
Summary by Ralph Stern + Nicole Huber
Unlike most presentations of the city, this material avoids the spectacle of the Strip. Rather, beginning with the Strip’s “backside”—the monumental parking structures and staging areas serving the spectacle—it spirals outward as it moves through various aspects of the ”everyday,” the “other” and the marginalized, through the city's inner industrial sites, trailer parks, areas slated for “urban renewal,” the cityscape of signage, and the topography of homelessness. Moving toward the city's peripheries, the images document infrastructure (vehicular, water, and waste management) before engaging the outer suburbs and fringe areas beyond. The work concludes with an exploration of the abstract geometrical forms that characterize much of the city's development and that serve to relate it, finally, to the degree of abstraction found throughout the desert in which Las Vegas is located.
The exhibition and symposium are sponsored by the Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory in partnership with Future Arts Research@ASU, the ASU Art Museum, and the ASU School of Art.
|
| |
|
| |
Ron McCoy’s fifth-year architecture students can see firsthand the efforts of their professor’s professional practice. As ASU university architect and School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) professor, his students are a few minutes walk from many of McCoy’s most pressing projects. McCoy has been known in the College of Design as director of SALA, interim dean of the college, and as one of the lucky few rolling around campus on a Segway. But McCoy’s ceaseless pace of overseeing the variety of large and small projects on behalf of the university has drawn more attention—specifically from the esteemed publication The Chronicle of HIgher Education’s “Chronicle Review.”
In the March 7, 2008 issue, Chronicle reporter Lawrence Biemiller recounts following McCoy around a typical day, full of the challenges of meeting and exceeding the pace of development around the “new American university” that ASU faculty, staff, and students know well. The unflappable McCoy is focused on making a contribution to the quality of life for everyone on the ASU campus. Biemiller notes that “He's the one person at Arizona State who can look at all the puzzle pieces — the hodgepodge of existing structures and spaces, the flashy new buildings by different architecture firms, the lush new landscapes by various designers— and try to make sure they all come together into places that look and feel and work like campuses.”
See the Chronicle website at chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i26/26b02201.htm to read the story.
 McCoy was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in May 2007. He was one of 76 architects named to the college and joins an elite group of fewer than 2,600 of 81,000 members of the AIA have the distinction of being a fellow. The fellowship program was developed to elevate architects “who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession.”
|
| |
| |
February 4, 2008
Dean Wellington Reiter was named as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) in January 2008. The College of Fellows (COF) of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is composed of members who are elected to Fellowship by a jury of their peers. Fellowship is one of the highest honors the AIA can bestow upon a member and recognizes not only the achievements of the architect as an individual but also elevates before the public and the profession those architects who have made significant contributions to architecture and to society. Reiter was also awarded the Arizona Architects’ Medal from the Arizona chapter of the American Institute of Architects in December 2007. Reiter’s accomplishments both at the national and state level are a result of his leadership in design education and outreach and advocacy for the urban and built environments, especially the visioning and development of the ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus.
The Fellows Medal will be awarded to Reiter at the annual American Institute of Architects conference in May 2008, which is being held in Boston, MA.
Reiter joins School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture faculty Harvey Bryan, Richard Nicholas Loope, Ronald McCoy, Michael Rotundi, and David Scheatzle in the AIA College of Fellows. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Kenneth Brooks was also recently named as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Click here for Reiter faculty page
|
| |
| |
Since the inception of the Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family in January 2005, there have been strong links between the Stardust Center and the College of Design. Collaborations between faculty and programs were a natural outgrowth of the work of the two groups in an informal but active sharing of knowledge, students and projects in the arenas of housing, sustainable building materials and practices, and promotion of good design. The two units are now formalizing this connection with the Stardust Center administratively moving from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Affairs to one of the family of academic programs and research centers that are collectively under the banner of the College of Design.
With a mission to improve the growth of quality affordable homes and sustainable communities, the Stardust Center has been involved in two major demonstration homes on the Navajo Reservation (2005) and in the town of Guadalupe (2006). Students from the college’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Housing and Community Development program participated in both projects. Two graduates of the college are employed by the Stardust Center as designer/architects. Sherry Ahrentzen, Stardust’s Associate Director for Research, is a Research Professor in the College of Design and an active professor in the college’s doctoral program.
As a starting point, that is a good track record. Which is what makes the future of this partnership full of possibilities. College of Design programs, including the Herberger Center for Design Research, Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory, the Planning and Design Academy, as well as the academic units, will further collaborate with Stardust in research and funding opportunities, urban design and housing projects, and community and professional outreach.
During its short life, the center has already garnered several awards for excellence including the 2007 Valley Forward Crescordia for Environmental Excellence and the 2007 Brian Michelsen Housing Heroes Award in the category “Sustainable Design” at the opening reception for the Governor’s Forum on Housing. Both awards were for the Guadalupe Demonstration House. At the end of October, the Stardust Center was notified by Urban Land Institute-Arizona that they are the recipient of a $20,000 ULI Community Action Grant along with partner LISC Phoenix (Local Initiatives Support Coalition) to develop a presentation toolkit and campaign strategy to engage local residents, business groups, community organizations and civic leaders in discussions about challenges presented by the population growth of metropolitan Phoenix, as well as realistic solutions and designs for building sustainable, affordable and healthy neighborhoods.
The center continues its work with community development corporations, tribes, public agencies and developers in creating residential developments that are affordable and sustainable. Currently eight residential developments—with over 800 units total—are either under construction or in the pipeline for development. Stardust Center Associate Director for Design, Daniel Glenn, is working with partner Chicanos por la Causa on a 47-unit subdivision currently under construction that utilizes structural insulated panels (SIP), a construction system that speeds on-site construction and creates a highly insulated home that reduces cooling and heating requirements. This project will be the first Green Communities project in Arizona. Green Communities is a national green building program developed for affordable housing that focuses on the use of environmentally sustainable materials, reduction of negative environmental impacts and increased energy efficiency.
The Stardust Center will continue to be located at the ASU Mercado in downtown Phoenix and is currently searching for a new director. Sherry Ahrentzen is interim director. For more information about the Stardust Center and its projects, see the website at www.asu.edu/stardust.
This article was also published in ASU Insight.
|
| |
| |
College of Design Leading Global and National Rankings
Close on the heels of its ranking in BusinessWeek magazine as one of the top 60 global schools of design for the second year in a row, programs in the College of Design are being highly ranked by a survey that evaluates academic programs by assessing the quality of its graduates. In 2007 America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools, published by Design Intelligence, the Master of Architecture program was ranked number three in a highly competitive and academically strong western region, the undergraduate Interior Design program was ranked number five nationally and number one in the western region, and the Industrial Design undergraduate program was ranked number seven nationally and second in the western region. The graduate program in Interior Design was ranked sixth nationally and second in the West, while the Industrial Design graduate program was ranked as the number two program in the West. In addition, the Interior Design program was notably ranked in two subcategories—second nationally for it students’ understanding of professional practice and third nationally for its teaching of sustainable design concepts and principals.
Design Intelligence is the publishing arm of the Design Futures Council, a global network of design and construction industry leaders whose mission is to explore trends, changes, and new opportunities in design, architecture, and building technology to advance innovation and leadership.
The America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools study ranks accredited undergraduate and graduate programs from the perspective of practitioners. The survey queried design firm leaders who, during the past five years, have had direct experience hiring and performance of recent design school graduates. Respondents were asked about which programs have best prepared students for today’s real-world practice. A cross-section of US firms with a disbursed geographic profile participated in the survey, including firms that are leaders in their market sector (i.e., healthcare, commercial, institutional, etc.) and that have won major national, state, local, and market-sector awards.
In October 2007, the College of Design was named one of 60 top global schools of design by BusinessWeek magazine—only one of 36 US schools cited in the list of “Best D-Schools for Creative Talent.” Again, the BusinessWeek list was compiled by surveying top industry leaders and recruiters from corporations such as Whirlpool, Siemens, and BMW who hire new design talent in addition to surveying both design and business school faculty and design and innovation consultants from across the globe.
One reason that schools were cited in the BusinessWeek listing is their close partnerships between design, business, and engineering programs—a hallmark of the College of Design’s InnovationSpace program, which partners industrial design, visual communication design, business, and engineering undergraduates to work on new product ideas. Professors from each of the four disciplines also teach the InnovationSpace class. The BusinessWeek article specifically cited InnovationSpace program’s $30,000 Intel Corp.-funded project, which focused on products for aging baby boomers. InnovationSpace currently has other project support from Herman Miller Inc. for product concepts that improve acute-care and ambulatory-care environments for patients and healthcare providers and Procter & Gamble for product concepts for healthy aging in women over 65 as well as health and beauty care products for people who are blind. Top companies have connected with the InnovationSpace concept because their own teams reflect a multidisciplinary approach for product innovation and development.
Given its growing reputation and solid programs, the College of Design has also seen its financial support in the community for all of its programs grow across the design, planning, and real estate industries and, as a result, the success of its students in the job market. In a lecture sponsored by the College of Design, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, argued that the greatest economic and social value in the future will come from right-brain or creative thinkers—giving design schools and students the edge in the world of the future.
|
| |
| |
IIDA Scholarship winners Meredith Nunn (left) and Caitlin Bullock (right) sitting on their chair "Do You See Her?" The chair brought $6,000 at live auction for the CHAIRity benefit auction.
For the eighth consecutive year, senior year students in the College of Design’s Interior Design program began the first task of their semester—designing a chair—not learning about design, but learning about victims of domestic abuse. Interior Design faculty partner with the City of Phoenix Family Advocacy Center, an organization that provides comprehensive services to domestic violence and sexual abuse victims, to bring case workers’ information and victims’ stories to the students. On to this knowledge is layered inspiration from and exploration about an artist or artistic movement, and the idea for a chair emerges. From 25 separate student ideas for chairs, 11 designs are developed by teams of two or three student designers who collaborate, construct, and present their chairs for judging. The challenge is to design and build the chairs in only five weeks, and all are one of a kind. Representatives of the International Interior Design Association Southwest Chapter judge the chairs and choose one winning chair for a scholarship award.
The students are challenged, not just by working out details of how to bring their designs on paper to reality by constructing them of wood, steel, and glass, but also by raising funds for the materials. The students are allowed to spend only $100 of their own money; the balance is provided by companies donating cash or materials for the completion of the chairs.
The chairs—and their mission to raise awareness for domestic abuse—are exposed to many people from the time they are finished until they go to the auction. The initial display was in the ASU Architecture and Environmental Design Library, then on to exhibition from October 8 until November 2 in the College of Design Gallery of Design. The exhibit was on display for one night at the Burton Barr Central Library for First Friday, and then moved to the atrium of Phoenix City Hall. On November 15, they were finally moved to the Phoenix Art Museum Great Hall for the "CHAIRity" dinner and auction that benefits the City of Phoenix Family Advocacy Center. Help in moving these 11 chairs was provided by U. S. Business Interiors and principal Marsha Goodman, who is also the chair of the fundraising committee for the CHAIRity event.
Three chairs were offered through a live auction with the remaining chairs in a silent auction bid process. The scholarship winning chair titled, “Do You See Her?” was the final bid of the evening and went for a record breaking $6,000. The other two live auction chairs went for $2,100 (“Brise”) and $2,500 (Revolution). All combined, the eleven chairs were purchased for a total of $15,675, far and above any of the previous year’s total. All proceeds from the sale of the chairs go to the Family Advocacy Center for services to their clients. The student team from “Do You See Her?” raised more than enough to construct their chair, and with the permission of their donors, RSP and Middlestadt, Cooper and Assoc., donated the extra to the Family Advocacy Center.
“The quality and design of the chairs this year were amazing,” said Faculty Associate Marci Lange, a designer with FM Solutions who has been teaching this portion of the class since the inception of the idea. “It is no wonder that they were valued so highly by the audience. Of course, the money goes for such a good cause. That makes for a big incentive.”
“More than that,” said Lange, “This project teaches students that design can contribute to the betterment of society and that they have a responsibility to the community, a lesson they can take into their design practice after graduation.”
To see all the chairs or for more information about the Family Advocacy Center, see the website at design.asu.edu/news/chairity/shtm.
|
| |
|
| |
Left: Dean Reiter with the winning "Team 40"
Right: Dean Reiter on stage with Chase Bank's Mary Jane Rogers, Herman Miller rep. Michael Tilbrooke, and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. Also shown, college supporter Greg Vogel and Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Human Communication student Tiffany Tcheng with video camera in hand.
You have one minute riding up in the elevator to make a point with the boss or client. Can you do it? Make that sale? Move that top project forward? Ten teams of College of Design students practiced these skills on November 1 in a competition where they presented design solutions on the way up in the elevator of the downtown Phoenix Chase Bank Tower and were reviewed by a team of judges on the way down—the total ride took less than three minutes. Video cameras in the elevator captured all the action of the student presentations for replay to a lively audience of supporters in the concourse of the Chase Bank Tower. Students in the winning team each received a $500 award. Chase Bank and Herman Miller were sponsors of the event.
The competition is the brainchild of ASU College of Design Dean Wellington Reiter, who created this “Dean’s Challenge” as an opportunity to make connections at ASU and with the Phoenix community and have a fun, educational event at the same time. The challenge problem is based on a recent study by the Urban Land Institute–Arizona identifying the top ten intersections in the Valley. Dean Reiter asked the students to think about how pedestrians, drivers, bicyclists, wheeled-device users, and others experience an intersection of two streets—not only proceeding through the street crossings but also other activities that may occur at these overlooked points of contact.
“Students in the College of Design have creative minds but in the 21st century must work collaboratively and be able to think on their feet,” said Dean Reiter. “This competition helps to highlight that our students are learning to think not only like designers and planners, but also to communicate effectively. It is this future generation of creative thinkers that will build a strong economy and a thriving city.”
The teams were comprised of three students and were required to have each member come from a different discipline within the college—for example, one each from architecture, industrial design, and planning. And a few teams had one member from outside of the college, including from the schools of engineering and business.
The review judges were drawn from faculty at the College of Design and design professionals and downtown business people, including Dean Brennan of the city of Phoenix Planning department who has been working on the Downtown Phoenix Urban Form Project.
The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Human Communication participated in the event as well. Faculty from the Cronkite School, with the support of Dean Chris Callahan, provided the College of Design event team with valuable connections to their students, ultimately providing a student to build a website for the event, document the competition, and create a video recording of the entire span of activities. A team from Cronkite News Watch also covered the evening’s competition.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon opened the event along with Dean Reiter and Mary Jane Rogers, Media and Government Relations for Chase Bank, who announced the inauguration of the Walter Bimson Prize for the Dean’s Challenge winners. Bimson was Valley National Bank president during the 1960s and ‘70s and was responsible for building the Chase Tower. Bimson’s son and daughter were on hand to take in the festivities that honored this Phoenix patriarch. Michael Tilbrooke represented sponsor Herman Miller, which donated one of its “Leaf Lamps” as a prize to a student participating in the event and individual gifts for members of the top four teams, including messenger bags for the winning team.
The winning team—Team 40, including Heather Dessel (design studies), Nicholas Glover (landscape architecture), and Antonie Stahlbuhk (architecture)—pitched their & | | | |
