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Viz-a-GoGo 16 showcases digital A legion of superheroes will battle the forces of chaos at this year’s Viz-a-GoGo, the 16th annual showcase of digital wizardry conjured by students in the graduate visualization science program at the Texas A&M Department of Visualization. The weeklong show, which features an exhibit of student art May 4-9 in the Rudder Exhibit Hall on the Texas A&M University campus, culminates with the ever-popular main event, screenings of time-based work 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 8-9, in Rudder Theatre. A comedic superheroes theme interweaves the Viz-a-GoGo Friday and Saturday night screenings featuring an assortment of student work tied together with interstitials, or short thematic segments, in which Viz Force Five superheroes battle the Court of Chaos, led by evil Baron von Bad. “There are five animated segments that tell a brief story about a giant robot attacking the city,” explained Julie Pool, a member of the team that created the campy cartoons. “The tone is tongue-in-cheek,” she said; “the characters are clearly ridiculous, but they take themselves quite seriously.”
College renews, expands collaborative Texas A&M’s College of Architecture recently renewed and expanded an existing Memorandum of Agreement with Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, Guatemala, to include the co-development of graduate and executive degree programs at UFM and continue an established undergraduate reciprocal exchange program. Under the new agreement, the college will assist UFM in the development of a master’s degree in project management to be modeled after the unique Master of Science in Land Development degree at Texas A&M.
Students enrolled in "Design Process" class
“The contest awards the top ideas from Aggie ‘Innoventors’ who craft an idea that, when developed, will solve a problem related to campus life and/ or university attendance,” said Design Process instructor Jorge Vanegas, professor of architecture and interim dean of the college, in his instructions to students entering the contest. Third-year biomedical engineering major Aubrey Harris ( at right ) won first place honors in the contest with her entry, in which she envisions a high-tech approach for helping students design their degree plans.
Bright ideas from Design Process
Sponsored annually by the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School, students campuswide enter the contest with their ideas of the next great product or service. Their entries are judged by a jury of successful members of the business and academic world.
South African librarian gets tips
Johnson and eight other librarians from South Africa’s three major research universities are touring university libraries throughout the United States to learn how their facilities can better support faculty and student research in South Africa. The trip, Johnson’s first to the U.S., began March 19 and ends May 2.
As chair of TAMU Design Review Board
“The board is charged with insuring that the spirit and intent of the campus master plan is maintained,” said Woodcock, former director of Texas A&M’s Center for Heritage Conservation and a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Association for the Preservation Technologies International. He was also recently appointed chairman of the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on Historic Resources.
Campus visits slated for The search for a new dean for the Texas A&M College of Architecture has been narrowed to four candidates who will visit the Texas A&M campus this month to meet with students, faculty, staff and university administrators. The four finalists for the dean’s post in order of their scheduled visits are: May 7-8: Dr. Forster Ndubisi, professor and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University; May 11-12: Dr. Jorge Vanegas, professor of architecture, interim dean of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University and director of the university’s Center for Housing and Urban Development; May 12-14: Dr. Jack Kartez, professor of community planning and development and associate vice president for research at the University of Southern Maine; and May 18-19: Dr. Steven P. French, professor of city and regional planning and director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Information on the four candidates, including letters of intent and resumes, are available on the dean search website: deansearch.arch.tamu.edu
Academics: Walkable Communities director
Burden’s visit, which included an afternoon lecture, was sponsored by the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center’s Graduate Certificate in Transportation Planning program. Burden’s lecture, later that day, kicked off the an ongoing symposium examining contemporary issues in transportation hosted by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning. See a YouTube video of the pedestrian audit.
COSC students master exams
“Certification in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a very sought after and desirable qualification,” said George Eustace, senior lecturer of construction science. “Many construction companies have established goals for their employees to become LEED certified.”
Students visit Port of Houston’s
“I have asked students to come up with a construction method, sequence, schedule and cost estimate for the wharf expansion project,” said Kang. Five teams of four students each are using the trip as well as class visits by representatives of the project’s construction contractor, McCarthy, to help them create their plans. See a YouTube video of the students’ visit.
Constructors detail industry use Construction science students at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture learned how practical project delivery and building information modeling are being used in the construction industry from George Pontikes, president and CEO of Satterfield and Pontikes Construction Inc., and other S&P representatives who visited the Texas A&M campus April 14. Pontikes and Samuel Sprouse, practical project delivery manager, Joshua Harrison, building information modeling coordinator and Ashley Young, building information modeling specialist, made presentations in the Wright Gallery and Preston Geren Auditorium showing how their firm is using PPD and BIM at one of its current projects, the construction of the Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Construction students wow industry
“I travel the country and view presentations, and yours were second to none,” Pontikes told the group, who were assembled at S&P’s corporate headquarters in Houston. “It’s amazing that one group could do this well. I thought you were the most confident group of presenters I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Also online: Master of Urban Planning students CIAC members discuss construction
In the studio:
Rogers directs students designing Students in a second-year Texas A&M architecture design studio have developed concepts for Bakong Technical College, a facility established to help lift the Cambodian people out of subsistence living through education. “Two decades of war, revolution and genocide have left much of the Cambodian landscape unsafe due to landmines, its resources in decline, the economy unstable and its people in poverty,” said Ranachith “Ronnie” Yimsut, program coordinator of Project Enlighten, which is founding the BTC. Project Enlighten is a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that provides educational and humanitarian assistance in Southeast Asia based on need.
Zhu’s class studies effects of Evans
The staff at Texas A&M University’s Evans Library recently got some ideas for an upcoming first-floor renovation from students in the Social and Behavioral Factors in Design class at the College of Architecture. The 71 students in the class, led by Xuemei Zhu, assistant professor of architecture, studied effects of the library’s design on users and its staff and presented their findings on posters that were exhibited in the library March 10-13. The students’ research yielded a wide range of results.
Students collaborate with HKS
Eleven students working in four teams worked with architects from HKS to create designs for the 1.3 million square foot, 500-bed cancer center that will offer proton therapy in four rotating beam rooms, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, a surgery department with 12 operating rooms, bone marrow transplant units, an outpatient clinic, a stem cell transplant center and a preventative medicine center. When built, the facility will provide Taiwan’s most advanced cancer treatment services.
Students design, construct
This semester, Dr. Susan Rodiek’s third-year design studio created a real-world project, the “Pico de Paz — A Therapeutic Retreat,” in the very unreal environment of Second Life, an online virtual reality community. The Second Life platform, created and supported by Linden Labs of California, allows individuals to create an avatar, or a representative character, that they control in the online world. Users have the ability to change their appearance, interact with others, and modify their environment “in world,” within the platform’s digital environment.
Students, Rebar Group create Art was made available for public participation in various campus spots April 3 as the result of a collaboration Tetrahedrons are aloft in front of the academic building on the final day of student collaboration with Rebar in the college’s Artist in Residence program between students and artists in Rebar, a San Francisco-based art collective, during the 2009 Artist in Residence program at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture. Passers-by paint on a mobile art station in Diversity Plaza. The temporary pieces, some in fixed locations, some mobile, were designed in what might be called a minimalist fashion. See the full story, more photos See a YouTube video of the students’ collaborations with Rebar.
Also online: Art rendered from recycled materials
Research:
Aggie solar home moved from Bush library to In San Antonio, the home will be utilized by the Collaboratory for Zero-Impact Self-Sustaining Communities, Neighborhoods, Facilities and Dwellings, a research consortium encompassing a wide range of scholars from disciplines including architecture, engineering, agriculture and life sciences, who are developing sustainable solutions applicable to the built and natural environments.
Urban planning professors investigate Because Texas is facing a transportation infrastructure funding crisis, the state is losing funds that could be used to finance transportation improvements. To determine the degree of this loss, three urban planning professors at Texas A&M are launching an 18-month study in June. Were the state to establish regional mobility authorities (RMAs), the researchers suggest it could capture additional tax money derived from the rise in property values in areas where transportation infrastructure improvement occur, then reinvest the funds in transportation.
Yan using BIM to study new way of
Wei Yan, assistant professor of architecture at Texas A&M, is a co-principal investigator on the feasibility study funded by a $200,000 U.S. Department of Energy’s Lab Directed Research and Development (LDRD) grant. He’s researching the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the early design, modeling, and estimating of ITS buildings. Yan’s research is supported by part of the LDRD grant through a subcontract with Idaho National Laboratory.
CHSD faculty fellows comment on U.S. health
Lisa Zamosky, writing in Leadership, a special report produced by a subsidiary of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, said a Minnesota hospital’s effective and pleasant design led to a rush of applicants in a state that is suffering from a shortage of nurses.
Ulrich’s pioneering research highlighted
Writer Lisa Zamosky recounted Ulrich’s 1984 pioneering study in a suburban Philadelphia hospital that showed a big difference in the experience of patients whose rooms looked out onto a small grove of trees, and those whose rooms had a view of another building.
Ulrich extols evidence-based design
The entire discussion examining why a green hospital is a healthier one can be viewed online at vimeo.com.
Researchers creating device to project
According to designer Dr. Jill Mulholland, a Department of Architecture lecturer, the colorful patterns will evolve throughout the day and change with the seasons. She is collaborating on the project with Marsha Whitt, an HKS project architect.
Dumbaugh’s traffic research lauded
Eric Dumbaugh, assistant professor of urban planning at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, modeled accidents for almost 750 block groups in San Antonio, wrote Reid Ewing, professor of city and metropolitan planning at the University of Utah.
Dvorak launches green roof
“It’s a one-year investigation looking at four different species of plants I’m trying to establish on the Langford A roof,” explained Bruce Dvorak, assistant professor of landscape architecture. Texas A&M, he said, is interested in green roofs but lacks a pilot project on campus to demonstrate what it takes to get plants established and maintain them. See a YouTube video of students getting the plants ready
Newscast features sex offender tracking An online system for tracking registered sex offenders and estimating neighborhood risk levels developed by researchers at Texas A&M University and utilized by the Bryan, Texas police department was recently featured in an Orlando, Fla. newscast. The system, employing geographic information system (GIS) technology, was developed by Praveen Maghela and Miriam Olivares, doctoral students in the Urban and Regional Science program, at Texas A&M’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, under the direction of Douglas Wunneburger, a research scientist who heads the department’s GIS laboratory.
Also online: Varni research developing tools Ulrich helps Swedish researchers measure Fisk featured in magazine panel
Honors:
Current, former landscape architecture Current and former Texas A&M landscape architecture students made an impressive showing at the April 16 Texas Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects Awards Banquet in Austin, earning 11 awards for individual and group projects. The 2009 Award of Excellence went to Dennis Jerke MLA 1978 for “Urban Design & the Bottom Line,” a project he spearheaded for Jacobs. Jerke is an Outstanding Alumnus of the Texas A&M College of Architecture and a member of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning’s Professional Advisory Board. Wind turbine project assisted by
The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality tapped the project, in which 40 Laredo high school students built and installed wind turbines with assistance from CHUD and TEES, as a finalist in its Texas Environmental Excellence Awards competition. Wells elected to National Board
Established in 1913, Tau Sigma Delta is open to students of all U.S. colleges and universities that have accredited programs in architecture, landscape architecture or allied arts. The organization celebrates excellence in scholarship and stimulates intellectual achievement. Also online: Future student’s art sells for $145K Landscape architecture major shoots Class Acts:
Aggies gather at AIA San Francisco reception Paul Bohn '84, vice president and director of operations for the SmithGroup-California, hosts of the May 1 Texas A&M reception at the 2009 American Institute of Architects Convention in San Francisco, receives a painting by architecture former student Benjamin Knox from Larry Zuber, senior director of development for the College of Architecture. The reception, sponsored by the College and Department of Architecture, was held at SmithGroup's San Francisco offices. Bohn is an Outstanding Alumnus of the college..
Class Acts: Former students
In addition to the former student news briefs listed by class year, each semester’s Class Acts section also offers more detailed features on former student activities. The college encourages former students to use Class Acts to report news of interest or professional achievements and to update their contact information so they keep abreast of college activities of interest to them. Former students can report news and update their contact information online at archone.tamu.edu. While there, please remember to enter your current e-mail address. To save funds, as well a few trees, the college is relying more and more on electronic communications.
Charles M. Hix Jr., former dean of
As dean of the college, Hix is remembered as “a distinguished gentleman” and “a very effective teacher and practicing engineer,” by his successor, Donald A. Sweeney, associate professor of urban planning who served as interim dean when Hix stepped down in 1985. “His regime oversaw a period of stability and growth,” said Sweeny.
Outstanding Alum’s firm lauded for lifetime
James Tittle, an Outstanding Alumnus of the college, and Jack Luther began the Tittle Luther Partnership in Abilene seven years after receiving architecture degrees in 1949 and 1950, respectively.
Former student’s photos on
“Human Canvas” seeks to explore the ways the human body can be an integral component of art, the center’s spokesman says. Images in the exhibition present the human figure painted, bandaged, wrapped and tattooed. The Center for Fine Art Photography is a non-profit organization with a mission to showcase the work of leading and emerging photographers and educate the public about the collectible value of photographic art.
Also online: Construction science grad takes reins Scholarship from former student Former student profiled on Former student called ‘vital cog’ BED graduate named to top Former student serves as project
Events:
Lang curates re-creation of historic MoMA
“Environments and Counter Environments, Experimental Media in Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA 1972” assembles, for the first time since 1972, original documents and multimedia projections featured in the historic show curated by Emilio Ambasz. The exhibition, open to the public April 19 - May 8 at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in Columbia University’s Buell Hall, focuses on the 1972 show’s Environments section that featured a series of full-scale experimental domestic modules designed for the exhibition and installed in the MoMA galleries.
ARchiTecture: 2009 College of Architecture
This year, 23 faculty and staff from the college are exhibiting in a variety of media, including video, oil paintings, geometric models, and photography. Faculty and staff exhibiting this year are: Ergun Akleman, Joshua Bienko, Richard Davison, Brian Dougan, Howard Eilers, Philip Galanter, Donna Hajash, Weiling He, Rodney Hill, Karen Hillier, William Jenks, Carol LaFayette, Gerald Maffei, Jill Mulholland, Michael Murphy, Frederic Parke, Paolo Piscitelli, Gary Robbins, Mary Ciani Saslow, Robert Schiffhauer, Phillip Tabb, David Woodcock, and Glen Vigus. Visit the Stark Gallery website
Piscitelli sculpture dedicated on
Piscitelli created the sculpture, located on the east side of the Langford Architecture Center’s building B, at the college’s Architecture Ranch at Texas A&M’s Riverside Campus as part of its spring 2008 Artist-in-Residence program.
Also online: Students mark Earth Day with College sponsors Earth Day AIAS aids Habitat for Humanity
March 26 - May 31 May 4-9 May 6 May 11 May 15 May 15 May 18 May 19 May 19 July 12-18 September 23 November 12 November 13 Outstanding Alumni Banquet, the annual celebration of former student achievements, begins with a 6:30 p.m. reception at the Miramont Country Club followed by dinner and the awards program. For more information contact Trish Pannell at t-pannell@tamu.edu.
Exhibit preparations
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Students in the spring 2009 Design Process class offered at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture used the power of their ideas to take the four top spots at the 2009 Next Great Aggie Innovention Contest, sponsored by the Texas A&M Institute for Applied Creativity and the Creative Innovation Alliance.
Students enrolled in the Design Process class offered at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture submitted most of the entries that advanced to the finals of the annual Ideas Challenge Contest.
Janie Johnson, architecture librarian at The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, was impressed by what she saw after a visit to the Technical Reference Center, which is the Texas A&M College of Architecture’s reference library, and the archives at the college’s CRS Center for Leadership and Management in the Design and Construction Industry.
Design approval of new buildings and other major projects on the Texas A&M campus is being guided by input from the university’s Design Review Board, chaired by David Woodcock, professor of architecture at Texas A&M.
Dan Burden, executive director of Walkable Communities, a nonprofit organization seeking to promote walkability as the cornerstone of a successful, vibrant community, pointed out successes and shortcomings of the Texas A&M campus and adjoining streets to students who joined him on a stormy March 31 for a pedestrian audit hosted by Texas A&M’s College of Architecture.
Three students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in construction science at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture have enhanced their résumés, becoming certified as LEED Accredited Professionals: after passing a rigorous exam while juggling internships and schoolwork.
Texas A&M construction science students in Julian Kang’s Industrial Capstone Course journeyed to Seabrook, Texas March 25 to visit the site of a massive wharf expansion at the Port of Houston’s Bayport Terminal Complex.
A group of graduate and undergraduate students from Texas A&M’s Department of Construction Science impressed an audience that included George Pontikes Jr., president and CEO of Satterfield and Pontikes Construction, Inc., as they presented Building Information Modeling-based videos of the construction process at the Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Students in a spring 2009 Architecture-for-Health studio at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture presented design concepts for a new National Taiwan University Cancer Center and Proton Center May 4 at the HKS offices in Dallas.
Second Life online platform provides surrogate design environment offering students a creative advantage
A Texas A&M architecture professor has teamed up with researchers at Idaho National Laboratory to investigate a new technology, ice thermal storage (ITS), for cooling nuclear power plants. If feasible, the ITS system could provide substantial operational savings and even benefit the environment.
In an article documenting a healthcare building boom under way in the United States, two Texas A&M architecture professors state why savvy hospital administrators are turning to evidence-based design solutions for new facilities.
Landmark research by Roger Ulrich, professor of architecture at Texas A&M, was lauded in an article in Leadership, an annual special report published by Healthcare Financial Management Association. 
Texas A&M architecture professor Roger Ulrich, recently addressed the benefits of evidence-based design for the health care industry in a distinguished panel discussion, “Healthy Hospitals,” held as part of the National Building Museum’s “For the Greener Good” lecture series.
A Texas A&M architecture instructor is currently working with HKS on experimental prototype designs for a device that reflects sunlight into colorful artistic patterns, which, when projected on walls or ceilings of hospital rooms, can promote healing.
An urban planning professor at Texas A&M has broken new theoretical ground with his research showing there are fewer auto accidents in neighborhoods with traditional features, according to an article appearing in the current issue of Planning Magazine.
Landscape architecture students at Texas A&M recently helped their professor launch a green roof experiment at the Langford Architecture Center.
The state’s environmental agency has recognized a partnership between the Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station for its role in bringing electricity to residents of colonias near Laredo.
Ward V. Wells, professor of architecture at Texas A&M University and director of the university’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, was recently elected to the National Board of Tau Sigma Delta, the national honor society of architecture and allied arts. He will serve the first two years of his six-year term as vice president/president elect.
Catch up with your old classmates in the archone. newsletter’s Class Acts section, a regularly updated list of recent activities reported by former students of the Texas A&M College of Architecture. Class Acts highlights professional achievements, as well as marriages, births, retirements and just about anything College of Architecture graduates care to tell their old friends.
Charles M. Hix Jr., dean of Texas A&M College of Architecture and Environmental Design from 1981 to 1985, died Monday, April 20 at his College Station home. He was 82 years old.
An Abilene, Texas architecture firm co-founded by two former Texas A&M architecture students was honored May 5 with lifetime achievement award presented by the Abilene Preservation League.
Photographs by Texas A&M University visualization graduate Igor Kraguljac, are being featured in the newest exhibition at The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, through May 23.
Peter Lang, assistant professor of architecture at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, is one of three curators of an exhibit recreating a landmark 1972 show originally exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
The College of Architecture Biennial Faculty Art Show, “ARchiTecture,” continues through May 31 at the Memorial Student Center’s J. Wayne Stark Galleries
A March 24 dedication ceremony formally acknowledged the latest addition to the grounds of the Texas A&M College of Architecture: “In Between the Lines,” a sculpture created by Paolo Piscitelli, assistant lecturer of visualization.
Biennial Faculty Art Exhibit runs March 26-30 at the Memorial Student Center’s Stark Galleries. This year, 23 faculty and staff from the College of Architecture at Texas A&M are exhibiting in a variety of media, including video, oil paintings, geometric models, and photography. An opening reception with exhibiting artists is scheduled 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26. For more information about the exhibit, contact Mary Saslow at saslow@viz.tamu.edu or 979.845.7073.
Viz-a-GoGo 16, the Department of Visualization’s annual public showcase of digital wizardry created by students in the Master of Science in Visualization Science program at the Texas A&M College of Architecture, features still, or “flat” work, all week in the Rudder Exhibit Hall. On Friday and Saturday, May 8-9, the main event — time-based work, will be screened at 7 p.m. in Rudder Theater. Prior to the screening, from 4-6:30 p.m. students will provide short talks and demonstrations of their thesis projects in the Rudder Exhibit Hall. For more information, contact Margaret Lomas-Carpenter at 979.845.3465 or 
Promotion & Tenure Q&A: Paul Parrish, interim dean of faculties, and Antonio Cepeda-Benito, associate dean of faculties and faculty ombuds officer, will talk to College of Architecture faculty about the promotion and tenure process and answer questions 9-11 a.m. in the Wright Gallery, on the second floor of the Langford A Building. For more information, contact Staci Hazlett at 458.0478 or 
TSA Studio Awards Deadline — Entries for the Texas Society of Architects Studio Awards must be received by 5 p.m. on Friday, June 12. The design must have been completed after Dec. 31, 2003. Winning projects will be honored at the TSA Convention in October 2009 and featured in Texas Architect magazine. For entry forms and information, 