Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
Four former students of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture have been elected to membership in the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows for their significant contributions to the profession.
Geoffrey Brune, ’96, Donna Kacmar ’88 and ’92, James Kirkpatrick ’69 and ’76 and Nancy McCoy ’81 now await May 1 investiture ceremonies at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco during the 2009 AIA national convention.
In a press release announcing the new Fellows, the AIA says “the Fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society, and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession. Election to fellowship not only recognizes the achievements of architects as individuals, but also their significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.”
Geoffrey Brune is an associate professor at the University of Houston’s Gerald Hines College of Architecture. He received a Master of Science in Architecture degree from Texas A&M University and a Certificate for Studies in Historic Preservation from the college’s Center for Heritage Conservation in 1996.
Brune directs his college’s fifth year architectural design program, which has received national recognition for student work through a unique graduation awards competition and commencement program.
He initiated, designed, and oversaw the completion of the college’s Burdette Keeland Design Exploration Center, a facility that has positioned the college as a national leader in research and experimentation.
His influence and support for design education has been recognized by a variety of community groups, including Arts Assembly in Jacksonville Fla., Texas Accountants & Lawyers for the Arts, Asia Society Texas Center, Houston’s DiverseWorks, Lawndale Art and Performance Center, the East End Management District and the Star of Hope Mission.
Donna Kacmar is an associate professor of architecture for Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston and principal of architect works, inc. in Houston. Her firm is dedicated to developing solutions for residential and small-scale commercial projects that are straightforward, cost-effective and environmentally responsible.
She received a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree in 1988 and a Master of Architecture degree in 1992 from Texas A&M.
Kacmar utilizes materials and technology to help students and architects understand the implications of their design decisions. She believes that an understanding of the small and modest is necessary to understand the global impact of large, complex structures.
She is a recipient of the National American Institute of Architects 2004 Young Architects Award and has served on the boards of the Houston AIA, the Avenue Community Development Corporation in Houston, and the Rice Design Alliance. Kacmar now serves on the board of the Houston Architecture Foundation.
Her firm received an AIA Houston design award in 2002 and a Texas Society of Architects Design Award in 2003 for the Round Valley Texas Office Building + Garage in Bellaire.
She designed a home for her parents, the Kacmar House, which won an AIA Houston design award in 1999 and was published in the book A House for My Mother by Beth Dunlop.
James Kirkpatrick is a principal with Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio, a Denton-based architecture firm offering architectural design, master planning, long-range development planning, facilities program development, interior space planning, construction administration and graphic design.
Kirkpatrick, received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Texas A&M in 1969 and a Master of Architecture degree with an emphasis in building design from Texas A&M in 1976.
Kirkpatrick has been instrumental in advancing his profession internationally, leading an effort that amended AIA’s bylaws and created the institute’s International Associate category.
Through his efforts on behalf of the institute, he has made it easier for American architects to practice abroad via the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade agreements.
A licensed architect in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico, he’s the lead architect and CEO of the firm, overseeing all day-to-day operations including project design, design development, project management and business development.
His 30- year old firm seeks to provide communities with buildings that are both functional and attractive by providing clients with innovative structural designs.
Nancy McCoy, who received a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from Texas A&M in 1981, is a principal with Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture in Dallas. Her firm provides architectural services with a specialization in the restoration, adaptive use and architectural conservation of historic buildings.
An award-winning preservation architect with national experience, McCoy led the preservation effort for the first noted installation of a museum in a historic building with the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian within the U.S. Customs House in New York.
Her design for the insertion of a “building-within-a-building” to achieve required environmental control, and her means of addressing the impact of this intervention on the historic building’s envelope, are strategies that are central to the national discourse and the establishment of standards on this topic.
McCoy’s experience includes large projects such as the $100 million adaptive use of Kansas City’s Union Station and more intricate conservation work associated with the preservation of historic murals at Fair Park in Dallas.
She has designed additions and the rehabilitation of big projects such as the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, D.C. as well as smaller structures such a house designed by metroplex architect Charles Stevens Dilbeck at Paigebrooke Farm in Westlake, Texas.
She aims to design a balance between the conservation of historic resources and modern-day safety, function and aesthetic goals for the continued use of historic buildings.
McCoy is currently serving as treasurer of the Association for Preservation Technology and as chairwoman of the Historic Resources Committee of AIA Dallas. She practiced in New York and Washington, D.C. prior to moving to Dallas in 1997.
On her website, McCoy notes that interpretation of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards — the philosophical basis for historic preservation — is one of her career-long interests.
- Posted: March 3, 2009 -
