e-newsletter for the College of Archtecture

APRIL 2016

Matthew Jacobs shows design concepts to Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban.

Mavericks’ owner guiding grad students’ design of team facility

Texas A&M graduate architecture students are designing a state-of-the-art, multipurpose practice facility for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, with input from Mark Cuban, the team's owner, and Bryan Trubey '83, designer of AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, and numerous other iconic sports stadiums.

TAMU video game design programs rise in U.S. rankings

Texas A&M’s stature among universities offering video game design programs continued to rise in new lists published by The Princeton Review, a leading test preparation and college admission services company.

New scholarships to fund student study abroad

New scholarships that honor Paolo Barruchieri, the late, much-loved director of the college's study abroad venue in Italy and help students fulfill their semester away requirement there have been established by Mike Hachtman '86 and Anne Hachtman '90.

Two-day Rowlett Lecture to mark CRS Center’s 25th year

Multiple speakers and panel discussions will highlight a two-day Rowlett Lecture program saluting the 25th anniversary of the CRS Center for Leadership and Management in the Design and Construction Industry, on March 31-April 1, 2016 at the Texas A&M University.

Class Acts: Former students share news with classmates

The College of Architecture encourages former students to submit news for its Class Acts reports featuring professional achievements, marriages, births, retirements, bucket list accomplishments or whatever else they care to share. See what others have been up to and share your own news.

RESEARCH

Neal elementary students present their projects.

Children create STEM-related projects in NSF-funded study

Plastic cup robots that walk on Popsicle sticks were among numerous innovative science projects demonstrated by third- fourth- and fifth-grade student-scientists at a Jan. 14, 2016 showcase orchestrated by Francis Quek, professor of visualization at Texas A&M.

Architecture prof compiles best health facility design principles

A client's clear vision is one of a list of 12 principles compiled by Kirk Hamilton that lead to the creation of successful new healthcare facilities. Hamilton compiled the list from a series of interviews of experts in healthcare administration, design and construction. .

Brody tells Tribune coastal growth puts Gulf Coast at great risk from hurricane flooding

Enormous societal and economic devastation on the Texas Gulf Coast from a monster hurricane is just a matter of time, said the authors of a ProPublica and Texas Tribune article that liberally quotes Sam Brody, Texas A&M professor of urban planning.

Profs evaluating local, regional plans’ effects on vulnerability

The Texas A&M College of Architecture and Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health have joined forces to help enhance the nation’s ability to safeguard communities living in areas vulnerable to natural disasters.

Prof to recommend planning strategies for shrinking cities

Galen Newman, an assistant professor of urban planning at Texas A&M, is developing planning solutions for once-vibrant cities such as Detroit, Buffalo, N.Y., and Youngstown, Ohio, now plagued by growing vacant areas caused by shrinking populations.

Planning researchers develop ‘scorecard’ for hazard plans

Urban planners can assess whether a community’s hazard plans target its most vulnerable areas with a scorecard developed in part by Galen Newman and Phil Berke, planning researchers at Texas A&M. They will test the scorecard with their research colleagues in Atlantic and Gulf Coast communities.

IN THE STUDIO

Rajvi Patel, left, and Niloo Hosseini with their model of a future H-E-B market.

Students presented new H-E-B market designs to company execs

Prototypes for future H-E-B markets created by Texas A&M architecture students were unveiled Jan. 25, 2016 in H-E-B's downtown San Antonio headquarters at a gathering that included company design executives and local architects.

Students to unveil designs for Kenyan health care centers

Design concepts for a new generation of multipurpose community health centers to serve people throughout Kenya, were unveiled by students in an interdisciplinary studio. The centers include space for healthcare, a pharmacy, retail establishments and a farmers' market.

Energy Corridor bridge design competition gets under way

An opportunity to shape the look of a pedestrian and bicyclist bridge that will span Interstate 10 in Houston’s Energy Corridor District awaits students in a design contest hosted by the district and Jun-Hyun Kim, assistant professor of landscape architecture at Texas A&M.

Student design ideas included in new Ronald McDonald room

Family members with children at St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan can stay close to their loved ones in a Ronald McDonald Family Room, a homelike setting in the hospital’s pediatric wing that contains elements from design proposals created by environmental design students.

Students reimagine the doorknob in design contest

What’s something that people use all the time but hardly notice? It’s the underappreciated doorknob, an object that first-year environmental design students at Texas A&M reimagined in a fall 2015 contest hosted by the Department of Architecture.

ACADEMICS

A model created from a digital scan of buildings in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy.

Study abroad students record historic sites at CHC workshop

Centuries-old churches and piazzas in Texas A&M’s study abroad venue in Italy were ideal subjects for design students learning to use sophisticated imaging equipment in a weeklong fall 2016 workshop directed by Robert Warden, director of the Texas A&M Center for Heritage Conservation.

Students visualize data, win prizes at Build Day competition

Discussions of race, rights and inclusivity throughout the Brazos Valley abounded at the Feb. 5 – 6 Open Data Build Day competition in which citizen teams vied for prize money by mining and manipulating census data to create spatially illustrated solutions for diversity-related challenges.

Teens blog about their home county in ongoing TTC project

Two teenage residents of Liberty County, Texas are blogging about their home county in “Trinity Time Hop,” one of a set of ongoing Texas Target Communities initiatives helping residents of the rural area northeast of Houston shape their futures.

MLPD students identify factors that raise value of subdivision

Master of Land and Property Development students analyzed how public spaces, tax rates,transportation options, and numerous, additional amenities and factors affect the overall value of Towne Lake, a suburban northwest Houston subdivision, during a fall 2015 MLPD class.

CoSci advisory group registers record-high membership

A record 167 member companies are participating in the Department of Construction Science’s Construction Industry Advisory Council, which advises the Texas A&M program about contemporary construction practices and recruits students for internships and jobs at two annual career fairs.

HONORS/ACHIEVEMENT

Justin Bloomer creates a game at the Kansas State game jam.

Visualization students earn top honors at KSU game jam

With fun-filled video games based on healthy eating, three Texas A&M student teams swept a Kansas State University game design competition, or game jam, Feb. 5-7 in Manhattan, Kan.

Francis Hall renovation honored by national groups

The transformation of a nearly 100 year-old Francis Hall into the new home of construction science education at Texas A&M was recognized with national awards from two national groups, the Associated Builders and Contractors and The Associated General Contractors of America.

CoSci undergraduates elected as Yell Leaders for 2016-17

The roar of Aggie fans at athletic contests in 2016-17 will be led by Cooper Cox and Ian Moss, two Texas A&M undergraduate construction science students, selected as Yell Leaders in a February 16 student vote.

Grad design students take top honors in Houston AIA contest

An award-winning design concept by four graduate architecture students for a next-generation Texas Medical Center facility offers a striking departure from the existing architecture and provides patients and pedestrians with an elevated walkway to access other medical center buildings.

Ph.D. student’s fear-of-falling research earns national award

A poster designed by Ph.D. student Sungmin Lee, which illustrates how fear of falling by pedestrians older than 50 creates a barrier to their physical activity, part of research undertakenby an interdisciplinary group of scholars, captured a poster award from a national research foundation.

Ph.D. student to study benefits of home appliance networks

Sukjoon Oh, a Ph.D. architecture student, is studying how much consumers can expect to save on their electricity bills in a not-too-distant future when a typical household will feature refrigerators, washers and dryers, coffee machines, and electric meters all joined in a Wi-Fi network.

Land, property development prof earns Regan Prize

For leadership in multidisciplinary education, Geoffrey Booth, an associate professor who heads classes in the Texas A&M Master of Land and Property Development program, was selected as the recipient of the 2015 J. Thomas Regan Interdisciplinary Prize.

EVENTS

Guests at the opening reception for "Guerrilla Girls Posters 1985-2000" and "Men In Trouble."

Activist posters and paintings of men in distress in Wright Gallery

Posters by the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of female artists displaying provocative, yet humorous statements about sexism and racism, and paintings by artist Robin Tewes depicting men’s vulnerability and fragility will be displayed in two exhibits March 21 - April 13, 2016, in the Wright Gallery, located on the second floor in Building A of Texas A&M’s Langford Architecture Center.

Annual Aggie Workshop explored landscape design

Landscape architecture students teamed with design professionals at the 41st annual Aggie Workshop, a Feb. 5, 2016 event that included a lecture series, charrette and a panel discussion hosted by the university’s student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

CHC symposium focused on historic campus structures

Building conservation experts discussed the unique challenges facing historic structures on university campuses in Texas during “Campus Heritage,” the 2016 Texas A&M Center For Heritage Conservation Symposium, Feb. 26-27.

Construction professionals join students for 'Company Day'

Construction science students have numerous opportunities to interact with visiting construction professionals as part of the Department of Construction Science’s “Company Day” program, a series of one-day, open-ended visits from construction industry leaders.

CoSci event eyed technology’s impact on construction industry

Technology’s transformative impact on the building industry was showcased Feb. 11, 2016 during the Texas A&M Department of Construction Science’s Tech Demo Day at Francis Hall on the Texas A&M campus.

Architecture lectures to feature top designers, educators

Eminent designers and educators discuss a wide variety of projects past and present as part of the Department of Architecture’s Spring 2016 Lecture Series. The public lectures are scheduled 5:45 p.m. in Preston Geren Auditorium, Building B of the Langford Architecture Center.

Lecture series focuses on impact of specialty hospitals

The latest developments in healthcare and their effects on planning and designing world-class specialty hospitals — facilities with a narrower treatment focus than their full-service counterparts — are the topic of the Spring 2016 Architecture-For-Health Lecture Series at Texas A&M.

IN MEMORIAM

Former college administrator reshaped OU design programs

Charles Graham, 64, a former administrator and member of the Texas A&M College of Architecture faculty who had been serving as dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma since 2008, died Feb. 12, 2016 surrounded by family.

Community leader, outstanding alumnus Spillman dies Jan. 11

Pat Yates Spillman ’49, an outstanding alumnus of the Texas A&M College of Architecture who helped shape Dallas with planning, architecture and community leadership, died January 11, 2016.

'The Impossible City'

"The Impossible City," a laser-cut Plexiglas model depicting a compilation of iconic architecture, created by first-year environmental design students in a fall 2015 studio led by visiting lecturer René Graham, debuted during a March 23 opening reception. The piece is on display in the Langford A 4th floor lounge through April 6.