Advancement:

College of Architecture holiday giving opportunities

The season of giving is also one of the busiest times of year for donations to the College of Architecture, as many former students include the college and their own departments for end-of-year donations.

“Aggies are generous for many reasons,” said Larry Zuber, the Texas A&M Foundation’s assistant vice president for the College of Architecture. “Many just want to give back in honor of the people who helped shape their personal and professional lives when they were students here.”

See story

Dynamic Systems donates lab to view building's infrastructure

Next fall, when students begin taking classes in a renovated Francis Hall, the new campus home for the Department of Construction Science, they’ll be able to see exposed mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems at work in a $100,000 specialty lab funded by Dynamic Systems, Inc.

See story

Clark Construction funds Francis
Hall conference, bid room

A “bid room” outfitted with state-of-the-art video conferencing equipment will be built in Francis Hall, the future campus home of the Department of Construction Science, with the help of a donation from Clark Construction Group LLC.

Research:

Researchers investigate neighborhood walkability

Communities that lack amenities, infrastructure and organization favorable to pedestrians — common throughout the United States — are contributing to a national health crisis, according to two Texas A&M College of Architecture professors who are researching how urban design can encourage, rather than impede, physical activity and help combat sedentary lifestyles.

See story

Community resilience is
essence of hazard research

A year packed with death and destruction saw Hurricane Sandy slam the U.S. East Coast, tornadoes dance across mid-America, fires ravage the mountain states and a horrific chemical explosion wreck a small Texas town.

See story

TAMU hazard scientists seek flooding solutions with Dutch

Texas A&M hazard mitigation researchers are developing a joint research agenda with their counterparts at Delft University in the Netherlands
to reduce flood-related vulnerability.

See story

Top planning scholar, author
returns to Texas A&M faculty

Philip Berke ‘81, widely regarded as one of the nation’s top land use planning scholars, is returning to Texas A&M in 2014 to rejoin the urban planning faculty and help lead the university’s Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities.

See story

Researchers testing light pipe
at Texas A&M daylighting lab

An innovative, energy saving lighting system that can pipe healthy, full-spectrum daylight more than 40 feet into a building and potentially raise worker productivity is being tested at the Texas A&M College of Architecture’s Daylighting Laboratory.

See story

Initiative brings renowned researcher to viz department

Francis Quek, who joined the Department of Visualization as part of an initiative by The Texas A&M System to attract top-notch faculty, will heighten the department’s involvement regarding the interaction between people and technology.

See story

Outreach:

LAND student-designed park opens near Houston

In the middle of sprawling North Houston suburbia, a brand new 105-acre park designed by landscape architecture students at Texas A&M, provides a public refuge where one can hike and bike through trails in acres of densely wooded wilderness or relax on a small beach by a lake frequented by ibis, egret, herons, ducks and geese.

Cypress Creek Park at Timber Lane, located on Cypress Creek just east of the bustling Hardy Toll Road, 22 miles north of downtown Houston, is part of a series of award-winning parks in the Timber Lane Utility District designed by graduate and undergraduate students in three studios taught by professor Jon Rodiek over a 1.5-year period beginning in the fall 2006 semester.

See story, photos

Texas Target Cities helping
communities plan for future

Whether developing parkland, revitalizing a moribund town center, or creating a municipal master plan, for more than 25 years small communities have turned to the college's landscape architecture and urban planning students and faculty for help.

See story, photos

Colonias program promotoras
help Socorro flooding victims

The Texas A&M Colonias Program came to the aid of flood-stricken West Texans last September when heavy rain and rising water drove many colonia residents in Socorro, a suburb of El Paso, from their homes.

See story, photos

In the Studio:

Students create plan for campus gardens, greenway

Texas A&M graduate landscape architecture students developed a master plan for a major addition to the university’s College Station campus — the Texas A&M Gardens and Greenway project — a planned transformation of a 46-acre area of West Campus that will include an outdoor classroom, amphitheater, demonstration gardens and nature trails.

See story, video, photos

Black high schools resurrected
from former students' memories

Tasked with creating museum-quality models of two Brazos Valley African-American high schools that burned down in the 1960s, a group of Texas A&M graduate architecture students relied on recollections from the high schools' former students.

See story, video, photos

Students unveil plans for New
Jersey children’s health facility

Graduate architecture students from Texas A&M unveiled design concepts for a 75,000-square-foot ambulatory health care facility for children to be constructed in New Jersey as part of an interstate pediatric health system.

See story, photos

Academics:

College design programs ranked among best in U.S.

Texas A&M’s landscape architecture programs and the graduate architecture program were once again ranked among the best in the United States in an annual survey of professional practice leaders who have hired and supervised recent design graduates.

See story

MLPD students' analysis informs
downtown Houston revitalization

The underutilized southeastern area of downtown Houston could see its property values rise with new green space and a signature landmark, concluded Master of Land and Property Development students in an analysis published last spring by the Urban Land Institute’s Houston Council.

See story

Honors / Accomplishments:

Grad students' city plan earns kudos from Texas APA

A comprehensive plan to guide municipal policymakers in Gonzales, Texas, prepared by graduate urban planning students at Texas A&M, was recognized with the Student Project Award by the Texas Chapter of the Texas American Planning Association at its October 2-5 conference in Galveston.

See story, photos

Fabricators' firefighting sculpture
wins Queen Theater contest

An intricate metal sculpture of a fireman bursting through a wall of flames and water, created by a team at the Automated Fabrication and Design Lab, won an award in a fundraising competition benefiting Bryan's historic Queen Theater.

See story, video, photos

Haberl honored by international
building energy modeling group

After almost three decades finding energy saving solutions for commercial and residential buildings,
Jeff Haberl, professor of architecture, was elevated to fellowship in an international society dedicated to improving the built environment.

See story

Events:

Art questions stereotypes in western mythology

A series of large-scale paintings by Felice House, assistant professor of visualization at Texas A&M, invites viewers to question gender stereotypes in American western mythology in “Re•Western,” an exhibit at G Gallery in Houston December 7-29.

See story, photos

Construction science fall career
fairs break attendance records

Companies looking to hire construction science students at Texas A&M turned out in record numbers at fall 2013 career fairs hosted by the Department of Construction Science.

See story, photos

Viz students’ interactive artwork
shown at regional art center

Visitors interacted with art created by students at Texas A&M’s Department of Visualization in “PLAY inside the box,” an October exhibit at the Art Center of Brazos Valley.

See story

Vizzers thank DreamWorks’
Friedman for her support

Some of the most memorable characters in animated movie history such as Shrek and Po the Panda have been created at DreamWorks Animation, which employs approximately 35 former Texas A&M visualization students.

See story

Class Acts:

Latest news from the college's former students

Former students are invited to submit items for the Class Acts section of the arch|one e-newsletter, which highlights professional achievements, as well as news briefs about marriages, births, retirements and whatever else former students care to share with the college community. News and photos may be e-mailed directly to the editor.

See Class Acts briefs

Alumnus earns TSA’s august
Llewellyn W. Pitts, FAIA Medal

A distinguished career in architecture, support of emerging professionals and service to the community has netted Reagan George ’59 the Texas Society of Architects’ 2013 Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Honor of Llewelllyn W. Pitts, FAIA.

See story

Vizzers contribute to 'Free Birds,'
Reel FX's first animated feature

Turkeys time travel to the first Thanksgiving in an effort to prevent their brethren from becoming the day’s main menu item in “Free Birds,” an animated movie that includes 12 former visualization students in leading animating roles.

See story, film trailer

Former student Upali Nanda
directs research at HKS Inc.

Research findings create the ingredients for design, allowing architects to create amazing environments based on the best possible information and insight, said Upali Nanda, HKS Inc.’s new director for research, who earned a Ph.D. in architecture in 2005.

See story, video

AS+GG’s sustainable city design
selected for Kazakhstan expo

Expo City, the focal point of Expo 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, a world’s fair showcasing the latest developments in renewable energy, will be built from a design by a firm co-founded by Adrian Smith, an outstanding alumnus of the College of Architecture.

See story, video

Outstanding alum honored
by France for WWII service

Outstanding College of Architecture Alumnus and World War II veteran William Peña ’42 received France’s highest honor, the medal of Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, during a 2013 Veterans Day ceremony in Houston.

See story

In Memoriam: