Assistant Professor of Art Elizabeth Duffy is exhibiting solo at the Space Gallery in Portland, ME and is part of a group traveling exhibit titled "Networks and Intersection: Finding Meaning Through Complexity" which will visit the Brattleboro Museum in Brattleboro, VT, the List Gallery at Swarthmore College, and 55 Mercer, NY, NY. Duffy is also a contributor to the group exhibit "White as Color" currently at the Tengelsen Gallery in Dix Hills, NY, later traveling to Berlin Gallery, Phoenix, AZ and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT.
Luis Carranza, Associate Professor of Architecture, presented a lecture at the Guggenheim Museum, New York titled: "Frank Lloyd Wright and Mexico." He participated as a discussant in a round table on the influence of Wright on Mexican architecture and his interest in pre-Colombian architecture in September 2006. His recent publications include: "PreHispanic Architecture in the Modern Imaginary", Arquiné: Revista Internacional de Arquitectura y Diseño, (Winter 2006); "Boston’s Art District: Branding as Transition Catalyst", Competitions Magazine, (Spring 2007); and "Fernando Vasconcelos in Messico: Progetto e Ricerca nel Lavoro di un Professionista Colto", Il Giornale Dell’Architettura: Special Issue on Contemporary Practices in Latin America, (March 2007).
Michael Rich, Associate Professor of Art, is exhibiting a solo exhibition of new work at the George Billis Gallery in Los Angeles, CA and showed a retrospective exhibition titled "Nantucket Walkabouts" at the Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR, February 26 through April 14, 2007. Rich has also presented visiting artist lectures at Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT, Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, and Cooper Union, NYC.
Edgar Adams, Associate Professor of Architecture, has been involved in a variety of teaching, practice and community service roles this year that engage and connect the University to a spectrum of civic and community groups. His firm, Adams Design Associates, completed adaptive reuse of a 1912 Jewelry Manufacturing Building transforming it to a Worship Space, administrative and classroom facilities for Trinity Presbyterian Church, Providence.
Professor Adams also presented selected projects for the Providence Waterfront prepared by Roger Williams’s students to a graduate seminar at Rhode Island School of Design and assisted in the incorporation of this student work into an exhibition at Save the Bay and Providence City Hall. He was appointed to the Barrington Planning Board and to the Grow Smart RI's Land Use 2025 Implementation Task Force. Adams received a Faculty Research Grant to study Transit Oriented Development in California and Oregon, and submitted an entry for the Providence Waterfront Park Design Competition entitled "Providence Palimpsest".
At the 45th International Making Cities Livable Conference in Portland, Oregon, Professor Adams presented a paper titled "The Main Line as Model: Transit Oriented Development Comes of Age". The paper seeks to find a productive dialogue between 19th century railroad communities, such as those along the "Main Line" outside of Philadelphia and contemporary West Coast transit oriented develoments in California and Oregon.
The photographic work of Associate Professor of Art Jeffrey Silverthorne has been published by Fotografisk Gallery, Narayana Press, Copenhagen, Denmark in a new book entitled Jeffrey Silverthorne, Directions for Leaving. The book includes an introductory essay written by Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning author E. Annie Proulx, Cary Loren, and Lars Schwanders. Proulx remarks that "Silverthorne has both a gift for strong composition and knowledge of art which seems to have strengthened his work over the years. Gustave Dore, Thomas Eakins, German surrealists and expressionists, Goya and Rembrandt whisper behind the curtain".
Sara Butler, Associate Professor of Art and Architectural History and University Core Professor, authored two articles released in 2006/07, "The Art of Negotiation: Federal Arts, Civil Rights, and Commemoration of the Marian Anderson Concert, 1939-1943," in The Winterthur Portfolio, and "The Monument as Manifesto: The Pierre L’Enfant Memorial 1909-1911" published in The Journal of Planning History. Butler also presented her work on L’Enfant at two conferences: The Vernacular Architecture Forum in Savannah, Georgia in March 2007, and at the 10th Annual Conference on Cultural and Historic Preservation, "Ritual Spaces and Places: Memory and Commemoration in 19th-Century America", at Salve Regina University Newport, RI, September 2006. She was also elected to the Board of Directors of the Southeast region, Society of Architectural Historians and traveled to Japan in the summer of 2007.
Hasan-Uddin Khan, Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation, Visits the Far East, Teaches at UC Berkeley on Sabbatical
In December, Khan attended the tenth international conference of IASTE (International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments) on "HyperTraditions" in Bangkok. The conference addressed social and cultural realms, created and maintained through contemporary technologies of communication, transportation, and information transfer. Khan served as Discussant at the final plenary session.
Following the conference, Khan visited Angkor Wat in Cambodia, examining the restoration work in the area as part of his ongoing work on conservation in Asia.
Khan was named the Freidman Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he conducted a graduate seminar on Contemporary Agendas in Islamic Architecture in January. He also participated in a superstudio on the design of a new town – Nano City – near Chandigarh in India, expanding his work on issues of identity, vision and globalization in urbanism in Asia. The studio, run by Professors Nezar Alsayyad and Susan Ubbedelohde is funded by the co-founder of hotmail, Saber Bhatia. Khan gave three lectures on architecture in India and participated in design reviews. He also gave a talk on "Contemporary Mosques in the Arab World", at the Institute for Middle East Studies.
Kahn returned in March to continue work on two books and to develop new courses in Historic Preservation. As editor, Khan is completing a monograph on the city of Chandigarh, designed by the great architect, Le Corbusier, some fifty-five years ago. Last October, the SAAHP hosted a major symposium, "Chandigarh 50+", that brought ten of the book’s contributors for a two-day meeting on the campus. Khan’s second book, based on over ten years of research and teaching, is on urban conservation practices in Asia. He hopes to complete both books by the end of his sabbatical when he will return to RWU to continue teaching in the Fall.
Julian Bonder, Associate Professor of Architecture, is currently collaborating with internationally renowned public artist Kryzstof Wodiczko on several memorial projects in the US and France. The team recently won the 2007 ACSA Faculty Design Award for the design of a Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery at Nantes, France, which is proceeding towards construction. It is the second ACSA Faculty Design Award for Bonder. In November 2006, Bonder lectured at the University of Pittsburgh on the topic of "Architecture/Memory/Trauma".
Andrew Cohen's Springstep Center nominated in 2007 for prestigious prize for third consecutive year.
Andrew Cohen, Professor of Architecture, and his firm's work has been nominated for the third consecutive year for the Boston Society of Architects’ Harleston Parker Medal, given for the Boston area's "best building" over the past 10 years. This year's other nominees include the Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, by Diller + Scofidio, New York; Boston's Zakim Bridge by engineer Christopher Menn, Chur, Switzerland; MIT's Stata Center by Frank O. Gehry Associates, Santa Monica; and the Outdoor Classroom and Vine Trellises at the Arnold Arboretum, Boston by Maryann Thompson Associates, Cambridge.
Ulker Copur, Professor of Architecture, presented a paper titled "Managing Diversity in a Sustainable Urban Setting: Kronsberg, Hannover, Germany" for the 45th International Making Cities Livable Conference on June 10-14, 2007. Kronsberg is an exemplary model of diverse ecological practices including: a density policy, constructed landscapes, decentralized applications of renewable sources of energy, sustainable site management, public transportation and pedestrian networks, ecological infrastructure, planned recycling programs starting with the construction phase, human scale community clusters with diverse cultural and social population groups and a variety of housing configurations designed by over 30 different architectural firms to comply with the "Hannover Principles".
Copur evaluated the direct and indirect impacts of planned ecological diversity which was managed in conjunction with density planning interphased with reforestation and water management. As such, Kronsberg becomes a viable precedent for sustainable urban model that may mitigate climate change and global warming. Copur will participate in a workshop with Kronsberg urban designers to discuss the potential growth of the Kronsberg Sustainable settlement which was originally planned as part of the 2000 World Exposition Habitat, but continued to be developed as a unique sustainable settlement. She will present the planned growth phase of the Kronsberg settlement as a project for the Advanced Studio she will be teaching in the Fall Semester 2007.
"Four Approaches to Regionalism in Architecture" by Professor of Architecture Eleftherios Pavlides was included in the recently published Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, by Princeton Architectural Press, edited by Vincent Canizaro of the University of Texas, San Antonio. Authored by important critics, historians, and architects, Architectural Regionalism represents the history of regionalist thinking in architecture from the early twentieth century to today.
Grace Church Cemetery in Providence, RI is hosting Assistant Professor of Art Anne Tait as an Artist-in-Residence. She was awarded grants from the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to investigate the art, meaning, and social context of the grave markers. Her work will be documented in a portfolio of print editions, an exhibit and a lecture.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture Deborah Walberg presented a paper titled "Giovanni Tiepolo and the Search for Religious Identity in Post-Interdict Venice" at the international conference "Celebrazione e autocritica: la Serenissima e la ricerca dell'identita veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento", Venice, Italy, Dec. 13-14, 2006. She also presented a paper entitled "The Venetian Madonna della Pace and the Greek Community in Venice, 1500-1650", at the Brown University Italian Studies Department Colloquium, Feb. 8, 2007 and a paper entitled "Recreating Lost Contexts: the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Venice" at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, March 21-23, 2007. Walberg will present a paper entitled " Word and Image in the Service of Church and State: the Sacred Art Patronage of the Venetian Patriarch Giovanni Tiepolo" at the First Annual Conference on Church and State Relations, Roger Williams University, June 3-5, 2007.
Americo Mallozzi, AIA, was named an RWU Professor Emeritus in 2006. Mallozzi was one of the founding members of the Architecture program at Roger Williams College in the 1980’s, where he taught until 2004. He also has maintained a noted architectural practice that included works for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Holy Cross College, Providence College, Providence Performing Arts Center, and the Portsmouth Abbey School, among many clients.
Andrew Thurlow, Assistant Professor of Architecture, recently published an essay titled "Paragenesis" in Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism, published by the University of Texas at Austin. Thurlow Small Architecture designed and curated the exhibit "Planning Pawtucket: Dreams for a Once and Future City", at The Grant in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The exhibit was partially funded with a grant from the City of Pawtucket and featured work from SAAHP students. Thurlow also received a grant from the RWU Foundation to Promote Scholarship and Teaching for "Interactive Architecture: Architectural Applications through Low-volume Tooling," which includes a course release during the semester(s) Fall 2007/Spring 2008 and funding in the amount of $12,240. Thurlow Small Architecture was awarded semifinalist status in the FEIDAD (Far Eastern International Digital Architecture) award competition. This work/design project is to be published in the forthcoming FEIDAD publication Digital Architecture: 7th Far Eastern International Design Award, Birkhauser, 2008.
Randall Van Schepen, Assistant Professor of Art and Architectural History, delivered a paper at the conference "Representations of 9/11" held at the University of Westminster, London, March 15-17, 2007. Van Schepen’s paper addressed the controversy over Eric Fischl’s "Tumbling Woman" sculpture which was briefly exhibited at Rockefeller Center on the 1st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Stephen White, AIA, Dean and Professor of Architecture, served as 2006 President of the American Institute of Architects, Rhode Island, and in Spring 2008 completes a three year term as Northeast Director of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). For AIA Rhode Island, White co-chaired the AIA New England Conference, "Newport: An Architectural Laboratory" with John Grosvenor, AIA of Newport Collaborative Architects, held in Newport 21-24 September 2006. He also collaborated with other chapter leaders in the establishment of AIA Rhode Island’s "Window on Architecture", the chapter headquarters and display space located at Roger Williams University Providence campus, which opened in February 2007. As a member of the ACSA Board of Directors, White has participated in drafting the ACSA’s White Paper leading to the next round of the National Architectural Accrediting Board’s (NAAAB) Conditions of Accreditation, to be published in 2010. In Summer 2008, White’s chapter “Chandigarh’s Landscape and Open Spaces: Founding Ideals, Evolutions and Prospects” will be published in Le Corbusier, Chandigarh and the Modern City (Ahmedabad: Mapin/London: Grantha, 2008) edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan, SAAHP’s Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation.
Robert Dermody, Assistant Professor of Architecture, is a co-founder of the Building Technology Educators’ Society established in 2006, a group of educators teaching building technology to students in Architecture and Canada. Dermody presented a paper entitled, "A Different Kind of Structures Problem" at the Building Technology Educators Symposium held at the University of Maryland in August. The paper focused on ways of teaching structures to architecture students that is more design oriented than analytical.
Too often the technical courses required of architecture students rely on analytical, calculation based problem sets as their primary pedagogy. By refocusing structures courses on form finding and only using structural calculations to confirm schematic designs, architecture students realize the limited role that calculations play in the overall design process. Professor Dermody presented examples of student design projects from RWU’s Architectural Technology courses.
Julia Bernert, Adjunct Faculty in Architecture, and her firm Clearwater Architects, Westport, Massachusetts, is currently designing (among other green projects) a house situated in a remote site on the coast in Southeastern Massachusetts that will be completely off-grid. The house, designed for three generations of a family will incorporate low toxic materials, energy efficient construction, wind, solar and co-generation technologies.
David Maclean, Adjunct Faculty in Architecture, and his firm were one of nine winners out of 130 entrants of a 2006 Boston Society of Architects Small Firms/Small Projects Design Awards Program, for a garden shed/greenhouse project on Cape Cod.