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Alumni Featured in NY Times “Living Small”

Small Ranch by Best Practice Architecture. Photo by Benj Drummond
Photo by Benj Drummond

Congratulations to Best Practice (Ian Butcher, MArch 1999 and Kailin Gregga, BAAD 2002) whose Aspen Leaf Ranch design was published in The New York Times’ Living Small column. We caught up with Ian and Kailin to chat about Best Practice to learn more about the project, and what makes their firm tick.

Small Ranch by Best Practice Architecture. Photo by Benj Drummond
Photo by Benj Drummond

Best Practice was founded with the goal of fostering a place where people are encouraged to evolve and develop ideas based on the specifics of each project. “We’re known for leaning into eccentric conditions, and we aim to embrace the challenges that come from treating what seem like constraints as design opportunities,” notes Kailin. Ian adds, “We wanted to make a studio that was a great place to work, and to work with the extended and talented building community in Seattle. We are so lucky to work with talented fabricators, craftspeople and artists on our projects and seek out those collaborations. They are what lend a unique measure and feel to our projects and showcase a different way of being local.”

Read the complete article HERE.

(Another Best Practice project of theirs, Cloud Ranch, was featured in the NYT “on Location” in 2021. Check it out HERE.)

Professor Inanici Awarded 2023 Leon Gaster Award

Professor Mehlika Inanici has been awarded the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) 2023 Leon Gaster Award. The Leon Gaster award is presented for the best paper included in the SLL Lighting Research & Technology Journal concerned with lighting applications, and recognizes the role that Leon Gaster made as the founder of the Illuminating Engineering Society in 1909. The award was first made in 1929 and one award is given annually. Inanici will receive the award at the SLL Annual General Meeting, Awards and Presidential Address on May 14 2024 in Leeds, England.

Faculty and Alumni Elevated to AIA College of Fellows

This year, 98 architects in the U.S. and beyond were elevated to the AIA College of Fellows, including Professors Ann Marie Borys and Kate Simonen. Nine of the department’s permanent and affiliate faculty are now AIA Fellows. In addition, three UW Architecture alumni were also elevated to Fellowship: Samuel Batchelor, designLab Architects in Boston (M.Arch, 2004); Douglas Ito, SMR Architects (BA Architecture, 1992); and Robert Misel, The Miller Hull Partnership LLP (BA Architecture, 1989). Doug Ito is also the recipient of the 2024 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award, which recognizes an architect or organization that champions a range of social issues. UW Architecture will host a reception/celebration for alumni and friends at the AIA Conference in Washington, D.C. on June 5 at ZGF Architects. Register here to attend.

design exCHANGE 2024

 

The 2024 design exCHANGE exhibit is an annual exhibition of unbuilt projects by local Seattle architecture firms. The projects showcased are located in the Pacific Northwest region and all around the world.

This exhibit is free and open to the public.

Exhibition April 26 – May 9, 2024
Gould Court

 


Opening Reception: Friday, April 26, 2024 5:30PM
This event is not open to the general public.

The 2024 design exCHANGE opening reception is an invitation only event to celebrate the opening of the annual design exCHANGE exhibit. The opening reception is open to members of the UW College of Built Environments and invited members of the Seattle design community. Please register to attend.

2024 AIA Seattle Awards

 

We are proud to announce that four members of the UW Architecture community have been recognized with an AIA Seattle Award this year!

“Each year, AIA Seattle celebrates leadership and achievement in design and the built environment through its member awards program, which recognizes individual leadership and achievement in design and the built environment at the local and national levels. Honorees are nominated by their peers and selected by the Fellows & Honors Committee each year to acknowledge excellence and strengthen ties between architects and the many professions that partner with them to make a difference through design.” – AIA Seattle

Gold Medal: Susan Jones, FAIA, atelierjones, Affiliate Associate Professor

College of Fellows: Bill LaPatra FAIA, LEED AP

Community Service Award: Emilia Cabeza de Baca, AIA – 2019 M Arch alum

Allied Organization Award: NOMAS UW – student organization

For more information about each award and to purchase tickets to attend the awards ceremony on January 23, visit the AIA Seattle event website.

AIA Seattle Parti
Tuesday, January 23 6-8:30pm @ The Forum at Town Hall Seattle

Faculty Led Exhibits Abroad and in the United States

Overseas, the exhibition “The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World” curated by Professor Ken Tadashi Oshima at the Toyota Museum of Art (Aichi, Japan) attracted a record 35,000+ visitors while on view October-December 2023. This year it travels to Tokyo to the Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art (January 11 – March 10) and the Aomori Museum of Art (March 20 – May 12, 2024).

Here in the United States, an exhibit will open in June 2024. Mona Ghandi, Assistant Teaching Professor, is a recent winner and finalist of the DATMA (Massachusetts Design Art & Technology Institute) public art Installation peer reviewed national competition. Her interactive piece entitled “Mood-Vironment” is a full-scale interactive installation that interacts with the visitors’ emotions and changes itself accordingly. The piece will be built in New Bedford MA and will be on display until October 2024.

UW M Arch students selected as finalists for the GRAY Awards


 
Furniture pieces designed and built by Master of Architecture students Morocco Branting and Jeremy Salesin in our 2023 Scan Design Furniture Studio have been selected as finalists in the GRAY Awards Student Design category.

The GRAY Awards is an international competition recognizing creative excellence & outstanding work happening around the world. Read more about the students’ projects here.

Winners will be announced in March 2024. Congratulations to both!

Modern Architecture Activism: The Life and Work of Benjamin F. McAdoo, Jr.

This exhibit showcases the modern architectural designs and social activism of Benjamin F. McAdoo Jr. (1920-1981) – a graduate of the University of Washington, Department of Architecture, and the first Black architect registered in Washington State. McAdoo’s life and work linked two distinct worlds in the mid-century period: the struggle for racial equity and civil rights, and the rise of modernism in architectural design. This exhibit highlights how McAdoo’s engaged, activist modern architecture bridged these often-disparate worlds, and challenged the status quo from the late 1940s through the 1970s.

Support for this exhibit provided by 4Culture, the CBE Inspire Fund, and the Department of Architecture.

Gould Gallery, Gould Hall
3950 University Way, University of Washington
Exhibit Open February 1st to March 15th

Opening Reception, Wednesday February 7th, 5:30pm
Link to Opening Reception Event:
https://be.uw.edu/news-events/cbe-event-calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D171390920


UW Student Chapter Competes in 2023’s NOMA National Conference

Congratulations to our University of Washington National Organization of Minority Architects student chapter (NOMAS UW) who represented the College of Built Environments and the Department of Architecture at 2023’s NOMA National Conference. They participated in this year’s Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition, one of the highlights of the conference held in October in Portland.

Students Receive 2023 Planet Positive Award from Metropolis Magazine

In Winter 2023, four interdisciplinary student teams in the Architecture 507 design studio explored development strategies at the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in the Central District. One of teams was recognized with the 2023 Planet Positive Award for Student Work from Metropolis Magazine. The team consisted of: Bryce Boho (Architecture), William Flanagan (Architecture), Lu He (Landscape Architecture), Alicia Jacobs (Urban Design and Planning), Facundo Jaime (Architecture), Jacob Schmitz (Architecture). Faculty included: Donald King (Architecture), Brice Maryman (Landscape Architecture), Rick Mohler (Architecture), Jess Zimbabwe (Urban Design and Planning).

Seattle’s Central District, a long-standing African-American community, is facing strong gentrification and displacement pressures. As a result, Black churches face difficult decisions about whether to stay in the district or relocate. In response, the Nehemiah Initiative—a collaboration between church leadership, academic institutions, city departments, and affordable housing advocates – strives to leverage the churches’ property and assets to mitigate the ongoing gentrification and displacement through strategic urban design and real estate development. By adding sustainably built affordable housing and public spaces, the initiative can support black homeownership and small-business opportunities. At the same time, the plans maximize green stormwater infrastructure and on-site energy production while leveraging off-site prefabrication, including volumetric modular and mass timber construction, to reduce embodied carbon and costs.

UW Selected to Host the 2024 AIAS West Quad Conference

2024 WQC Banner Pink Background

 

We are proud to announce that UW AIAS is hosting the 2024 West Quad Conference, Bloom: Emerging Solutions for Urban Sustainability, in Seattle from April 4-7, 2024. This conference will welcome architecture students from around the western United States to our city, where they will experience Seattle’s commitment to sustainability, visionary attitude, and, of course, award-winning architectural accomplishments. The 2024 West Quad Conference will encompass keynote speeches, firm tours, building tours, workshops, panels, and a career fair related to the three programming cornerstones: Innovation and Efficiency, Environmental Responsiveness, and Sustainable Urban Growth.

The UW AIAS Chapter is also known for hosting a peer mentorship program encapsulating 160+ student volunteers, skills workshops, building tours, and the annual CBE Beaux Arts Ball, which garnered 200+ attendees in 2023. We are a capable and enthusiastic community! If you would like to inquire about involvement or sponsorship in the 2024 West Quad Conference, please contact uwashington@aias.org

The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World

Professor Ken Tadashi Oshima curated/authored The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World, a major exhibition and fully-illustrated book currently at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art designed by Yoshio Taniguchi. Five years in the making, this exhibition builds on the 2017 MoMA exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, for which Professor Oshima was a co-curator, to celebrate the centennial of the 1923 opening of Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

In bringing together works from Columbia University’s Avery Library, MoMA, the Library of Congress and Japanese collections, this exhibition reexamines Wright as one of the first global architects pursuing this decade-long project at the nexus of his vast career spanning art, architecture, and design to writing, landscape, education, construction and urbanism. Highlights of the exhibition include film footage of the construction of Wright’s Fallingwater (1936-), a full-scale Usonian House installation and contemporary color animated film of Broadacre City (1929-35). The reexamination of Wright also considers his designs in the context of his travels and passions connecting different landscapes and cultures around the world, and pursuit of high-rises including his 528-story Mile-High Illinois skyscraper (1956). Today, a further evolution of Wright’s vision can be seen in the design of the new high-rise Imperial Hotel (2021-2036) by Tsuyoshi Tane (1979-) that bridges past/present/future.

Professor Oshima will also present this work on-line in collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and Foundation for the lecture series “Unpacking the Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World”

Thursday, November 9, 2023
7 p.m. EST / 4 p.m. PST

 

2024 Exhibition Dates

The exhibition continues in 2024 at the Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art (Minato-ku, Tokyo) January 11 – March 10, 2024 and Aomori Museum of Art (Aomori City, Aomori) March 20 – May 12, 2024.

UW Department of Architecture 2023 Fall Lecture Series

 


 

The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture
Bugesera, Rwanda

 

Seeking Abundance

Katie Swenson | MASS Design Group

 

Wednesday, November 8 5:30PM
147 Architecture Hall

 

Katie Swenson is a Senior Principal at MASS Design Group, where she leads the Advocacy team. Katie’s work explores how critical design practice can, and should, promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities. She has over 20 years of experience in the theoretical and practical applications of design thinking. Katie teaches at the Parsons School of Design at The New School and lectures extensively on sustainable community development and affordable housing. She was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2019 and the AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture in 2021. Katie is a juror for the 2023 AIA Awards for Washington Architecture.

 

This lecture is free and open to the public. AIA Continuing Education credit is available for attendance.

 

2023 Scan Design Foundation Visiting Professor: Søren Nielsen

 

2023 Scan Design Lecture Poster

 

Wednesday, October 04 5:30PM
147 Architecture Hall

 

Søren Nielsen is the 2023 Scan Design Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor in the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. Søren is architect and co-owner of Vandkunsten Architects in Copenhagen, one of the country’s leading socially and environmentally engaged offices. Responsible for Vandkunsten’s R&D activities, Søren is devoted to design strategies for sustainability, in particular resource protection, building transformation and the social, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of reuse. With 35 years of practice, he has been the leading force behind multiple innovative projects for affordable housing, adaptability, circularity, and the use of biogenic materials.

This lecture is free and open to the public. AIA Continuing Education credit is available for attendance.

 

Professor Rick Mohler Appointed Chair of the Department of Architecture

Professor Rick Mohler was appointed Chair of the Department of Architecture in June 2023. Throughout his career he has promoted just, policy-driven cities, shaped by principled design, addressing all scales of urban experience through teaching, action research, professional practice, and community engaged scholarship and service. In doing so, he strengthens connections between the academy, profession, government, and community. Through his own practice, work with other firms, and independent collaborations, Rick has been recognized thirty-seven times in local, regional, national, and international design awards programs and design competitions. His students have been recognized over twenty times in regional, national, and international design competitions and awards programs.

Over the past few years, he has received a 2019 R+D Award from Architect magazine, a 2021 ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award, a 2022 Place Design Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), and a 2022 AIA Small Projects Award. Rick is a former member of the AIA Seattle Board of Directors, former Co-Chair of the AIA Seattle Public Policy Board and former Co-Chair and current member of the Seattle Planning Commission. In recognition of his contributions in practice, education, research, and advocacy, he was elevated to Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2021 and received the AIA Seattle Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement, the highest honor the chapter bestows on its members, in 2022.

MArch Grad Mike Mora featured in New York Times

Loyal Captain - Heliotrope Render by Notion Workshop

Loyal Captain – Heliotrope

 

Mike Mora (MArch 1994), a partner in Seattle-based Heliotrope Architects, had a recently completed remodel and addition to a landmarked Seattle home featured in the New York Times on September 6. The article titled “A Ship Captain’s House in Seattle, via Norway, Finds New Life” applauds the contemporary yet sensitive addition to the traditional house.

The Norwegians have an expression: “Wood is our living archive.” As early as A.D. 800, the Vikings displayed their excellent craftsmanship and knowledge of wood construction techniques in their longships.

Heliotrope Architects honors such craft traditions, which may explain the kitchen’s deep resonance to Ms. Schneider.

“The kitchen really feels like a collaboration; it really did come out as I hoped,” she said. “I now feel connected to this place through this project: It’s an homage to the old house and a nod to my husband’s Japanese, very minimalist sensibility.”

Tyler Sprague wins 2023 ACSA Timber Education Prize

 
 

Associate Professor Tyler Sprague was one of five faculty from throughout North America recognized with a 2023 ACSA Timber Education Prize which honors courses that “seek to recognize effective and innovative curricula that create a stimulating and evidence-based environment for learning about timber.” The award was for Architecture 498: Mass Timber Architecture: Material, Structure, and Detail and includes funding for Tyler to further develop the curriculum over the next two years.

 

UW students win 2023 AIA/ACSA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition

MArch students Andrew Baltimore and Eric Luth were one of ten winning teams in the 2023 AIA/ACSA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition for their submission Watershed, completed in the Spring 2022 ARCH 508 Research studio with faculty Gundula Proksch and Chris Meek.

“Watershed is an enthralling design with robust information, well executed graphics and clear data. Effectively utilizing the boards to show the quantitative data-driven measures, the project represents a system thinking approach to the design, which clearly shows a rigor of understanding of analysis and environmental metrics.” – Competition Jury

Congratulations to our students and faculty for this outstanding achievement!
 

 

Project Description

Located in Seattle, Washington, Watershed is a 105,000 SF research institution situated along the Ballard neighborhood’s historically industrial waterfront. To harmonize the community’s relationship with the natural environment – within an industrial setting – Watershed leverages synergies between a biodiversity research institute, a native plant nursery, a salmon hatchery, and an education center to create an experience centered around community empowerment, resiliency, and a sustainable future.

Recognizing the importance of urban landscapes within the larger biosphere, Watershed’s biodiversity research institute will assess emerging threats to urban ecosystems and wildlife through collaborative, scientific research. The integration of the pacific salmon hatchery will help sustain a critical industry within the Pacific Northwest, while creating opportunities for community education and giving biodiversity researchers direct access to a keystone species. To maximize programmatic synergies, waste water from the hatchery will be captured and recycled into the native plant nursery, where the nutrient-rich water will help fertilize native plant saplings before terminating in the on-site constructed wetland.

Currently classified as temperate marine, Seattle’s climate is underpinned by its native species that continue to be threatened by urbanization and climate change. Growing native plant species in a partially controlled environment provides the community with continued access to healthy native plants, while supporting educational opportunities and critical scientific research. Uniting these programs together is the education center where empowering neighbors, strengthening communal bonds, and creating a forum for public engagement are at the core of its mission. By inspiring the community through knowledge, the education center provides equitable access to resources and experts whose mission is to have a lasting impact on the community and its natural resources.

Merging the ideas of environment, community, and research together, the site breaks the historically inaccessible industrial barrier along the waterfront by creating a new community gathering space that prioritizes the health of the natural environment. A large public pier, a waterfront activities center, and a new space for the existing Salmon Bay Café (a neighborhood staple since 1970) create an energetic amenity for the community that increases accessibility and connection to Ballard’s waterfront. The constructed wetland throughout the site, strategically curated to restore and strengthen existing ecological systems, cleans polluted stormwater runoff heading towards Salmon Bay. This multi-functional landscape promotes community awareness of human impacts on these vital natural systems, while providing researchers with opportunities to observe the intersection of the natural and urban environments.

In Memory of Norman Pfeiffer, FAIA

Source: Pfeiffer Partners

 

The Department of Architecture is saddened to learn of the passing of one its most illustrious graduates, Norman Pfeiffer, FAIA. Norman was born in Seattle in 1940. His grandfather was a construction superintendent and Norman was interested in architecture at an early age. He enrolled in the five-year program at UW in 1959 and graduated with his B.Arch. Cum Laude in 1964. During his time at UW (on weekends and during the summers), he worked for Paul Hayden Kirk & Associates (Kirk, Wallace, McKinley after 1960). He next spent a year at Columbia University, earning his M.Arch. in 1965. On graduation he joined Hugh Hardy & Associates. In 1967, he was one of the three founding partners of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. In 1986 Pfeiffer returned to the West Coast to open the Los Angeles office of HHPA.

HHPA initially designed houses and schools, but gradually took on larger projects and became known for their innovative public buildings including museums and performing arts centers, as well as numerous renovations and adaptive reuse projects. The firm never developed a “house style,” but addressed each project on its own terms within the framework of contemporary architecture.

HHPA was a nationally significant firm that received over 100 national design awards in its 37 years of existence, including the Arnold W. Brunner Prize of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974 and the national AIA Firm Award in 1981. The firm and its work received frequent publication. In 1992, Rizzoli published the monograph, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, Buildings and Projects 1967-1992; in 1998 Rizzoli published a second volume, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates: Buildings and Projects 1993-1998.

All three partners became AIA Fellows – Norman Pfeiffer in 1981.

Around 1980, HHPA won the commission for the restoration and expansion of the Los Angeles Public Library. The firm developed an initial concept design, but before this oved forward, arson fires in 1986 and an earthquake the following year caused substantial damage. HHPA revised their designs and the project moved forward under Norman Pfeiffer to completion in 1993. The HHPA Los Angeles office under Pfeiffer’s direction was made permanent.

Pfeiffer served for more than two decades on the University of Washington Architectural Commission beginning in 1989. Pfeiffer taught as a Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at UCLA beginning in 1987, and has also taught at Yale, Cincinnati and other schools.

When HHPA disbanded in 2004, Norman Pfeiffer opened Pfeiffer Partners based in Los Angeles. The firm subsequently opened a New York office. The firm has about 50 professionals in its two offices and continues to take on challenging cultural and educational projects as well as restoration and reuse. And, the firm continues to receive significant recognition, as listed here: http://pfeifferpartners.com/recognition/

Norman’s son Alex is also a graduate of our program, having received his M.Arch in 2001.

 
For information about the firm, see:
http://pfeifferpartners.com/profile/
https://www.facebook.com/PfeifferArchitects/