e-SPAN Newsletter v028: Welcome Back to the Fall Semester
UPDATES FROM CARNEGIE MELLON ARCHITECTURE
Carnegie Mellon Architecture students, faculty and staff pose for a group photo at the EX-CHANGE launch and welcome back party on September 8, 2023.
Dear Carnegie Mellon Architecture Community,
Welcome to the 2023–2024 academic year!
We have started the year with a new visual identity that reflects the school’s energy, diversity and direction. I’d like to thank those who collaborated with designer Luke Bulman on the iterative work of developing it: faculty Jeremy Ficca, Stefan Gruber, Sarah Rafson and Eddy Man Kim, and staff Christi Danner and Meredith Marsh. Keep an eye out for the new Carnegie Mellon Architecture branding across our spaces and public engagement.
During the summer, our spaces were busy with both Pre-College and UDream students. Professor Heather Bizon led faculty and students in delivering another great Pre-College experience to 50 high school students from around the United States. With the continuing reduction of art and craft courses in K-12 schools in the US, programs like these are the only door for many students into architecture education. The program provides them with both a high quality design studio experience and guidance in applying to schools and careers in architecture.
We were glad to re-launch the hugely successful UDream program, which you can read more about below. Professors Erica Cochran Hameen and Jenna Kappelt are to be credited with restructuring our sponsorship with the Heinz Endowments and welcoming 10 students to the program this summer. Our commitment to diversity and equity in the architectural profession remains central to our mission as a school. UDream is a primary driver of that commitment and has been recognized nationally as a model for increasing diversity in the architectural professions.
We have also been successful over the last year in recruiting new faculty to help us develop the vision of the school as articulated in Pedagogies 2020, our roadmap to an architectural education for the 21st century. Read more below about our new faculty members; we are privileged to have them join us and learn from their expertise.
Finally, we have some great news to share regarding philanthropic support for our programs. The PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group has expanded its partnership with Carnegie Mellon University by establishing the PJ Dick Innovation Fund with a generous $500,000 gift to the school. The funds will be used to support innovations in our research and pedagogy, equity in architecture, and student experience. This fund is an investment in the vision we have laid out for the school and will provide vital funds to initiate projects outlined in our strategic plan. It is also an exciting validation of our new direction from one of our longtime and valued benefactors. A longtime corporate partner of CMU, PJ Dick also supports Carnegie Mellon Architecture with the PJ Dick Endowed Fellowship in Architecture, Engineering and Construction Management.
Please stay in touch and share with us what you are doing, and let us know your thoughts on our progress and new direction. Your involvement in the school is vital to its success.
Omar Khan
Head of School
Omar Khan visited Chicago alumni on September 20 during an event hosted at the Bridgeport Art Center by Stephen Wierzbowski, FAIA (B.Arch ‘75). Stephen is one of the curators of "Ornament IS: Arguments on Ornament in Design," on view through November 3, 2023. Pictured from left to right: Andrew Owens (B.Arch ‘96), Nootan Bharani (B.Arch ‘99), host and co-curator Stephen Wierzbowski, Heather Strong (B.Arch ‘93) and Omar Khan. Not pictured: Sujan Shrestha (MUD ‘19), Keyi Chai (MUD ‘23) and Liale Nijem (M.Arch ‘19).
This year’s cohort of UDream fellows and CMU mentors. From left to right: Erica Cochran Hameen, William Bates, Jada Robinson, Kevin Owen-Robinson, Jaden McMillian, David Rico-Gomez, Teara Banks, Cornelius Pace, Alycia White, Najeeb Hameen, JaNai Ferguson, Dario McPhee, Justyn Grant, Jackie McFarland and Niles Hattaway.
UDream is back and building on its success
Erica Cochran Hameen’s enthusiasm about UDream is irresistible—and it’s shared by Pittsburgh’s architecture community.
When Carnegie Mellon Architecture decided to reboot UDream, its academic and workforce development program for recent architecture graduates from underrepresented backgrounds, Assistant Professor Cochran Hameen contacted Pittsburgh architects, urban designers and allied professionals. They were thrilled to see the program return.
So, UDream is back, with financial and logistical support from The Heinz Endowments, as well as the PJ Dick Innovation Fund, Perkins Eastman, The Aequo Fund, Desmone Architects, IKM Architecture, SmithGroup, Walnut Capital, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, ImbuTec, LGA Partners, Pfaffmann + Associates and Strada Architecture.
In its first incarnation, the program ran from 2009 to 2018, measurably increasing the diversity of Pittsburgh’s architecture scene.
“The face of architecture in Pittsburgh is—literally!—a lot more diverse than it was 20 years ago, and that is because of UDream,” says Cochran Hameen. “UDream alumni are now architectural leaders, in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. That diversity among top talent significantly raises the level of discourse and facilitates the kinds of conversations we need to design architecture that responds to the needs of all people.”
This year’s program began with a six-week academic intensive designed to introduce participants to the school’s graduate programs and faculty, preparing them for future graduate-level study in a range of architectural disciplines. Should participants decide to pursue graduate study at CMU or elsewhere, UDream offers practical support throughout the application cycle. UDream participants also have the opportunity to apply for the GEM Fellowship, which would allow them to enroll in graduate school at zero cost.
Cochran Hameen notes that, in an average year in the US, fewer than three Black people are granted PhDs in architecture. “This demonstrates,” she says, “that huge groups of people are massively underrepresented in conversations determining the future of the discipline. We need more people to be well represented in graduate schools.”
UDream’s summer curriculum also facilitated deep learning about Pittsburgh, including a multi-hour Mon Valley driving tour with An Lewis, who supplemented her late father David Lewis’ well-honed itinerary with her own extensive experience. UDream participants engaged with the Pittsburgh community, sharing their knowledge and experience with K-12 architecture summer camp participants at Assemble and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
As summer ends, UDream participants are transitioning into the next phase of the program: a three-month paid internship with local architecture and construction firms, nonprofits, and civic development corporations. This year’s matching process for interns and firms was extremely selective—for the firms, who competed to attract interns.
“We’ve been thrilled with the level of commitment and support from Carnegie Mellon Architecture, NOMA, the AIA, and leadership at local firms, all of whom recognize that UDream’s mission aligns profoundly with theirs,” says Cochran Hameen. “These supporters understand UDream’s stellar track record of practical, wide-ranging support for early-career architects from under-resourced groups; they’re eager to engage with architecture’s future leaders and be part of real, meaningful change.”
As Cochran Hameen says, “Instead of simply looking at the lack of diversity in architecture and asking, ‘well, why is that?!’, UDream looks upstream and finds ways to engage people from underrepresented groups at younger ages, and to offer them the support and networking opportunities necessary for success in the field. Their success increases the quality and complexity of architecture for everyone.”
Students gather around copies of EX-CHANGE in the Great Hall at the launch party on September 8, 2023.
EX-CHANGE 2023 publication and exhibition showcases student work
Since its inauguration in 2017, EX-CHANGE shares a glimpse into our remarkable school and pedagogy from first year through PhD.
The school community celebrated the EX-CHANGE 2023 exhibition and publication at a welcome back party in the Great Hall on September 8. The publication was accompanied by an exhibition of student work, which ran from August 28–September 10.
EX-CHANGE 2023 books are now available—you can request your copy through this link.
If you want to help support next year’s EX-CHANGE book and exhibition, please consider sharing or donating to the crowdfunding campaign for EX-CHANGE 2024, closing soon.
M.Arch students in the The Common Imaginaries Studio, led by Tommy CheeMou Yang (pictured far left), traveled to Thailand over the summer.
Students and faculty embark on summer travel for research, coursework and learning
With the generous funding of travel fellowships, Carnegie Mellon Architecture students and faculty traveled all over the world this summer.
Current students from both undergraduate and graduate programs investigated bamboo tectonics in Colombia; stone architecture in Ireland, Scotland and England; timber construction in Japan; cities of asylum in Germany; and social space in France, Italy and Spain—just to name a few. Additionally, professor Tommy CheeMou Yang traveled with his ASO studio to Thailand in August as part of his project Compoundologies: Urban Playbook for Radical Typo-Morphological Transformations.
Travel was made possible by a variety of Carnegie Mellon Architecture awards generously funded by alumni and friends.
It’s your turn! We are accepting applications for the 2024 Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship, open to all Carnegie Mellon Architecture alumni: $12,000 to study “the local and the particular” around the globe. Applications are due October 27—apply now!
Clockwise, from top left: Juney Lee, Vernelle A. A. Noel, Jongwan Kwon, Misri Patel and Tuliza Sindi.
New faculty join Carnegie Mellon Architecture
Carnegie Mellon Architecture is pleased to welcome several new faculty members for 2022-2023.
Tenure-Track
Juney Lee joins the school as the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Assistant Professor of Architecture. His transdisciplinary research aspirations across computational structural design, regenerative materials and sustainable construction methods, are united by an effort to accelerate the decarbonization of the building industry through advancements of emerging construction technologies that are scalable, affordable and accessible to a wide range of environmental and socioeconomic contexts.
Vernelle A. A. Noel joins the school as the Lucian and Rita Caste Assistant Professor in Architecture and Urban Design. A computational design scholar, architect, artist and Director of the Situated Computation + Design Lab, she investigates traditional and digital practices and their intersections with society. Using interdisciplinary approaches, she builds new frameworks, methodologies and tools to explore social, cultural and political aspects of computation and emerging technologies for new reconfigurations of practice, pedagogy and publics.
Ann Kalla Visiting Professors
Misri Patel and Tuliza Sindi join the school as the 2023-2025 Ann Kalla Visiting Professors.
Misri Patel is an architect and researcher from Mumbai, India. Her pedagogical interests focus on material systems, computational design, additive manufacturing and traditional-advanced fabrication methods. Her work has been published in Unfolded, Portico, ideasforward-24H, ACSA, Acadia Conference Proceedings and exhibited at the Venice Biennale, DigitalFUTURES conference and the Center for Architecture, New York.
Tuliza Sindi is an architecture educator, researcher and practitioner based between the US and South Africa. She founded the masters design-research studio Unit 19 (2020-22) at the University of Johannesburg's Graduate School of Architecture (GSA). With the cross-disciplinary architecture collective she co-founded, she speculates about liberating the ground from chronopolitical captivity through myth- and culture-making, toward deriving alternate spatial futures.
Teaching Track
Jongwan Kwon joins the school as an Assistant Teaching Professor. His research, teaching and professional practice examine the intersections of material culture and infrastructure with a focus on regional sustainability.
Adjunct Faculty
The school is pleased to welcome Mark Chambers (B.Arch ’01, Heinz ’02), Anne Chen, Tonya Markiewicz and Nazia Tarannum as adjunct faculty, bringing decades of experience, research and education to the studio.
inter•punct co-editor Khoi Do (left) and publisher Graana Khan (right) talk about the newest issue, “Reconstructions” at the Pittsburgh Art Book Fair on September 9, 2023.
Fall 2023 public programs series explores revolutions
What is architecture’s role in revolutionizing or repairing broken systems?
This academic year, we are engaging in conversations that call for both incremental and radical shifts within our discipline, profession and society with the theme of revolutions in the fall and resolutions in the spring.
The fall highlights architects who, to borrow Toni Cade Bambara’s phrase, “make the revolution irresistible”—artists and thinkers who challenge us to envision a multitude of approaches to making and being.