PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group has generously established an Innovation Fund to support the pedagogical mission of Carnegie Mellon Architecture. The Fund contributes to a Patron level sponsorship of the UDream Program and funds the Faculty Grants Program supporting faculty research and teaching innovations.
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Carnegie Mellon Architecture is currently accepting applications for the next round of funding for the PJ Dick Innovation Fund: Faculty Grants Program. Applications are due on Monday, November 25, 2024, at 11:59pm ET.
Mission
The PJ Dick Innovation Fund is a meaningful investment in Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s strategic goals, which are outlined in Pedagogies 2020. The Fund provides the School with financial support to innovate our research, teaching and DEI efforts, and address our three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The Fund accelerates priorities to support research expansion, UDream and other social equity initiatives, and strengthen our investments in pedagogical improvements at the School.
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.
UDream Patron Sponsor
For four years, beginning in 2023, PJ Dick will be a Patron sponsor of the UDream Program, contributing to UDream’s long-term success.
Funding: $10,000 per year
Faculty Grants Program
The PJ Dick Innovation Fund supports the pedagogical mission of Carnegie Mellon Architecture through the Faculty Grants Program. The program supports faculty research and teaching innovations. The call for applications is announced in the fall of each year for four years, beginning in 2023.
Project Grants
The PJ Dick Project Grants Program supports projects that address the School’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. It supports the diverse work of Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s faculty in creative practice, professional practice, artistic practice, funded research, participatory design, design build, curation, scholarship, critical and digital humanities, and more.
Funds may be used as seed funding to start a project with the aim of getting external support, and for continued work on a project that may not have the option for sponsored research. Previous PJ Dick Innovation Fund recipients are permitted to apply for continued funding for prior projects or support for new projects.
Example uses for funds include:
- Pre-project planning: feasibility studies, background research, teaming, grant writing
- Project execution: supplies, equipment, research assistants, travel
- Post-project dissemination: publications, exhibitions, media production
- Collaborative events and publications: symposia, conferences, workshops, pamphlets, anthologies, curatorial projects, group exhibitions, collective installations
Funding: $80,000 per year
Learn more about the PJ Dick Project Grants Program
Teaching Grants
The PJ Dick Teaching Grants Program recognizes that the future of architecture and its related industries starts with the education of the profession’s next generation of practitioners through innovative pedagogies. Teaching grants support changes to existing courses and the development of new courses that focus on the School’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence.
Previous PJ Dick Innovation Fund recipients are permitted to apply for continued funding for prior courses or support for new courses.
Example uses for funds include:
- Developing new courses
- Implementing significant changes to existing courses
- Piloting new initiatives including materials, equipment, external expertise and more
Funding: $20,000 per year
Grant Recipients
Year One Grant Recipients
Throughout 2024, faculty recipients of the first round of funding have been hard at work on 10 research projects and six experimental courses.
Join us to celebrate the first round of projects in January 2025. More details coming soon.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Farm to Prototype
This proposal seeks support for the construction and testing of a series of full-scale hempcrete architectural assemblies.
This proposal seeks support for the construction and testing of a series of full-scale hempcrete architectural assemblies.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Village in the City, City in the Village
In collaboration with Chiang Mai University, the proposal expands a relationship between designers, students and local villagers to focus on the current urbanization of a municipality of agricultural villages in San Pu Loei.
In collaboration with Chiang Mai University, the proposal expands a relationship between designers, students and local villagers to focus on the current urbanization of a municipality of agricultural villages in San Pu Loei.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Contestations of Modernity
This proposal is for a book that offers readings in Design Ethics on questions of broad contemporary import: that of participatory publics in an era of neoliberal development and hardline politics, of design and its spatial agency, of the legacies and futures of modernism in the global south, and of the care and repair of buildings and cities in an age of climate crises.
This proposal is for a book that offers readings in Design Ethics on questions of broad contemporary import: that of participatory publics in an era of neoliberal development and hardline politics, of design and its spatial agency, of the legacies and futures of modernism in the global south, and of the care and repair of buildings and cities in an age of climate crises.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Craft Practices and Computation in Three Cultures
This project is an ethnographic study, computational investigation and design exploration of craft practices in three different locations: willow, wire and textile weaving in Pittsburgh; the Gullah tradition of sweetgrass basket weaving in South Carolina; and joinery, umbrella-making and weaving in Thailand.
This project is an ethnographic study, computational investigation and design exploration of craft practices in three different locations: willow, wire and textile weaving in Pittsburgh; the Gullah tradition of sweetgrass basket weaving in South Carolina; and joinery, umbrella-making and weaving in Thailand.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Leveraging AI for Equitable Lighting
This project aims to address these disparities by developing a user-centric smart lighting system that collaborates with the architectural façade to enhance mood and perception while ensuring equitable access to quality lighting in everyday spaces.
This project aims to address these disparities by developing a user-centric smart lighting system that collaborates with the architectural façade to enhance mood and perception while ensuring equitable access to quality lighting in everyday spaces.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Greenhouse Design-Build Project
This year-long studio project utilizes bamboo that has been repurposed from the previous NOMAS Spring Carnival Pavilion installed on campus. The project aims to set a cogent case of low-carbon practices through a full-scale intervention in the neighborhood, thereby supporting an underserved community.
This year-long studio project utilizes bamboo that has been repurposed from the previous NOMAS Spring Carnival Pavilion installed on campus. The project aims to set a cogent case of low-carbon practices through a full-scale intervention in the neighborhood, thereby supporting an underserved community.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Sharing the Entangled Stories of the Anthropocene
This project emerges from the teaching and research work of the project lead over the last two years. This application is for the dissemination/sharing of stories globally as a storybook of methodologies, and locally as a series of stories shared as an exhibit.
This project emerges from the teaching and research work of the project lead over the last two years. This application is for the dissemination/sharing of stories globally as a storybook of methodologies, and locally as a series of stories shared as an exhibit.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Sustainable Design for Uncertain Futures Book and Website
The aim of this book and website is to provide academics and practitioners with strategies that can be used in combination throughout the building project lifecycle to help designers align their work with the appropriate forces of change.
The aim of this book and website is to provide academics and practitioners with strategies that can be used in combination throughout the building project lifecycle to help designers align their work with the appropriate forces of change.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: (de)Mass(ing) Timber
We see this proposal as a seed grant to identify three pathways of tectonic/geometric strategies that can be further elaborated at full scale with future funding and industry partnerships. Emerging technologies, such as AI-driven generative design and optimization, AR enhanced construction, and other computational processes will be essential to developing the work.
We see this proposal as a seed grant to identify three pathways of tectonic/geometric strategies that can be further elaborated at full scale with future funding and industry partnerships. Emerging technologies, such as AI-driven generative design and optimization, AR enhanced construction, and other computational processes will be essential to developing the work.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Regenerative Structures Laboratory
This proposal seeks to establish the “Regenerative Structures Laboratory” at Carnegie Mellon Architecture.
This proposal seeks to establish the “Regenerative Structures Laboratory” at Carnegie Mellon Architecture.
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: Urbanism and Social Production of Space
Jongwan Kwon, Assistant Teaching Professor
Jongwan Kwon, Assistant Teaching Professor
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: Image Deep: /Contested Matter
Dana Cupkova, Associate Professor
Dana Cupkova, Associate Professor
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: The Pittsburgh Sequence
Francesca Torello, Special Faculty
Francesca Torello, Special Faculty
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: Mixed Use in Pittsburgh's “Climate Haven”
Jared Abraham, Associate Studio Professor
Jared Abraham, Associate Studio Professor
PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: Unreasonable Architecture
Tuliza Sindi, Ann Kalla Visiting Professor in Architecture
Tuliza Sindi, Ann Kalla Visiting Professor in Architecture
