Recent NCARB Awards
In 2002, the National Council
of Architectural Registration Boards announced a new competition
entitled “Creative Engagement of the Profession by Education
in the Academy” to stimulate partnering between professional
offices and schools of architecture. In the first competition,
Professor John Weigand, director of our Interior Design major,
submitted an entry that described his internet studio and
was one of six prize winners with a $7500 cash award. (See
below for description.)
In 2005, Professor Craig Hinrichs submitted an entry for
our ten years of sustained work in the Alumni Traveling Studio
and also earned a place among the six winners. We are the
only school of architecture to have won this award twice in
the three years of the existence of the competition. (See
below for description.)
NCARB Award 2002: Internet Studio
The internet studio was supported
by a $100,000 grant from the Ohio Board of Regents’
Technology Initiatives Fund. The grant was co-authored by
John Weigand and alumnus David Matthews (M. Arch. ’91)
who teaches interior design at Ohio University. The funding
paid for high-end computer equipment to placed in an interior
design studio at both Miami and OU so that students could
work together in teams. Additionally, computer equipment was
placed at BHDP Architecture in Cincinnati and at Eva Maddox
and Associates in Chicago so that students could work directly
with professionals in these offices.
Students did research for real projects being executed by
these firms and then did those same projects as their principal
studio work for the semester. In exchange for their research,
students got real-time critiques in class. They could also
upload their work onto web sites and get chat-room style commentary
at night and on weekends.
NCARB Award 2005: Alumni Traveling
Studio
The Alumni Traveling Studio
was initiated with the help of Dean Pamela Fox and had the
original intention of putting students directly in touch with
professional offices as a way of helping them understand practice
better as well as getting a better appreciation of the accomplishments
of department alumni. Studios have been conducted with several
architectural practices in Boston, Newport RI, Los Angeles,
Washington, D.C., and New York. Students travel to the locations
of the firms and the alumni who are principals or partners
in the firms come back to Miami for charettes, mid-term reviews,
and final juries.
In the NYC studio that was set up in the fall of 2003, alumni
Doug McKean (BED ’77), partner at Beyer Blinder Belle,
and his classmate Tom Dunlap (BED ’77), VP at Vornado
Realty Trust, gave a new twist to the studio project by asking
the students not only to design a mixed-use complex on a site
at Columbus Circle but to execute a business pro forma to
demonstrate that investment in their project would be profitable
for the developer. This experience was reinforced by the participation
of other alumni who came to the department to help instruct
students in the issues of development and business as they
relate to architectural design and practice.
A similar format was used for the Traveling Studio that went
to Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2004. Guided by alumnus
Bill Quinby (BED 79), Senior Managing Director at Julien J.
Studley, Inc., the studio analyzed three sites in the District
as potential locations for new faculty housing for George
Washington University.
Alumnus and Current
Graduate Student Receive Honorable Mention in International
Design Competition
Alumnus Manole Voroneanu (M. Arch
’03), currently serving as visiting faculty, and graduate
student Dan Bolohan (M. Arch. ’05), were one of thirteen
entries to receive places or mentions in ARQUITECTUM's International
Architecture Competition NAZCA 2005. Their design for an observatory
and hotel at the site of the geoglyphs at Nazca, Peru, an
important site of Inca civilization. The project was conceived
as a giant periscope which would permit viewing of the geoglyphs
from ground level through mirrors or from an observatory at
the top of the leaning structure. For additional information,
visit the web site arquitectum.com/nazca.php
where the winning projects are displayed.
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