Background Image Alternative Text: Group of Architecture students gathered in front of building during a field trip
Background Image Alternative Text: Group of Architecture students gathered in front of building during a field trip
S|ARC, December 2022
Greetings from the School of Architecture! From field trips and lectures to conferences and studio work, the semester has been bursting with activities. Enrollment in the program is up, we are reviewing the introduction of graduate degrees, and are transitioning our undergraduate historic preservation certificate into a minor. Most notably, we are excited to begin celebrations of our 50th year in 2023.
A portion of the fall Advisory Board meeting was dedicated to discussing portfolios with students. A few Advisory Board members and three Mississippi AIA Emerging Professionals (Kelli Bosarge, Ashley Casteel, and Daniel Barker) facilitated the conversation.
Our current focus is on developing clear pathways to the profession for our students. On January 26, 2023, we will host an Architecture and Interior Design Career Fair in Giles Hall. (Click here to register your firm for the Career Fair.)
Preceding the fair, we will be hosting the Design Leadership Foundation for a career workshop on resumes, portfolios, and interviews. In October, Advisory Board members and AIA MS Emerging Professionals Kelli Bosarge, Ashley Casteel, and Daniel Barker talked to students about creating and organizing portfolios. Helping our students move into a design career is a priority.
Our students have bright futures, and our program shares this same potential. A large part of this is because of the amazing support of our alumni. From programs such as the Line Scale Form Awards to the Burris Wagnon funding of an exploratory studio, and from field trip support awards to named courses, we are making a strong school even stronger.
Thank you.
Karen Cordes Spence, Ph.D., AIA, LEED AP
Director and F.L. Crane Professor
Hispanic Heritage Month
Pictured, left to right: Assistant Professor Silvina Lopez Barrera, Jamie Ferreras, Jacqueline Enriquez, Evelyn Ramirez, Arturo Hernandez, Elisa Castaneda.
For the third consecutive year, the School of Architecture celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month. This year’s exhibition, titled “Latin American and Latinx Architecture,” was on display in the Charlotte and Richard McNeel Gallery in Giles Hall from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, showcasing architecture and cities in Latin America and the work of Latinx architects in the U.S. and around the world. On view were images of Latin American cities and modern architecture from the twentieth and twenty-first century including a broad range of public buildings, social housing projects, and private residences. The exhibition provided an insight on the production of urban and architectural form, considering a variety of architectural language and modern styles. Exhibit organizers hope the work contributes to conversations about transnational linkages in the Americas.
Architecture student researchers included: Elisa Castaneda, Jacqueline Enriquez, Jamie Ferreras, Arturo Hernandez, Evelyn Ramirez. Assistant Professor Silvina Lopez Barrera was the faculty advisor.
Background Image Alternative Text: Grace Owens, left, Jarred Woullard pose during black tie event in Rome in ornate building
Student Hightlights
Alysia Williams presented a paper titled “The Preservation of Black Space: Exploring Historically Black Founded Townships in the American South” at the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians conference in Memphis in early November.
An interdisciplinary team of students from Mississippi State University recently competed in the Associated Schools of Construction Region 2 Fall 2022 Student Competition held in Atlanta, Georgia. The team – coached by Assistant Professor Afshin Hatami and Visiting Assistant Professor Hamed Rafsanjani, both from the Department of Building Construction Science – earned third place in the Bid Simulation division, which was hosted by Brasfield & Gorrie. Representing Mississippi State were building construction science majors Eric Cothern, William “Cameron” Crace, Maurin Dooley, Jackson Drescher, Nolan Grady, and architecture major Kasey Losik.
Grace Owens and Jarred Woullard (pictured, right) spoke in Rome to the Design Leadership Foundation, sharing their experiences with the DLF’s work with MSU to help establish a stronger pathway to the profession for students of all backgrounds.
Assistant Professors Silvina Lopez Barrera and Kate Malaia, in collaboration with community members and local and state organizations in Starkville, Columbus, and Jackson, are directing a project on housing insecurity. The project – which received a $10,000 grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities – documents oral histories and lived spaces of individuals and communities that have experienced or are experiencing housing insecurity and evictions in Mississippi, as well as those who are working to address these challenges. The initial stage of this project took the form of a class taught by the two professors at Mississippi State. Oral histories and architectural documentation were collected and produced by architecture students including Camille Bohannon, Olivia Cabassa, Elisa Castaneda, Reagan Douglass, Lucas Elder, Jamie Ferreras, Caeli Finch, Rebecca Garret, Michael Herndon, Jenny Hutton, JD Jaggers, Jessica Kiger, Sam Marcus, Edson Martinez, Sarah Mixon, Caroline Prather, Alysia Williams, Savannah Wilson and Matt Wong.
The Housing Insecurity exhibition opened Nov.1, 2022 at the Johnson Hall Art Gallery at Jackson State University and will run through Jan. 31, 2023.
Dr. Malaia's first book, Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room: Domestic Architecture before and after 1991, is now available for pre-order online.
The Coastal Resiliency Studio, Design 4A, mid-term presentations took place in Gulfport with local professionals from EGH Architects (David Hardy), Unabridged Architecture (John Anderson), and Tall Architecture (Madison and Mark Talley).
Professors Hans Herrmann and David Perkes are leading a fourth-year studio on the “Blue Economy,” which investigates a combination of tourism, marine industries, the environment, and resiliency in association with landscape studios. This fall, the studios have visited the coast to study as well as present conceptual ideas for addressing these issues. This work is supported by a grant from NASEM’s Gulf Coast Program to develop an interdisciplinary design studio. While the funding was provided for this year, the promise of the work has already led to an extension of the grant for next year. This spring, all fourth-year studios will select and develop projects associated with the work accomplished this semester.
Professor Hans Herrmann recently spent time in Chicago at the AISC Headquarters where he serves on the Partners in Education Board. The board works to provide free educational content to universities, colleges, and professionals nationwide while also facilitating awards programs and funded research.
Herrmann also serves as the ACSA liaison to the NCARB Committee on Education, which met this fall to discuss paths to certification and other key issues in Denver, Colorado.
On November 4, Herrmann concluded the fourth exhibition of his UnBuilt Crosby Arboretum research. The exhibition (photo above) and lectures were part of his winning application to be awarded the 2022 James Madison University, School of Art, Design, & Art History, D. Liskey Wampler Distinguished Professorship.
Background Image Alternative Text: Irene Dumas Tyson poses for photo wearing black shirt
Alumni Spotlight
School of Architecture alumna and Advisory Board member Irene Dumas Tyson was recently recognized by the South Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association (SCAPA) as the 2022 Distinguished Planner of the Year. The award was bestowed at their annual conference in Hilton Head in November.
This award recognizes a planning professional who has demonstrated outstanding contributions to the planning field in South Carolina and exhibits qualities that have led to successful accomplishment of planning goals, programs, or projects.
Tyson is a certified planner with 28 years of experience, and she serves as the Director of Planning at BOUDREAUX.
The studio, titled Transposing Marginalized Craft Traditions and Advanced Fabrication, began with a rigorous study of crafts traditions and sought to “transpose” the tools, techniques, and ideas contained therein with contemporary Fabrication methods. Topics of study ranged from Japanese Joinery and Computer Numerically-Controlled (CNC) Milling, to Cross-Stitch and Discrete Element Design, to Trinidadian Wire Bending and High Performance Surfaces / 3d Printing. Students then conducted a series of “experiments,” which resulted in “prototypes” deploying the knowledge gained to create informed and novel architectural design methods from this body of knowledge.
In October, the students took part in a Workshop conducted by McLemore as part of this year’s Conference for the Association for Computer-Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA). During this time, they revisited the “First Principles” they found to understand how to describe them as an “algorithmic” design process.
They applied this process in the design of a new center for the continuation of these dying or marginalized crafts traditions. The site was immediately to the north of the MET Museum in New York, and the students were able to make a site visit on during their fall field trip to New York City. Their final outcome was a unique and individualized understanding of how to approach the Design Process systematically and creatively through the design of this Center.
Alumna Belinda Stewart is a longtime supporter of the school and member of our Advisory Board. Stewart recently renewed and increased her level of support to the school as well as the Fred Carl Jr. Small Town Center.
