CCA News

Architecture Program Receives NCARB and AIA SF Awards

Posted on Monday, April 24, 2006, by Brenda Tucker

The CCA Architecture Program has received a prestigious National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) prize for its studio curriculum in comprehensive building design. Individual faculty members were honored for their work at the recent design awards sponsored by the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

NCARB Prize Goes to Studio Curriculum

The Architecture Program received a 2006 NCARB Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy. The $7,500 award recognizes the program's curriculum in comprehensive building design, which brings upper-level students together with outstanding practitioners to pursue design research. The curriculum was initiated by the former chair of the Architecture Program, Rodolphe el-Khoury, and is currently overseen by Associate Professor Neal Schwartz, the program's Coordinator of Advanced Studies.

In this innovative curriculum, CCA faculty members and practitioners from sponsoring firms coteach a studio in which students rethink an actual project from each firm, conducting detailed studies, visiting job sites, and providing their own design solutions.

CCA's prize-winning entry presented work from two studios: Skin Studio, taught by Kate Simonen with Christopher Haas (Herzog and de Meuron), Brett Terpeluk (Renzo Piano Workshop), and Tim Christ (Morphosis); and Assembling Architecture, taught by Jeff Logan (CCA and Anshen + Allen) with David P. Ogorzalek (Anshen + Allen), Peter Alspach (Ove Arup), and Maurya McClintock (Ove Arup).

Architecture students whose work was included in the prize entry were Michelle Liu and Renata Abma (Skin Studio) and Ariel Abalos, Andrea Faucett, Jessica Kmetovic, Mariah Nielson, Monique Valley, and Fernando Zamora (Assembling Architecture). Graphic design for the Assembling Architecture studio publication was done by Sputnik CCA/Yaeger Moravia Rosenberg. A Skin Studio publication is forthcoming.

As part of the curriculum, each sponsoring firm supports production of a publication arising from the studio work. The publications, known as the Architecture Studio Series, are designed by the college's Sputnik graphic design team. Each publication presents outstanding student projects, as well as essays by faculty and practitioners using the studio work as a springboard for discussion. For sponsoring firms, the publication series is a tangible marker of their commitment to educating the design professionals of the future. In CCA's award citation, the NCARB jury stated, "Strengths of the program are the dialogue with the firms and the publications that can share the experiences with a broader community and through time."

For more information about the prize, see the NCARB website.

Faculty Honored at AIA SF Design Awards

Architecture faculty members received numerous awards at this year's AIA SF Design Awards. The AIA presents honor, merit, and citation awards in several categories, intended to celebrate the best of Bay Area architecture, recognize achievement in a broad range of architectural work, and inform the public of the breadth and value of architectural practice.

This year's CCA honorees are the following:

• Peter Anderson (Anderson Anderson Architecture), Honor in Excellence in Architecture for the Chameleon House, Merit in Unbuilt Design for the Arboretum of the Cascades, and Citation in Unbuilt Design for Organic Urban Living Field
• Douglas Burnham (Envelope A + D), Merit in Unbuilt Design for "and/or work/housing"
• Trustee Byron Kuth and Liz Ranieri (Kuth/Ranieri), Honor in Excellence in Architecture for the LEF Foundation Artists' Retreat, Merit in Excellence in Architecture for the I_S Cottage, and Merit in Excellence in Interior Architecture for the Wurster Residence Renovation
• Neal Schwartz (Schwartz and Architecture), Merit Award for Excellence in Interior Architecture for the RayKo Photo Center

The San Francisco–based organization swissnex received a Special Achievement Award for cross-disciplinary work, including the Inventioneering Architecture exhibition and lecture series presented on the CCA San Francisco campus in fall 2005.

For more information about the awards, see the AIA San Francisco website.