The Architecture faculty at California College of the Arts has more than its share of industry-renowned awards, but what’s a couple more to further illustrate why this program is among the best?

Architecture faculty members E.B. Min and Neal Schwartz each were honored in the 2009–10 ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) Awards competition. The awards are issued to architects for their advancement in the quality of architectural education. More than 5,000 architecture faculty are represented by the nonprofit, membership-based association.

ACSA, founded in 1912 has grown from 10 charter members to more than 250 schools comprising several member categories. Members have a unique opportunity to join a national forum of future-thinking architects who are examining trends, policy development, and architectural research

ACSA Faculty Design Award

Min’s West Lake Okoboji, Iowa (2008), a MIN | DAY project with partner Jeffrey L. Day, won an ACSA Faculty Design Award. According to the architects’ website: “We explore opportunities for innovation in program, materials, and fabrication, as well as in methods of practice, through a diverse set of project types and scales of intervention, coaxing nuance and specificity from the unique opportunities of the site and project at hand.”

ACSA Faculty Design Honorable Mention/Presenter Award

Crook | Cup | Bow | Twist (2009), a Schwartz and Architecture design, was honored in the Faculty Design Honorable Mentions/Presenters category. According to Schwartz: “The project’s intent is to harness both the physical and ephemeral sense of this gestural movement in the site, as a way to promote the exploratory qualities the owners find so compelling about the surrounding landscape.

“Beyond important measures of sustainability, the design elucidates a set of important and complex relationships between the landscape, the ecosystems, the construction techniques, and ultimately, the human occupation. The architecture embeds itself in the site not to camouflage itself or simply wear the mantle of ‘green,’ but to proactively construct a series of spatial thresholds that propel both physical and psychological exploration of the site.”

The project also received the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) Award for unbuilt architecture, one of only10 projects honored with this national award.

About ACSA
The association maintains a variety of activities that influence, communicate, and record important issues. Such endeavors include scholarly meetings, workshops, publications, awards and competition programs, support for architectural research, policy development, and liaison with allied organizations.

Its mission is to advance architectural education through support of member schools, their faculty, and students. This support involves:

• Serving by encouraging dialogue among the diverse areas of discipline
• Facilitating teaching, research, scholarly and creative works, through intra/interdisciplinary activity
• Articulating the critical issues forming the context of architectural education
• Fostering public awareness of architectural education and issues of importance

This advancement shall be implemented through five primary means: advocacy, annual program activities, liaison with collateral organizations, dissemination of information and response to the needs of member schools in order to enhance the quality of life in a global society.

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