Architecture

Associate Professor Mark L. Gillem, PhD, FAIA, AICP, recently received a national-level design award for the Installation Development Plan at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida from the American Planning Association's Federal Planning Division. Through his firm, The Urban Collaborative, he helped the installation and the prime contractor (Atkins) prepare a plan that accommodates growth while leveraging principles of sustainable urbanism to preserve sensitive habitats and landscapes.

UO architecture graduate student Grace Aaraj was the People’s Choice winner in the Three Minute Thesis State Championships in May, where doctoral and master’s students were challenged to present their thesis topic in three minutes using one slide. A native of Lebanon, Aaraj is attending the UO on a Fulbright scholarship after graduating with a BArch from the Institut des Beaux Arts II, Beirut.

Three UO architecture undergraduates won four team awards in the Royal Society of Arts U.S. awards in April, with one of the three also winning a three-month summer internship with a noted global architecture firm.

Carolyn Lieberman, Samuel Ridge, and Cody Tucker took home the RSA Leadership Award for Architecture, the Agnes Bourne Cash Award for interiors, and the Techmer PM Award for Sustainable Design. Each award comes with a $1,000 cash prize.

Two Eugene-area television stations broadcast stories recently about the first house built by UO and LCC students in an unusual partnership with two Lane County agencies. The students, in an architecture studio called OregonBILDS, are wrapping up construction on the three-bedroom, two-bath home that will be sold to a local family.

Daniel Toole will be paid $4,000 to backpack through Finland, Sweden, and Norway this summer. Baha Sadreddin’s travels through Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark this summer will also be covered by a $4,000 check. When they finish their independent three-week trips, they’ll each travel—expenses paid—to New York or San Francisco, where salaried, eight-week fellowships await them (plus a housing subsidy) at a firm specializing in planning, architecture, and landscape architecture.

Associate Professor Nico Larco has coauthored Site Design for Multifamily Housing: Creating Livable, Connected Neighborhoods, published in April by Island Press.

Aimed at architects, planners, and developers, the book provides design and code guidance for walkability and connectivity in multifamily site design. Larco’s coauthors are UO graduates Kristin Kelsey, ‘MArch ’12, MIArch, ‘12, and Amanda Stocker West, MPA ‘09.

When Jason Stenson drove up to a barn in Damascus, Oregon, four years ago, he knew what he hoped to find inside, but he never imagined it would become known as The Pickle Box.

When she was younger, Madeline Gorman admits, she had an unusual predilection for certain public buildings.

“This is weird, but when I was little, something about airports, doctor offices, and grocery stores was comforting to me, and I think if they are well designed, they can really make these dreadful tasks more enjoyable,” said Gorman, a fourth-year interior architecture student.

Transforming a 100-year-old museum with 21st-century technology. Designing a hospital people actually want to visit. Creating space for scientists to discover the next breakthrough. Building projects in eighteen states from one Los Angeles office. These are just a few of the accomplishments that led CO Architects to be named California Architecture Firm of the Year.