College of Design

Two UO alumni now at SERA Architects are playing pivotal roles in a design master plan for Argyle Winery in Dundee, Oregon, converting the winery’s historic barrel room and cellars into a new wine hospitality center and tasting room. Walker Templeton (BS ’02, MArch ’05) serves as lead project designer on the project while Krystan Menne (MArch ‘11, graduate certificate in ecological design ’11) is documenting the project and working on technical details of the site design.

The recent session of the Oregon Legislature was a victory for the University of Oregon, but the School of Architecture and Allied Arts building project will have to wait. “It was an ambitious goal for the school,” said Brook Muller, Interim Dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, “and the UO had a number of important requests for capital improvement on the table.”

Graduate students in the UO Community Planning Workshop, a program of the Community Service Center, have produced a 14-minute video about the preservation challenges faced by many of Oregon’s 120 historic theaters.

The magazine 1859 features the University of Oregon’s SCYP program in the magazine’s July|August 2015 issue. Writer Felisa Rogers explains how SCYP got its start and notes its many successes in its six-year tenure. “What sets SCYP apart is the scope and cohesiveness of the project,” she writes in the six-page feature story. SCYP—which partners UO students with an Oregon municipality needing assistance reaching sustainability project goals—not only helps both cities and students move projects forward, but it also has boosted city employees’ enthusiasm for their jobs, Rogers notes.

It was a dream come true for 14 students and a landscape architecture instructor when the UO Campus Operations staff asked them to design and build a garden this spring. 

Arica Duhrkoop-Galas, instructor for the Department of Landscape Architecture Plants course, was delighted when “campus operations approached our class to design a garden for the central courtyard of Lawrence Hall,” she said. “It was an amazing opportunity.”

Professor Mark Gillem, FAIA, is among 14 University of Oregon faculty members chosen as recipients of the 2015-16 Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards. The awards honor tenured UO faculty at the forefront of research and discovery who have demonstrated academic excellence and world-class teaching.

A&AA is saying farewell this month to Frances Bronet who served as Dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts from 2005 until August 2014 when she was appointed Acting Senior Vice President and Provost at the UO. 

Liz Zarro, a 2015 Product Design Program BFA graduate, wants to develop "products that are more than just products" and use design to improve people's lives. She designed an exoskeletal back support, called Origin, for Portland's wheelchair basketball team. The product reduces athletes' dependence on their hands for core stability and body repositioning. For her honors thesis project, Zarro designed a biomimetric shelving unit that she has titled Pinicola Shelves.

Jack Ryan, associate professor in the UO Department of Art and founding director of the CoreSTUDIO program, has been named a 2015 Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts. The prestigious award, presented by The Ford Family Foundation, recognized five Oregon visual artists this year for demonstrated excellence of their work and potential for significant advancement in their practices of art. 

A&AA is wrapping up its 100th anniversary this month after a full year of events, exhibitions, and celebrations. The school is now embarking on a capital campaign to imagine the future of art and design education and facilities for the next 100 years. In envisioning the school’s future, the A&AA Building Project Work Group in January issued a request for proposals (RFP) from student teams for a competition to design a transformative learning environment for A&AA. In May, the finalists were announced.