News

Erkki Huhtamo is an inquisitive man.

Professionally, he collects optical devices “such as magic lanterns, peep show boxes, phenakistiscopes, praxinoscopes, kinoras and other fascinating things,” he says. “I use them in my research and teaching and also to illustrate my books.”

Personally, he is absorbed by coffee. He roasts, grinds and even grows what he drinks (“something I could not even dream about doing in Finland,” the Finland native says).

A&AA Dean Christoph Lindner undertook a lecture tour in England and Ireland in January, exploring topics including urban renewal on Amsterdam’s waterfront, the “aesthetics of slowness” in global cities, New York’s High Line elevated park, and the urban politics of Brutalism.

Four Department of Product Design students recently won a competition to develop solutions for multi-use LED trail lighting for commercial use.

The two student teams — KeeAnna Turner and Andrew Zielinski, and Tin Le and Sarah Roner-Reiter — split the $5,000 award for their projects, which were developed in Assistant Professor Wonhee Arndt’s PD 410 Lighting Design course in fall 2016.

Turner and Zielinski aspired to create a light both unique in function and easy to manufacture.

A team of UO architecture scholars has won a global prize for research into how daylight affects us at work and how window blind design can provide a more comfortable, productive workplace.

UO architecture PhD student Amir Nezamdoost and research assistant Alen Mahic won the Regional Award for The Americas in the International VELUX Award for Students of Architecture competition, presented recently at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin.

Product design students at UO have developed innovations to improve the mass transit experience for people with disabilities, especially those who use walkers or wheelchairs. In Associate Professor Trygve Faste’s studio course “Design for an Aging Population” students surveyed and interviewed bus riders, held focus groups, accompanied riders on trips and rode as observers before designing their projects.

University of Oregon undergraduate student Cameron Yegge is among the Top 60 architecture students nationally, the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) announced. The new honor showcases the top 60 AIAS members and invites winners to engage with Walt Disney Imagineers from May 19 to May 21, 2017, in Orlando, Florida.

John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong-Arndt, both of whom teach in the UO Department of Product Design and operate Studio Gorm in Eugene, have received the 2017 American Design Honors. The award recognizes up-and-coming American designers who embody excellence in creative design and superior entrepreneurial ability. “I'm exceptionally proud of the work that John and Wonhee are doing, as it honors a great American art form while making it relevant in today’s design world,” said Jerry Helling, president of Bernhardt Design, which sponsors the award with WantedDesign.

This year’s University of Oregon Common Reading Program book selection Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a memoir-letter written to the author’s teenage son.

When Coates’ son learns that the murderer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin would not be penalized, Coates writes to his son, “What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”

A monumental set of ten newly restored 17^th century tapestries that once hung in the Vatican will be exhibited in two cities in 2017-18: New York and Eugene. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) will display the Barberini Life of Christ, one of the most important surviving examples of baroque tapestry, from September 23, 2017, through January 21, 2018.

Fall 2016 marked the 15th year that students in the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) have partnered with local organizations to help draft strategic plans, providing a boost for community organizations with limited financial resources.