News

A University of Oregon landscape architecture student team defeated professional competitors to take first prize in a global innovation challenge to improve the food system, winning $10,000 and advancement to a prototype round. The team now will be provided business incubation support and an opportunity to win $100,000 and move their design to production.

The UO team’s design, which would help farmers retain nutrients in soil while decreasing fertilizer use, was based in part on the earthworm’s digestive system and would improve soil health over time.

A book featuring images and the stories of seventy Oregon artists and their studio spaces is now available for purchase at Portland's Monograph Bookwerks and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

More than 110 modern and contemporary Japanese prints will be on display as part of the exhibit "Expanding Frontiers: The Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection of Postwar Japanese Prints," on view beginning Oct. 3 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The exhibit, co-curated by Maude I. Kerns Assistant Professor of Japanese Art Akiko Walley, includes a wide variety of printmaking techniques that range from aquatint and etching to silkscreen and woodblock printing.

Images both whimsical and provocative— a flower with a lightning-bolt stem, a kitty sporting an eye patch, a baby floating in a beaker, a rhinoceros curling its lip like a pirate growling “Aargh!”—inhabit an outer wall of Miller Paint in Southeast Portland thanks to Michael Salter, director of the UO Digital Arts Program.

The 2015-16 academic year introduces new faculty members to several A&AA departments and programs. The professors new to the school bring a wide spectrum of expertise and creativity in architecture, the history of art and architecture, arts and administration, and product design. They come to UO from schools including Istanbul Technical University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Denver, Stanford University, and the University of Minnesota.

Architecture

A new report on the condition and needs of Oregon’s historic theaters reveals them as potentially significant economic engines as well as cultural touchstones in communities small and large. But they’re challenged by deferred maintenance and other financial and organizational needs, for which the report provides specific recommendations.

Employing a unique engineered wood product only recently produced by Oregon mills, a UO student team has won an Honorable Mention in a competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects Northwest and Pacific Region.

The students in Professors Judith Sheine and Mark Donofrio’s spring studio designed a parking structure using Oregon’s newest structural wood product—cross-laminated timber, or CLT—an exceptional accomplishment in architectural education and design practice.

The UO’s research lab on sustainable high performance buildings and healthy indoor environments welcomes a new director this month to lead the Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratories (ESBL) in Eugene and Portland. Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, PhD, joins the award-winning lab after serving eleven years at the University of Idaho in a similar post. Van Den Wymelenberg was the founding director the UI Integrated Design Lab in Boise, Idaho. He takes over ESBL leadership from Philip H.

What do Hasbro toys, Scandinavian Airlines service trays, John Deere lawn mowers, virtual reality headsets, Eli Lilly medical devices, and MGM Las Vegas water features all have in common?  

Above: Assistant Professor Trygve Faste

Trygve Faste worked on their design.

Wonhee Jeong Arndt and John Arndt, professors in the A&AA Product Design Program, are top winners in two prestigious international design competitions for a flat-pack desk system they developed as project team members in Studio Gorm.