University of Oregon product design undergraduate student Derek Sackmann is one of just three national award winners in a design competition to develop a lifting device made from zinc, winning $2,000 for himself and $1,000 for the Product Design Program at the UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

The 2014-5 Interzinc Design Challenge attracted entries from schools across the United States and Canada. The annual competition, which requires zinc for the main component, challenged students this year to develop a lifting device designed to be produced in die-cast zinc.

A shoe designed by Product Design Program student Stefan Cristobal will be produced for shoe brand Android Homme in 2015 after Cristobal won the 2014 Pensole World Sneaker Championship.

The first student-built house in the OregonBILDS (Building Integrated Livable Designs Sustainably) project is on the Home Builder’s Association of Lane County’s 2014 Tour of Homes through July 27. The house was featured in a Register-Guard story about the tour and is open weeknights from 6-9 p.m. and weekends from noon to 6 p.m.

Kathrin “Kat” Walsch is the new Senior Director of Development for the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Walsch, who has been with UO since 2008, “has a strong appreciation of both the School and University’s approach to development work,” said A&AA Dean Frances Bronet.

Associate Professor Carla Bengtson has accepted a three-year term as head of the Department of Art effective July 16, Dean Frances Bronet announced Monday, June 16. 

Bengtson has served as director of graduate studies for the department since 2012 and is also an associate member of the Environmental Studies Program at UO. She has taught at all levels of painting, drawing, and special topics courses for the Department of Art, and has co-taught courses focusing on interdisciplinary approaches to environmental art, literature, and philosophy.

Assistant Professor Tannaz Farsi of the UO Department of Art is among three visual artists named 2014 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts by The Ford Family Foundation. The annual award recognizes Oregon visual artists for the demonstrated excellence of their work and potential for significant advancement in their practices of art. Each will receive a $25,000 unrestricted award.

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.

Product Design Program Assistant Professor Wonhee Jeong Arndt has been named one of the Top 10 “Women in Industrial Design” by the Women in Design section of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). A selection of her work will be shown in a juried exhibition on Saturday, June 14, during San Francisco Design Week, June 13-20.

A team of UO landscape architects has won second place in an international competition to raise awareness of the true flood risk to people living in landscapes where the vulnerability may not be obvious.

Professor Kenneth Helphand, Associate Professor Liska Chan, and graduate students Shannon Arms, Emilie Froh, Carol Stafford, and Pieter Van Remoortere won second place in The “Watermarks” competition for their entry, “PDX Marks.”

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.