Designing the first public performance and visual arts venue in Beaverton, a Portland suburb, was the goal of a recent collaboration between an architecture studio at the University of Oregon in Portland and Opsis Architecture.

Fourteen students took part in the class, “The Beaverton Performing ArtSpace,” taught by James Kalvelage and Joe Baldwin from Opsis. Theater designer Steven Pollock of Auerback Pollock Friedlander also worked with the students on the project, which culminated in June with a final studio review.

The May 2013 Art News gives a rave review to art instructor Jan Reaves’ recent show at the Laura Russo Gallery in Portland. “Reaves excels in balancing free, energetic gestures with harmonious compositions. In all of her work, there is a satisfying interplay between form and negative space, dynamism and serenity,” Art News reviewer Richard Speer writes.

Click the image below to read the full review.

Think Nike in Beaverton. Google in Palo Alto. Urban Outfitters in Philadelphia. Corporate campuses aren’t unique, but having one downtown is. Helping design such a campus in a dynamic city like Portland is an even rarer opportunity, but that’s precisely what a cadre of University of Oregon graduate students are doing.

Fully ten percent of participants at the 2013 Architectural Research Centers Consortium Spring Conference at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte were A&AA faculty members, current students, or alumni. Given that the theme of the conference was visibility, the UO certainly took the concept to heart. 

Oregon BEST has awarded a commercialization grant to a team of industry-university researchers co-developing a window coating that could cut infrared light and heat transfer through window glass while allowing more visible light to enter—saving millions of dollars in lighting costs. The coating will be tested at the UO’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory, a signature research facility of Oregon BEST headed by UO professor G.Z. “Charlie” Brown.

“Speaking Between,” an exhibition featuring work by thirteen University of Oregon Department of Art master of fine arts students, will be on view May 4-26 at Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center, 8371 N. Interstate Avenue in Portland. The exhibition opens with a free public reception Friday, May 3 from 7-9 p.m.

Community and Regional Planning master's student and LiveMove President Joe McAndrew is among just 20 graduate students nationwide selected as Eno Fellows for the 21st annual Eno Leadership Development Conference June 2-6 in Washington, D.C. The goal is to cultivate the next generation of leaders in all modes of transportation.

“Landscape Thinking,” a special symposium honoring University of Oregon landscape architecture Professor Emeritus Kenneth Helphand on his retirement from forty years of teaching, will be held Saturday, May 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the UO Ford Alumni Center, 1720 E. 13th Avenue, Eugene. The event will help fund an endowment for a lecture series named in honor of Helphand. The deadline to reserve tickets is May 15.

The University of Oregon Arts and Administration Program (AAD) is helping provide organizational leadership and staffing at the 2013 Cinema Pacific Film Festival, a week of films, exhibitions, receptions, and performances April 17-21 at venues in Eugene and Portland.