Academics

Interdisciplinary Design Institute

News

Design students interpret campus-community connections

Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011

SPOKANE, Wash. - WSU Spokane design students are "taking back the street” and chalking up concepts of sidewalk connections between the Riverpoint Campus and surrounding community for the Interdisciplinary Design Institute’s annual Fall Design Charrette Aug. 24-26.
 
The 48-hour intensive competition unites graduate and undergraduate students in architecture and interior design into teams across disciplines. Each team will take its connection ideas and form a creative expression of public art on the sidewalk in chalk, three dimensional sculptures or other forms of creative expression.

The concepts will be on display for public vote noon-2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26, on the sidewalk on the north side of Spokane Falls Boulevard near the Phase I Classroom Building.
 
In preparation for the charrette, students read "Second Generation Traffic Calming" by David Engwicht. Some of their other activities will include a Spokane public art exploration and presentations by Karen Mobley from the Spokane Public Art Commission and Heleen Dewey, Kitty Klitzke and Kat Hall from Spokane Complete Streets.

The directed activities, speakers and reading provide teams with philosophical and perceptual bases for their discussions and final charrette entries.[READ HERE]

Myth that proportion affects aesthetics in architecture is a 'huge distraction,' says WSU professor

by Becki Meehan, WSU Spokane, Communications 

Matthew Cohen, right, with conference collaborators Eelco Nagelsmit, left, and Caroline van Eck. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Cohen)

SPOKANE, Wash. - A WSU architecture professor is on the brink of defining a new field of study within architectural history. With the revival of a 60-year-old debate, he has scholars in the field buzzing about the future.

In September 1951, artists, architects and historians gathered in Milan, Italy for a conference called “De Divina Proportione,” which in Latin means “On Divine Proportion.” The conference was part of the Ninth Triennale, one of a series of meetings held every three years to discuss important issues in the arts related to industry.

At this particular meeting, organizers Le Corbusier and Rudolf Wittkower - the most famous architect and architectural historian of the time - asked delegates to tackle the weighty issue of proportionality.

“Historical documents tell us that builders in the Renaissance and earlier periods used certain proportional systems to make their buildings more orderly and structurally stable,” said Matthew Cohen, associate professor of architecture at WSU Spokane. “To understand their intentions, you have to enter into a very old way of thinking, from the days before engineering and modern aesthetics.”

The focus of the 1951 conference was the participants’ belief that proportional systems create beauty in both historical and modern architecture.

“The myth that proportional systems can affect the aesthetic appearance of architecture is a huge distraction in our field,” said Cohen.

Read Full Article [here]

WSU Small-Town Design Initiative Captures Global Interest

By Victoria Marsh, CAHNRS intern

A project to repurpose a historical small-town building has expanded in the state, drawn national interest, and could be adopted as a global model.

The Rural Communities Design Initiative (RCDI), founded and run by associate professor of interior design Janetta McCoy, originally tasked students with renovating the old high school in Ritzville, Wash.

The goal of the RCDI is to work in rural communities of 2,000 or fewer people to redesign derelict or abandoned community buildings and transform them into functional establishments capable of producing revenue for small-town economies. The hope is to prevent the loss of valuable people along with their knowledge and talents.

"What we are trying to do is have others realize it’s not just about design as a mechanism for looking good," McCoy said. "It's about preserving small communities and creating sustainable economies."

Students worked with the Ritzville community as part of a studio class. The town eventually determined to create a Center for Historic Preservation Trades in the old school. [MORE]

Architecture Student's Project to Reconnect Fairgoers with Agriculture

By Becki Meehan

The connection with agriculture at the fair is always present. However, Valerie Bartels, a master of architecture student at WSU Spokane noticed that commercial exhibits have become a more dominant feature. The interaction between the fairgoer and agriculture is less hands-on and sometimes just mere simulation, such as milking demonstrations using plastic cows.

In an effort to weave a more hands-on agricultural experience back into this environment, Bartels developed a master plan of the Puyallup Fairgrounds—a 160-acre site located in the downtown core of Puyallup, Washington—for her final project.

The proposed plan creates the entire agricultural cycle on site, including animal grazing, crop production, harvesting, storage, and composting. At the same time, it maintains the amusement and commercial functions necessary for the fairground's profitability.

"I've had the experience of connecting with agriculture and knowing where my food comes from," said Bartels. "I know many people have never had that experience based on the way we've constructed our built environment. I am hopeful that my design will help inspire bringing that experience back so people can reconnect with agriculture." [MORE] 

Landscape Architecture Students to Design New, Sustainable Housing Complex

By Justin Runquist, The Daily Evergreen

A group of WSU landscape architecture students is working on an experimental project to rebuild a poor Spokane neighborhood into a model for energy saving and sustainability.

Bob Scarfo, associate professor of landscape architecture at WSU Spokane, said his students have completed more than 70 projects in the historic Hillyard neighborhood in north Spokane throughout the last four years. This project is breaking new ground, Scarfo said.

The group will design and build a housing area of a few acres that will implement means of self-sustainability. The goal is to make the neighborhood 80 to 100 percent off-grid, Scarfo said. This means the houses would not need to tap into public sources for water, electricity and other resources.

"If we're lucky and we get the data, we'll be able to show that people can live at least 80 percent off-grid," he said.

If the project gets the go-ahead from the City of Spokane, the neighborhood will stand for at least five to seven years, Scarfo said. During that time, those involved will collect data on the energy saving systems of the neighborhood, he said.

"If it's really successful, we won't tear it down in five years," Scarfo said. "We'll build on it."[More]

WSU Interior Design Educator Named One of Nation’s Best

SPOKANE, Wash. – John Turpin, a Washington State University associate professor and chair of the Department of Interior Design, has been named by DesignIntelligence one of 25 “educators and education administrators who exemplify excellence in design education leadership.”DesignIntelligence is a bimonthly journal for architecture and design professionals.

DesignIntelligence annually publishes a list of top educators and education administrators based on “extensive input from hundreds of design professionals, academic department heads, and students,” according to DI’s web site. This top 25 list includes educators from all the design disciplines, including architecture, interior design, industrial design and landscape architecture.

“It is certainly a great honor and one that I will cherish,” Turpin said. “However, I do believe that I am very much a reflection of the people who surround me. I am inspired everyday by the dedicated faculty I work with at WSU. In addition, I would be remiss if I did not recognize my past and current mentors who helped shape this lump of clay into something meaningful; Jo Ann Thompson, Nancy Blossom, Kim Kidwell, Dan Bernardo and Hays Howard have offered endless support, motivation and inspiration.”

This is not the first time DI has recognized the excellence of WSU’s program in interior design. In 2008, WSU’s graduate program in interior design was ranked in the nation’s top 10. Rankings are generated based on surveys of professional design firms around the country. The ranking shows that WSU graduates are excelling in their profession. “What the ranking suggests is that our graduate students are doing extremely well in entry level positions,” Turpin said.

Read Full Article here

Architecture Professor Challenges History through Measurements

By Hannelore Sudermann, Washington State Magazine

Matthew Cohen started wondering if what he knew of Renaissance architecture was true when he stepped into the San Lorenzo Basilica in Florence with a measuring tape.

The Italian city, known as the birthplace of the Renaissance, is home to many of the great works of Filippo Brunelleschi, perhaps the foremost engineer and architect of the period. And San Lorenzo has been studied by generations of architects and historians as one of the earliest examples of Renaissance perfection.

"It is one of the most famous buildings in the world," says Cohen, an architecture instructor at WSU Spokane. He first encountered the church when he was a graduate student visiting Italy. He had been asked by his professor to present a seminar on the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Construction on the church had been started in 1419, on the site of a Romanesque-style church from 1060. The new building, which was funded by the de Medici family, was built right at the threshold of the Renaissance.


Read more: /aboutWSUSpokane/News_Events/News/Bulletins/2010/oct20.html#ixzz1EcBecW3G

Explore intersections between design and health

Environmental design's effects on health will be explored at the sixth annual Design Research Conference Thursday-Friday, Oct. 7-8, in the Phase I Classroom building at WSU Spokane.
 
WSU faculty, staff and students can attend at no charge. The cost is $175 for those not affiliated with WSU.
 
Hosted by the WSU Interdisciplinary Design Institute, the conference brings together international experts, students, business professionals and community leaders from a wide range of disciplines, such as natural and social sciences, health fields, the arts and design. [more]

Living Well by Design

When you slipped into your favorite jeans this morning, a designer touched your life. As you sipped your coffee at the breakfast bar and admired the xeriscaping in the backyard, designers helped to make it possible. A designer guided your trip through the grocery store, even if you didn’t realize it.

In the Washington State University College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, the departments of apparel merchandising, design and textiles, interior design and landscape architecture are training the professionals of tomorrow who literally will help shape the way we live...

Read Full Article

Fall design charrette defines "home" in Spokane

Projects from WSU Spokane's Interdisciplinary Design Institute's annual fall design competition are on exhibit through Sept. 7 in the Phase I Classroom Building Gallery at 668 N Riverpoint Blvd. The exhibit focuses on ideas of "home."

The 12th Annual Fall Design Charrette was the kickoff event for fall semester. The 48-hour competition grouped design students into twenty-eight teams and challenged them to explore their perception of home. They were asked to consider their own experiences in Spokane, either as long-time residents or new arrivals, and the experiences of other groups living in the community. As a result of their explorations, each team constructed a three-dimensional representation of their concept.

Twenty-eight teams participated in the 12th annual
Fall Design Charrette at WSU Spokane.

Read Full Article

Changing the Future of Rural Communities with Restoration and Economic Revitalization

A single semester’s work in the eastern Washington town of Ritzville has blossomed into a full-scale, ongoing project. The Rural Communities Design Initiative, founded and run by Washington State University Spokane associate professor of interior design Janetta McCoy, has tested a model of design intervention with five additional rural communities in Washington State to confirm that repurposing and renovating community buildings can lead to revitalization in the community’s economy.

Initially working with communities as part of a studio class project, students now can earn summer internship credit for participation. The goal of the RCDI is to work in rural communities of 2,000 or fewer people to redesign derelict or abandoned community buildings and transform them into functional establishments capable of producing revenue for small-town economies.

McCoy offered several reasons why the program is focused on small towns, including the fact that “rural communities represent 20 percent of the population and represent many of the voting numbers, too. These communities are also where most of our food comes from.” As rural American communities disappear, in other words, so too does the ability to produce food domestically.

Read Full Article

Design Students get 8 Weeks to Transform Travel Icon

Graduate students from WSU Spokane's Interdisciplinary Design Institute have eight weeks to transform an American travel industry icon - a 1958 Airstream [more]

Spotlight on: Doctor of Design

Preservation, teaching help design a better way of living

Read Full Article

Student Projects Prepare Them for Larger Work

Students in WSU Spokane's Interdisciplinary Design Institute contend there is a better way  share experiences than stories and images ... [more]

Interior Design Students Win National Awards

WSU interior design students are the winners of three of six awards at the 2008 Cooper Lighthing SOURCE Awards National Lighting Design Competition for students. Emily Myers won the competition, Rebecca Scott received an honorable mention, and Stephanie Ploof received an award of recognition. The winners will be recognized May 4 during the keynote speaker luncheon at Lightfair International 2009 in New York, in front of an audience of some 500 design professionals.

 

New Book Exemplifies Importance of Collaboration Between Practitioners of Health and the Built Environment

When Bob Scarfo, associate professor at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute, asked how Spokane's built environment would affect its aging residents, he realized that a landscape architect's eye was rarely applied to this question. Studies might consider, for instance, political, family, or social environments, but not the streets, structures, or sidewalks that form the built environment. For elders no longer able to drive, such on-the-ground aspects surely matter. Scarfo's insight is made timely by the fact that the baby boomers will soon reach retirement and many of them live in suburbs designed for convenient driving, not healthy aging.

Scarfo continued to research the spatial element of aging and in the process began collaborating with other interested experts, leading to the recent publication of Re-Creating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging. The anthology is imbued with the understanding that can happen when academics and professionals apply their different areas of expertise to a problem.

Re-Creating Neighborhoods, co-edited by Scarfo, approaches aging from a host of angles, including gerontology, health sciences, community planning, landscape architecture and environmental design; the result is a valuable resource for urban planners, policy makers, and public health professionals, among others.

In Scarfo's words, the editors believe "that greater collaboration among health and built environment practitioners will promote increased opportunities for people of all ages to actively engage in their communities, expand their creativity, and develop spiritually.” Such interdisciplinary efforts exemplify WSU Spokane's team care approach to health care.

Re-Creating Neighborhoods includes introductory essays by Scarfo, as well as articles on horticultural therapy, historical approaches to long-term care, different models for retirement communities, the challenges posed by suburbs and the opportunities a collaborative approach offers. Of special interest is an article co-authored by Kerry Brooks, also an associate professor at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute, and Scarfo that examines how to use geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool for making the built environment more friendly to aging citizens.

Design Intelligence Ranks Interior Design Graduate Program Ninth Best Nationally

DesignIntelligence recently released its 2009 list of best interior design schools and for the first time WSU Spokane was ranked among the nation’s best. DesignIntelligence is a bimonthly journal for architecture and design professionals.

 

WSU's graduate program in interior design was ranked the ninth best program among all of America’s interior design programs.

Rankings are generated based on surveys of professional design firms around the country. The ranking shows that WSU graduates are excelling in their profession. “What the ranking suggests is that our graduate students are doing extremely well in entry level positions,” associate professor and department char John Turpin said.

The ranking also shows the growth of the program in Spokane. “We have had the program for seven years and enough students have now gone through the program to where people are starting to take notice,” Turpin said.

This is DesignIntelligence’s tenth annual list of America’s best interior design programs.

Design Students Help City Envision New Home for Looff Carousel

Fall classes for WSU Spokane’s Interdisciplinary Design Institute kicked off with the 10th Annual Fall Design Charrette. For this 48-hour intensive competition, the city of Spokane teamed up with the Design Institute to jump-start design ideas for a new home for the historic Looff Carousel in Riverfront Park. The event united students in architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture.

“We were really excited to see what new ideas the students would present,” said Bette Largent, president of National Carousel Association. “It was fascinating to see the excellent work that transpired in such a short amount of time.”

Within the first three hours of the competition, students were divided into 28 teams and charged with the task of envisioning a new carousel building that would enhance the experience of Riverfront Park and the Looff Carousel, while emphasizing the synergy between Riverfront Park and the city of Spokane. They also received a general overview of the historical aspects of the carousel and Riverfront Park, and had a chance to experience the carousel and its surroundings first-hand during a site visit.  For complete story click here.

Events

REMINISCE & Anticipate

Friday, April 20, 2012

4:00 - 6:00 P.M.

Brief Program at 4:30 P.M.

Phase I Classroom Building Gallery

668 N. Riverpoint Blvd.

Read more

Contact Us: design@wsu.edu, 509-358-7920 | Student Affairs
Mailing: PO Box 1495, Spokane WA 99210-1495. Shipping: 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., Spokane WA 99202