Celebration of Architecture

The Montana State University School of Architecture's tenth annual Celebration of Architecture will be held on February 27, 2014. Sponsors, students, faculty and staff will again be ‘celebrating architecture’ by gathering to meet with firms, enjoy a silent and live auction and socialize. Table sponsors will dine with students Thursday evening. Sponsors may also request meetings with students on Friday or the weekend if they choose to do so. Montana State School of Architecture students have always done extremely well finding positions with and then succeeding in firms and companies around the country. Firms who have previously hired Montana State architecture graduates, regularly seek our assistance in sending them our best and brightest. This event offers firms the opportunity to interview for positions and cultivate students for future employment. We like to give those who have generously supported the Department over the years - through sponsorship, scholarships, gifts, lectures, teaching, or by consistently hiring our graduates - a first chance to meet students preparing to graduate this spring, as well as students currently in their third and fourth year of Architecture. But we also welcome new firm representatives to come and meet our students, talk with them and look at their work. Based on the successful career searches our students accomplish on their own, we hope this event will prove to be an enriching experience for our students and a rewarding career opportunity for your company. If you have any questions, please contact Anne Barnaby, (406) 994-4256.

Call for Proposals for the symposium: “A Critical Rediscovery of the Northern Rockies”

Symposium Date: Saturday, October 12th, 2013
Symposium Location: Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana

The College of Arts and Architecture at Montana State University is sponsoring a one-day symposium entitled “A Critical Rediscovery of the Northern Rockies” on October 12, 2013. We are interested in all perspectives on regionalism and encourage proposals from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. The symposium is intended to engage the variety of disciplinary practices that contribute to our understanding of where we live and how the Northern Rockies informs our research and creative work. The symposium will investigate the possibilities of regionalism and sense of place, and engage in MSU’s goal of furthering interdisciplinarity across campus. We are looking forward to receiving proposals for scholarly papers as well as exhibitions and performances in many media. We seek participation from multiple disciplines, including those represented in the Montana State University, College of Arts & Architecture [art--including studio arts & design--film, music, and architecture] and geography, history, philosophy, literary studies and other disciplines that are engaged in the topic.

For example, we welcome proposals on relevant topics in music and audio, as well as performance proposals for acoustic and electronic compositions and installations. The conference hosts (Montana State University College of Arts& Architecture) can provide an 8.2 sound system and the following performers: piano, oboe/English horn, percussion (solo and ensemble), cello and flute. Other instrumentalists may be added. Image makers and research scholars may wish to present lens-based research incorporating themes/inspiration relevant to the Northern Rockies. Papers, group or solo screenings, exhibitions, and cross-disciplinary projects are all welcome. For scholars in the humanities and social sciences, this is a great opportunity to share your research interests on the Northern Rockies with your Montana State University colleagues and focus your proposal and ideas on the notion of regional identity and how practices and methods within your disciplines can be used to explore that concept in various ways…both conventionally and unconventionally!

Proposals will be blind peer-reviewed by a multi-disciplinary steering committee. Accepted abstracts will be grouped into sessions and participants will be encouraged to discuss their work with each other prior to the symposium. Accepted works, in relevant formats, will be published on a website prior to the symposium, circulated to all participants, and then discussed in a series of moderated panel sessions. We hope the symposium will be a day of intense conversation.

TIMETABLE

Call for proposals April 1st, 2013
Abstracts of Proposals due May 24th, 2013
Abstracts accepted notification June 3rd, 2013
Abstracts circulated to discussion groups June 21st, 2013
Submission and revision of final proposals placed on symposium web site July 29th, 2013.

Symposium proceedings and scholarly papers will be published in various formats and performances and exhibits will be recorded for distribution.

Proposals should include a title, list of authors/presenters, contact information, a short C.V. and a one-page abstract. Please send proposals to: Professor Ralph Johnson [ralphj@montana.edu] or Teaching Professor Barry Newton [barry.newton@montana.edu]

Congratulations and Our Thanks to Heath (Tad) Bradley!

Heath (Tad) Bradley has installed an 18” x 18” plaque at the east/main entry of Cheever Hall. The material of this plaque is fused glass. Over the last seven years, while teaching in the School of Architecture Tad has expanded his hands-on explorations to include steel fabrication, blacksmithing and fused glass. In 2010 he received his first public art commission, to complete the design, fabrication and installation in the newly renovated Gaines Hall. This installation consists of 25 fused glass panels and is approximately 18 feet in length and three feet in height. It’s titled “overlap”. From this point forward Tad has been teaching fused glass as a graduate elective within the School. Students are exposed to precedent-setting artists and various manners in which to control the kiln-formed glass to achieve the particular aesthetic they seek. During the fall semester Tad volunteered to produce a glass panel that further celebrated the Architecture community and act as a welcoming to Cheever Hall. Historically the use of the “Architecture Matters” logo has been used in various forms and in various media. It has now been rendered in glass to welcome all who enter the School of Architecture.

Congratulations Arne Emerson

MSU School of Architecture alumni, Arne Emerson ’95, ’09 is the project architect for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. An alumni, Arne visited the School of Architecture in February 2012 as a guest of the School’s Advisory Council and participated in a mini-conference entitled, “The Digital-Build: An Intersection of Perspectives”.

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Advisory Council Spring Semester Meeting

The School of Architecture would like to thank the Advisory Council for their support. Advisory Council membership travelled to the School on February 28-March 1. We welcomed the opportunity to host 25 members and guests at the meeting. If you are interested in knowing more about the Advisory Council, please contact the main office, 406-994-4256. AC page link.

Celecbration of Architecture Event

While the Advisory Council was on campus, the School also hosted the the 9th Annual Celebration of Architecture. The event was held in the Rockin TJ Ranch. This is an evening of celebration – celebrating faculty and staff success, celebrating architecture education, the practice and the profession. While celebrating, an astonishing $13,000 was raised through the silent and live auctions and private donations directed to the MSU Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Students. We would be remiss if we did not identify our amazing artists - Student Artists: Melissa von Borstel, Miranda Clark, Phil White, Jake DeNeui, Dustin Talbert, Jake Steding, Lindsay Koski, Alex Dalzell, Andy Springer, Sam Irons; Artists: Diana Termaine, Heath Bradley, Kurt Fehlberg, Lauri Moffet-Fehlberg, Henry Sorenson and Josh DeWeese and other sponsors/donors: Sharon Matney, Shannon Peterson, Teresa Ax (Rockin TJ Ranch), Gulick Trucking, Christopher Livingston. A special thank you (again and again) to Bill Rea our Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer!

4/10-11 Phonathon

students will be calling you to chat about current life in the SoA, and to raise money for the Visiting Faculty Endowment. This is a cool opportunity for you to converse with students – perhaps about how the ‘good old days’ are very much the same as the ‘good new days!’ Please help the School of Architecture to reach its goal of $1,000,000 for a visiting faculty chair thereby enriching students’ education!

Guest Critic Jason Davis

  • WELCOME! - The school is delighted to host Jason Davis as guest critic for the School’s final reviews December 10-13. Jason is currently the Director of Site Operations at modular home builder Blu Homes. At Blu Homes, he is responsible for all work involving the delivery and site finish of the unique modular homes to both national and international markets.

    Previously, he was the Operations Manager at Southern California design leader, Marmol Radziner Prefab. Jason has also worked at several architecture and design-build firms in Seattle, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.

    Jason received his Bachelor of Environmental Design at Texas A&M University and his Master of Architecture at the University of Washington. He is a registered Architect in California.


    Advisory Council Fall Semester Meeting

    Please complete the advisory council meetings survey at the link below. We have included specific questions about the fall meeting and included questions for future meetings to assist us in organizing the spring semester meeting and beyond. We really appreciate your comments on the survey – it makes such a difference in setting up our meetings, we don’t need to guess at your reactions to what we schedule…we hear it directly from you! Click here to take survey

  • The School of Architecture would like to thank the Advisory Council for their support. Advisory Council membership travelled to the School on October 25-26. We were thrilled to have 19 of our members and seven guests attend the fall semester meeting. Some of the topics for discussion included the, Visiting Professorship Endowment the continuation of the Retroactive Master’s program through Extended University, the newly created Graduate Certificate in Professional Practice of Architecture to be offered soon and sponsorships through the council for the following programs:


    MSU-Oxford Brookes

  • After a successful design-build collaboration in Oxford this past summer, MSU and Oxford Brookes students and faculty will collaborate again on a design build project in summer 2013. This collaboration is going to take place in conjunction with the on-going restoration work in Morocco. Students from MSU and Oxford will join forces in Morocco for a 2-3 week period in which they will design and construct a small structure to enhance the living conditions in a rural village. Tentative plans for the project type have included a community washing station for the village—but adjustments may be made to this project type.


    Kenya Community Design Project

  • Going into its fourth year next summer, the Kenya Community Design project will be building upon its past experiences of analyzing housing issues in the urban/rural context, constructing an off-the-grid potato shelter and straw-bale housing in rural Kenya. Initial proposals for the Kenya Community Design Project are focusing on partnerships with existing NGOs in Kenya in order to provide research analysis and design proposals to address local community issues. The intent is to target the design and analysis skills of our students on solutions where design can make the biggest impact. Continuation of Kenya project – further training of students in methods of construction


    Scholarship Banquet

    While the Advisory Council was on campus, the School also hosted the scholarship banquet; an evening celebrating student success and our generous scholarship donors on October 25. The event was held in the Baxter Ballroom with catering from Ted’s. Our thanks to everyone who enables the School to award over $50,000 in student scholarships each year.


  • The Importance of Belonging

  • Thank you Marg and Marty Crennen

    Hyalite Pavilion Award

  • Hyalite Pavilion has recieved a prestigious award- the 2012 Montana Masonry Honor Award. The school recieved two Honor Awards- one for the design and one for the construction- congratulations to Bruce Wrightsman & participating classes and students.

    Aerial Photos for the SoA ARCH 456 Fall 2012

  • Thanks to a gift from Robert Utzinger and AIA Montana, the fourth year architecture studio was able to purchase a service for aerial photographs. The school now has a collection of aerial photographs at various elevations available for all classes and research.

    A creative career takes a turn for Dennis Deppmeier an SOA Advisory Council member

  • Congratulations Dennis Deppmeier!

    Click to learn more

    World Architecture Engineering Awards Finalist

  • CTA's Great Falls office (Marty Byrnes & Tony Houtz) design made the shortlist for this award recognizing the integration of engineering and architecture. It is the only finalist from the U.S. What is poignant is the contrast between this project and the other 5. Maybe an encouragement to students that they don't need to climb to the other side of the fence to do noteworthy work. It can be done in Montana.

    Get the full story here!