The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has awarded Parsons The New School for Design and Clemson University the 2014 NCARB Award to aid the development of innovative programs that merge practice and education.
"The award honors innovative ways for weaving practice and academy together to address real-world architecture challenges," says NCARB CEO Michael J. Armstrong. "The winning proposals for 2014 explore new paradigms of practice and move students from the theoretical to applied practices working with licensed practitioners."
2014 NCARB Award Recipients:
Program: Clemson University, School of Architecture—Clemson, SC
Proposal: “Graduate Program in Architecture + Health”
Total Award: $30,000
The mission of the project is to advance health care facility design through collaboration among architects, academia and members of the health care industry. The primary outcome will be to expose a cohort of architecture and health (A+H) Master of Architecture students—through three integrated courses within the A+H Curriculum—to the challenges of designing health care settings that support the delivery of high quality, cost effective, culturally relevant health care for medically under-served populations.“This project’s social capacity is far-reaching,” said Wendy Ornelas, FAIA, associate dean and professor at Kansas State University’s College of Architecture, Planning & Design, and the chair of the 2014 NCARB Award Jury. “It creates a road map for health care but is also a framework that is portable across all project types."
Program: Parsons The New School for Design, School of Constructed Environments — New York, NY
Proposal: “Student-Practitioner Partnerships in Building Performance Evaluation”
Total Award: $20,232.50
While there is increased emphasis on sustainability, instruction on performance measurement is lacking. The proposal addresses a new and critical opportunity for architecture students to improve the environmental performance of buildings through measurement. The project involves purchasing new tools to enable students, during seven-week assignments, to work with practitioners to evaluate the real-world energy performance of buildings. Equipment purchased with the Award includes environmental meters for the measurement of temperature, humidity, air velocity, light level, sound pressure, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other performance factors.“Many of the buildings are LEED or net-zero buildings, and this program will provide us with a cadre of information and data on whether or not these buildings are doing what they are supposed to be doing,” Ornelas said.
Press release via NCARB.
