Two SCUP North Atlantic Regional Council members are among four prominent university architects interviewed for the article, How to Win More University Projects, in the January issue of Building Design + Construction magazine. Pamela Palmer Delphenich, FAIA, Director, Campus Planning and Design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Alexandria Carolyn Roe, AIA, Director of University Planning at the University of Connecticut contributed their observations and suggestions. Read the article on the BD+C website.

Thursday, November 4, 2010: 7:30-9:30am

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) New York is sponsoring a panel discussion, which will focus on the ambitious current expansion plans of Columbia, New York University and Fordham, and their role in regional economic development. Scheduled as panelists are: Lori Mazor, Associate Vice President for Planning and Design, New York University; Philip Pitruzzello, Vice President, Manahttanville Construction, Columbia University; and Brian Byrne, Vice President for Lincoln Center, Fordham University.

The event will be held at the office of Shearman & Sterling, LLP at 599 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY.

For more details and registration information, visit the ULI NY event webpage.

From STEM to STEAM - Keeping the Arts in the Instruction of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

Friday, November 19th, 2010

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Troy, New York

Registration is open for the North Atlantic Region's exciting upcoming one-day conference at Rensselaer. Conference Co-Chairs and Regional Council members Bob Joy and Tom Rathbone have assembled a great program. Our sessions will be held in the dramatic Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), designed by the renowned British firm Grimshaw Architects with Davis Brody Bond Aedas. Don't miss out!

For full details including registration, and travel information, visit the Conference Website

If you find this item to be of interest, then you need to be checking out SCUP's Pacific Region's annual conference next spring: Inspiring Community, March 21–23, 2011 at Seattle University.

Consider the case of Lowell, Mass., located on the banks of the Merrimack and Concord rivers and once coined mill city. Named as one of five “innovative cities” by the Innovative Cities consortium, the City of Lowell’s dramatic reversal of fortune was driven by lean manufacturing and, significantly, a robust appetite for commercial and retail development, cultural diversity, and community engagement. The key ingredient in Lowell was that business and civic leaders united behind a co-development strategy, attracted investment from outside the community and leveraged capital financing for building out town/gown infrastructure, like sports stadiums, residential commons, and state-of-the-art student fitness and recreation centers.

A recent USA Today feature reported on two types of recession-proof economies: the first, state capitals and the second, collegetowns. In these latter cities, higher education institutions created transportation linkages, river walks, bike paths and pedestrian pathways to guide, inform, and enhance the urban life experience. Increasingly, Americans are seeking out these river mill collegetowns as powerful options for retail, hospitality, and ecotourism investment and as wise choices to live, learn, start a business and raise a family. This new wave of urban homesteaders has learned that collegetowns are now lifelong destinations and more than temporary undergraduate residences.

You would expect Yale to do a good job on a sustainability plan. Use the comments box, below, to let you know what you think of this one.

The Yale Sustainability Strategic Plan is a framework of goals and targets designed to advance Yale’s efforts over the next three years (2010-2013). The Plan recognizes the complexity of the University as an organization: the campus serves as a living laboratory, work place, learning environment, home, cultural repository, research enterprise, and more.

This sustainability framework deliberately focuses on campus and administrative systems in an effort to strengthen the foundation of Yale’s sustainability commitment. Our success in this endeavor depends upon leadership at the individual, unit, and institutional levels. We must work together and embrace each of the goals as a community effort, not solely a unit commitment.

We missed this article from the Village Voice when it was published in late July. It's a nice survey of the various campus building projects in New York City, with some introspective commentary. 

But will these schools really need all of this space once it comes online? Ten years from now, will we be downloading courses via Facebook apps onto iPads? Could all that classroom space end up being about as useful as the new home once planned for the New York Stock Exchange? In 2002, the Big Board walked away from a $1.1 billion deal with the city, realizing advances in technology meant it no longer needed a physical trading floor.

It’s easy to understand why New York’s universities are optimistic. Last year, NYU saw a record 38,000 applications for freshman admission, four times what it received 20 years ago. Nationwide, college enrollment is predicted to grow 13 percent by 2018, but the U.S. Department of Education cautions that its forecast doesn’t factor in such potentially disruptive forces as the rising cost of college, the changing economic value of a degree, and “the impact of distance learning due to technological changes.”

"Very little about the American classroom has changed since Laura Ingalls sat in one more than a century ago. In her school, children sat in a rectangular room at rows of desks, a teacher up front. At most American schools, they still do." Slate magazine's got a contest going on until the end of October. It is asking people to describe or design the ideal fifth-grade classroom for today, This article describes the contest and spends some time critizing the failure to markedly change classroom design. "Education has changed even if the room has not, and if you go into most schools, you are likely to see teachers and students chafing against the rectangle."