NEWSLETTER - November 15, 2024

Huckabee College of Architecture (HCOA) graduate students Roozbeh Ayazi, Damoun Pezeshki, and Lya Reyes, along with their faculty advisor, Assistant Professor Dr. Mahyar Hadighi, presented their research projects at the National Trust for Historic Preservation/National Council for Preservation Education Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA. Their work received recognition from the National Council for Preservation Education through the Student Scholarship Program.  

Roozbeh’s project, titled "Digital Documentation of a Mid-20th-Century Architecture: The Case Study of ‘Ship on the Desert’," explored various digital and analog documentation methods. Damoun’s research, titled "AI and Historic Preservation," proposed the use of AI to translate oral histories and historical photos into digital 2D and 3D drawings. Lya’s research, titled "Reimagining Stigmatized Spaces: Ethical and Sustainable Approaches in Preservation," advocated for a biophilic approach to rehabilitate spaces with complex memory elements, aiming to preserve rather than erase these layers of history. 

Photos courtesy of Mahyar Hadighi

Sadaf Alikhani, a PhD student in Land-Use Planning, Management and Design (LPMD) and a member of the AHU Lab at the HCOA, has received the Graduate Student Research Support Award for the fall 2024 semester academic year. This award is co-funded by the CH Foundation and the Texas Tech University Graduate School, and honors Sadaf's exceptional multidisciplinary research achievements in the domains of technology, architecture, urban planning, and the humanities.

A paper co-authored by Professor Joseph Aranha and architecture faculty Dr. I Nyoman Gede Maha Putra, Made Arya Adiartha, and Tjokorda Gede Dalem Suparsa from Warmadewa University in Bali, Indonesia, will be presented at the UIA International Forum 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Titled "A Southeast Asian Vernacular Settlement and Its Architectural Transformation: Tenganan Pegringsingan, Bali - a Case Study," the paper will be presented at a session on "Heritage: Transformations and Preservation in Vernacular and Historic Architecture" and will be published in a special issue of the indexed Malaysia Architecture Journal. The paper examines continuity and change in architectural and community traditions and is a result of Professor Aranha’s participation as a Fulbright Specialist in faculty career development and capacity building at Warmadewa University. 

Professor Joe Aranha and Assistant Professor Dr. Mahyar Hadighi, along with Dr. I Nyoman Gede Maha Putra from Warmadewa University (WU) in Bali, Indonesia, have been awarded a $38,000 grant from the Endangered Wood Architecture Programme (EWAP) at Oxford Brookes University, UK. They will be team leaders for the documentation of endangered wooden architecture in Desa Manlima, Kamanasa District, East Nusa Tenggara, Timor, Indonesia. 

The EWAP supports projects that focus on documenting wooden architecture endangered by neglect, conflict or environmental circumstances. These records will be maintained within an open-access digital repository. The programme also aims to develop research capacity, promote new collaborations and initiatives, and raise awareness and appreciation of the value and significance of wooden architecture around the world. 

Using a combination of analog and digital documentation methodologies, the team will map the village and will include detailed documentation of four-to-six endangered wooden buildings of socio-cultural and architectural significance, together with indigenous knowledge and social significance embedded in them. Elders familiar with traditional building methods will provide valuable narratives that will enrich understanding of these endangered structures and building practices that are rapidly disappearing because of on-going forces of change. 

The success of the proposal was based upon architectural uniqueness, urgency, the collective expertise of the project team leaders, and its potential for building a foundation for initiating international research partnership. Fieldwork is scheduled for summer 2025. The team leaders will be assisted in Indonesia by a selection of undergraduate students and junior faculty from WU and in the USA, by graduate students in the Historic Preservation Program at TTU who will prepare digital documentation of the buildings from laser scans, measured field drawings, and aerial photogrammetry. Graduate students will also create a digital ‘serious game’, a resource that will be useful for public education among the village inhabitants. 

Images courtesy of Joe Aranha

Assistant Professor Dr. Asma Mehan and PhD student Sadaf Alikhani presented their research titled "Heritage and Habitat: Analyzing the Impact of Vernacular Architecture on Modern Iranian Residences" at the 29th Interdisciplinary International Conference on the Environment (IICE), hosted by the Department of Design, College of Health & Human Sciences at Texas Tech University.

Two chapters on Smart Materials and Smart Prototyping, co-authored by faculty and students at the HCOA in collaboration with a faculty member from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) School of Architecture and Urban Design, have been published in The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking in Architecture & Urbanism for a Sustainable, Living Planet.    

Chapter 3.3, Smart Materials as Architectured Porous and Hybrid Systems to Produce Performative Building Components, co-authored by Associate Professor Dr. Sina Mostafavi, PhD student Edgar Montejano, and Senior Lecturer Dr. Ding Wen Bao at RMIT Architecture, explores how computational design and digital production processes can enhance the structural, environmental, and functional performance of built environments using porous and hybrid materials. By leveraging computed porosity and controlled hybridity, architects can improve efficiency, reduce embodied energy, and customize material behaviors, unlocking new possibilities for innovation in construction.    

More details on the Smart Materials chapter can be found here.    

Chapter 6.2, titled Smart Prototyping for Data-Driven Mass Customization and Community-Enabled Co-Production, co-authored by Associate Professor Dr. Sina Mostafavi, PhD student Bahar Bagheri, Senior Lecturer Dr. Ding Wen Bao at RMIT Architecture, and Assistant Professor Dr. Asma Mehan, examines how advancements in manufacturing and information technology have revolutionized architectural prototyping. It highlights three paradigms—digital, phygital, and collaborative prototyping—and explores how these innovations integrate design and production workflows, enhance socio-environmental awareness, and facilitate mass customization, mixed-reality design, and human-machine collaboration.    

More details on the Smart Prototyping chapter can be found here.    

A full overview and access to the supplemental companion volume can be found on Taylor & Francis’s page here. 

A chapter written by Associate Professor Stephen Mueller titled "Anti-Desertification: Aeolian Assemblies" was published in The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking in Architecture & Urbanism for a Sustainable, Living Planet. 

The chapter, which focuses on "anti-desertification architecture," surveys intelligent design thinking in architecture and urbanism and investigates multiple facets of "smart" approaches to design thinking that augment the potentials of user experiences as well as his/her physical and mental interactions with the built environment. It contends with the problematics and potentials of operative spatial technologies applied within desert contexts and amidst the real and imagined conditions of “desertification.”  

The chapter features Professor Mueller's research on operative spatial technologies impacting environmental and spatial justice in arid transboundary environments and includes work from HCOA–El Paso students in Mueller's "Dust Institute" studio.

Other contributors to the volume include Brett Steele, Neal Leach, and Achim Menges, among others. 

To read more on "Anti-Desertification: Aeolian Assemblies," click the link here. 

Articulated membrane-networked ceramic screen. Student work by Brian Barrera; Stephen Mueller, instructor; Dust Institute Studio, Texas Tech University, 2023; Image courtesy of author.

Performative membrane wall section. Student work by Brian Barrera; Stephen Mueller, instructor; Dust Institute Studio, Texas Tech University, 2023; Image courtesy of author.

Articulated membrane-cast minimal surface. Student work by Emmanuel Urena; Stephen Mueller, instructor; Dust Institute Studio, Texas Tech University, 2023; Image courtesy of author.

The symposium Orienting Imagination: What Are the Stakes on the Llano Estacado? has been awarded a grant of $5,000 from the Ryla T. & John F. Lott Endowment for Excellence in the Visual Arts, administered by the School of Art. Organized by the Huckabee College of Architecture in collaboration with the School of Art, the event will take place from January 31 to February 1, 2025. The symposium will feature presentations on a range of topics, including the land, built environments, and phenomenological landscapes of the Llano Estacado. 

Orienting Imagination calls for tangible and intangible interventions addressing reciprocity, communication, and interdependent positionings between people and lands. Along with other themes, contributors will ask how to orient experience, energy, resources, and production in the Llano Estacado to explore lessons for planetary re-orientation.      

Students, faculty, and researchers from across Texas Tech University, as well as independent scholars and practitioners in art and architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, policymaking, healthcare, and law-making are invited to submit proposals. The deadline for submissions has been extended to November 22nd, 2024.  

The Symposium Steering and Review committee will include Assistant Professor Dr. Ke Sun, Joe Arredondo, Director of Landmark Arts in the School of Art, Chris Taylor, Director of Land Arts of the American West; Professor, Associate Professor Dr. Kevin Chua from the School of Art, and Lecturer Natalie Hegert from the School of Art.  

The form for submissions can be found here. 

For more information on the schedule, topics, and how to submit for the symposium, access the School of Arts website here.     

All inquiries about the symposium may be directed to the Symposium Steering & Review Committee. Contact Dr. Sun at ke.sun@ttu.edu. 

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