Antonia Pacheco and William Pyle, graduates of the Huckabee College of Architecture (HCOA) Program in El Paso, were featured in 6th edition of Texas Tech University's (TTU) award-winning magazine, EVERMORE.

The feature titled, The Victory Bells, highlighted major accomplishments from members of the TTU community, and celebrated Pacheco and Pyle on winning the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) Foundation Robert L. Wesley Award. 

To learn more about the feature on Pacheco and Pyle or to subscribe to future editions of EVERMORE magazine, click here.

Graduate students enrolled in Architectural Design + Research II for the summer of 2024 are participating in an intensive collaboration with the Dallas Hospitality Group of HKS. Co-taught by Lauren Phillips, HCOA faculty, and TTU alumnus, Oliver Cox, AIA (MArch, ’07), Project Architect with HKS, the studio invites students to consider initial conceptual design and site strategies for a luxury resort on the Punta Mita peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific coast. The 9-week studio culminates in individual proposals for a complex site plan that negotiates a complex terrain. Students are asked to use the prompt of luxury to think carefully and deliberately about the architectural decisions that impact guest experience. 

As part of the initial research and planning stage, the studio traveled to Dallas where they spent two full days as guests of HKS Hospitality, getting an extensive tour of the HKS offices as well as a behind-the-scenes tour of the recently completed J.W. Marriott Dallas Arts District. Students benefitted from conversations with members of the HKS team, including Luis Zapiain, HKS’ Global Practice Director of Hospitality. The final day was spent in a design charette, where students brainstormed their initial design strategies and received feedback from experienced members of the HKS team. 

On the way back to Lubbock, the studio stopped by Fort Worth’s Cultural District where they got a tour of Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum from HCOA Distinguished Alumnus, W. Mark Gunderson, AIA. Students were able to visit areas of the museum not accessible to the public, such as the library’s reading room, and learn about the complex process by which architectural concepts are carried through the process of design and construction. 

We are thrilled to announce that Jes Deaver, AIA, will join the Huckabee College of Architecture as H. Deane Pierce Endowed Visiting Assistant Professor for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Jes Deaver is an acclaimed residential architect known for her work in Texas with a strong focus on environmental design and community engagement. Deaver’s notable career includes serving as the 2020 AIA Austin Women in Architecture Committee Chair and on the Texas Society of Architects Public Outreach Task Force. She is a regular contributor to Texas Architect magazine and has been featured in national publications such as Residential Design and Western Art and Architecture.  

She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Houston and a Bachelor of Science in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Texas at Austin, and is also certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. Additionally, she serves as a Safety Assessment Evaluator with the Texas Disaster Response Team.  

Her professional work includes contributions to team projects at Pfeiffer Architects in Los Angeles, such as the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center at Gonzaga University and the Digital Commons at the Los Angeles Public Library. Jes was also a guest lecturer alongside her father, Nick Deaver, AIA, as part of the HCOA's 2023-2024 lecture series, RESILIENCE. 

This academic year, she will lead a studio focused on innovative housing solutions in Houston, Texas. The course is set to explore themes of land stewardship and personal storytelling, while incorporating elements of sci-fi writing and cinematography. Her unique approach promises to bring valuable insight, creativity, and inspiration to our college.  

Please join us in welcoming Jes to the HCOA and to Texas Tech! We look forward to the dynamic contributions she will make to our college community as well as the enriching experiences the studio will bring to our students over the course of the academic year.

Assistant Professor Dr. Asma Mehan and Associate Professor Dr. Sina Mostafavi presented at the Design Research Society (DRS) conference in Boston, co-hosted by Northeastern University, MIT Media Lab, and Harvard University. 

As part of the Spatial Justice in Design Research: A Transdisciplinary Discourse session, chaired by Miriam Tedeschi and Jules Rochielle Sievert, Dr. Mehan and Dr. Mostafavi presented research titled “Spatial Justice and Immersive Mapping: An Interdisciplinary Approach.” The work delved into the intersections of art, architecture, and social justice, emphasizing the transformative power of immersive interfaces, community design development, and design computation and fabrication. 

To view the peer-reviewed paper, access the Design Research Society 2024 Proceedings in the DRS Digital Library here. 

For more information on the DRS Conference, click the link here. 

Chris Taylor was featured in an interview in Issue 16 of nomad magazine, on the theme of travel. The piece, titled "How we've shaped the land, and how it has shaped us," discusses the Land Arts of the American West program at Texas Tech University, which takes students on 'a semester abroad in our own backyard.'

To access the interview, click here. 

To learn more about nomad magazine, click here.

Assistant Professor Dr. Lingyi Qiu, in collaboration with researchers from the Department of Architecture and the Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning at Texas A&M University, has published a peer-reviewed article titled “Understanding children's active school commute, independent mobility, and physical activity in Austin, Texas, USA: Roles of physical environments,” in Frontiers of Architectural Research (IF: 3.5). 

This cross-sectional study examined the multilevel correlates of walking to/from school (WTS), an important form of habitual and healthful physical activity (PA), among elementary school children in Austin, Texas, and explored whether WTS and neighborhood environmental factors were associated with increased independent mobility and PA. The findings revealed that distance, physical barriers (e.g., highways, freeways, busy roads), neighborhood environmental quality, and traffic concerns significantly predicted WTS. This study identified modifiable environmental predictors of WTS, independent mobility, and meeting PA guidelines. Future PA promotion should consider strategies that encourage not only WTS but also independent travel to non-school destinations and unsupervised outdoor play.  

For more information about this research, access the full article here. 

ONE WEEK LEFT...

2023 Design Leadership Alliance Award Winners

Distinguished Alumnus: Lance Evans

Kleinschmidt Award: Professor Dr. Clifton Ellis

Design Honor Award: Clayton Korte for Kingsbury Commons at Pease Park in Austin, TX

Design Honor Award: Nick Deaver Architect for Spelunk in Austin, TX

Design Merit Award: Nick Deaver Architect for Shibui in Austin, TX

Student Design Leadership Award: Georgia Thomas

For additional assistance related to this year's Distinguished Alumnus Award and Kleinschmidt Award nominations, please contact David Messersmith at messer@uta.edu for more information.