Vivian Loftness Discusses Energy Dashboards

Hear Professor Vivian Loftness discuss SoA's work on energy dashboards and the internet of things on the Peggy Smedley Show.

Congratulations, Class of 2015!

UDream Program Receives AIA National Diversity

This past March, UDream was recognized by the AIA at its Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference. Pictured (l-r) are: Elizabeth Chu Richter, AIA president; Valecia Wilson, UDream Class of 2011, Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission; Erica Cochran, CMU UDream Program Director; Robert Ivy, AIA CEO; and Torrey Stanley Carleton, Hon. AIA.

The Carnegie Mellon University UDream program in the School of Architecture was honored as a Diversity Recognition Program by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Saturday, May 16, at the AIA National Convention in Atlanta.

William J. Bates, a member of the AIA and the National Organization of Minority Architects, and an adjunct faculty member in the School of Architecture, received the award on behalf of CMU. Bates, who also serves as AIA National Board vice president, is vice president of Real Estate for Eat ‘n Park Restaurants in Pittsburgh.

UDream (Urban Design Regional Employment Action for Minorities) was first recognized in March by the AIA at its 2015 Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., for its innovative methods to diversify Pittsburgh’s urban design workforce. Professor Erica Cochran, UDream program director, accepted the national award during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Washington Capitol Hill accompanied by six past UDream participants.

The Carnegie Mellon University UDream program in the School of Architecture was honored as a Diversity Recognition Program by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Saturday, May 16, at the AIA National Convention in Atlanta.

William J. Bates, a member of the AIA and the National Organization of Minority Architects, and an adjunct faculty member in the School of Architecture, received the award on behalf of CMU. Bates, who also serves as AIA National Board vice president, is vice president of Real Estate for Eat ‘n Park Restaurants in Pittsburgh.

UDream (Urban Design Regional Employment Action for Minorities) was first recognized in March by the AIA at its 2015 Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., for its innovative methods to diversify Pittsburgh’s urban design workforce. Professor Erica Cochran, UDream program director, accepted the national award during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Washington Capitol Hill accompanied by six past UDream participants.

UDream is an 18-week program that provides recent minority college graduates of architecture, urban design, urban planning and landscape architecture with an opportunity to further their knowledge of urban design while working in Pittsburgh. The program begins with a five-week academic focus at CMU and features a high school mentoring component called Architecture Building Communities, a summer camp in which high school students work on an urban design project in the city. The concluding phase of the program is a 12-week paid internship with a local architecture firm, nonprofit community organization or public agency. The intern placement process is rigorous and includes a series of interviews with representatives from the host firms.

“The interview process is crucial, because it pairs UDream participants with firms that will help them develop and, ultimately, succeed,” Cochran said.

The UDream program originated in a discussion between representatives from CMU’s School of Architecture and Remaking Cities Institute, and The Heinz Endowments, the latter of which funds the program. Each wanted to recruit recent minority college graduates to come to Pittsburgh with the goal of finding permanent employment at the end of the 18-week program. Funding also is provided by the School of Architecture and various regional architecture/urban design firms.

UDream's Don Carter On Racial Diversity in Architecture

The director of the innovative education and employment program at Carnegie Mellon University discusses its potential to change the profession's demographics.

By WANDA LAU

Donald Carter

The minority educational and career placement program UDream (Urban Design Regional Employment Action for Minorities), in Pittsburgh, has been honored with a 2015 AIA Diversity Recognition Program. Since UDream’s founding in 2009, 58 fellows—mostly recent B.Arch. graduates—have completed the 18-week program, which includes an academic boot camp and a paid internship at a local firm or nonprofit. Moreover, 25 fellows have stayed in the Pittsburgh area, a number that more than tripled the population of minority designers there and led to the re-establishment of a local National Organization of Minority Architects chapter. ARCHITECT spoke with Donald Carter, FAIA, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture, which runs UDream. For the full interview please click on the title.

Where do you go to find your summer interns?

“You’re looking for somebody that has some usable skills, but we can also help them grow those skills. We have a student this year from the UDream program at Carnegie Mellon. It’s for minority architects, and we assign them a project where they can develop a whole series of skills. ... I’m starting to see this incredible influx of young people calling to come here from all over because Pittsburgh is now hip and cool.”

—Rob Pfaffmann, principal, Pfaffmann + Associates

“Our best interns have come from Slippery Rock because they have an intense program with an intern adviser. The one this summer is from Penn State. If they have a program that really looks for results, we like that better than places that seem to tell their students to just go do an internship.”

—Becky Rodgers, executive director, Neighbors in the Strip

“We have programs with a number of local schools, including Point Park, Allegheny College, the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State. But we also work with a number of national schools. …Our publisher and editor-in-chief, John Robinson Block, is a graduate of Yale, and the Block family has endowed a program to send a number of Yale interns to the Post-Gazette every year.”

—Chris Chamberlain, president, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

MUP Students Anne Lewis and Le An receive national fellowships

Anne Lewis
2011 Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellow

Anne Lewis, first year MUP student, has been selected to receive a 2011 Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship. The Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship is awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation to outstanding graduate students showing promise in becoming leaders in the field of transportation. The goal is to attract the nation's brightest minds to the field of transportation, to enhance the careers of transportation professionals by encouraging them to seek advanced degrees and to retain top talent in the transportation industry of the United States. The program is intended to bring innovation and enhance the breadth and scope of knowledge of the entire transportation community in the U.S.

Anne is from Belmont, Mass. and received her undergraduate degree from Williams College where she majored in physics and political science. She is interested in improving the linkages between transportation planning and housing, especially within low-income areas, and to support the design of equitable and sustainable transportation systems. She writes, "in an era of sprawling land use patterns, increasing automobile-related costs, and dispersed employment opportunities, the costs of transportation and housing are inextricably intertwined, and low-income households tend to experience the most severe financial burden from these combined costs." Anne hopes to address these issues as a transportation planner through the consideration and implementation of policy tools, economic incentives, and urban design. Anne is particularly interested in locations that present problems of scale in the adoption of public transportation. The Eisenhower Fellowship will help Anne fund her last year of graduate school.

Le An
UDream fellow at Carnegie Mellon University

Second year urban planning student Le An has been named a UDream Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The program seeks to attract talented architects and urban designers to work in Pittsburgh and encourage diversity within the architecture/urban design profession nationwide.

Through the generous support of the Heinz Endowments, UDream offers full tuition, stipend, housing, and travel to and from Pittsburgh for program participants. The program is a combination of six weeks of academic training at CMU taught by architecture faculty and local urban design practitioners and 12 weeks of internship with local architecture and urban design firms, non-profits or public agencies. Thirteen finalists interviewed with firms such as Urban Design Associates (UDA), Perkins Eastman, and Loysen + Kreuthmeier Architects, and organizations like Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Le An was offered placement at UDA. Founded in 1964, UDA is a multi-disciplined urban design and architecture practice headquartered in Pittsburgh, Penn. UDA develops master plans, pattern books, and architecture for clients in North America, Central America, Europe, and Asia. Le An expects to use this opportunity to learn more about his areas of interest, sustainable urban design and downtown and waterfront revitalization.