Now, Japan is sharing the lessons it learned responding to that disaster—now known to many simply by its date, 3/11—with a trav­eling exhi­bi­tion making its sole United States stop at North­eastern. The show, “How Did Archi­tects Respond Imme­di­ately After 3/11?—An Exhi­bi­tion on the Great East Japan Earth­quake,” is on dis­play and open to the public through June 12 in the lobby of Inter­na­tional Village.

Akira Muto, Consul Gen­eral of Japan in Boston

“This is a kind of oblig­a­tion, to share what we went through during and after the earth­quake with the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity,” Akira Muto, the Japanese consul gen­eral to the United States sta­tioned in Boston, said Tuesday evening at the exhibition’s opening recep­tion. “We wanted not only to engage the experts in the field, but also the students—the young people just get­ting started looking at issues like this. And we hope that it sparks fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion between nations on these chal­lenges that we all face.”

The exhi­bi­tion, orga­nized by the Japan Foun­da­tion, was brought to North­eastern by the Con­sulate Gen­eral of Japan in Boston, Northeastern’s Gallery 360, the North­eastern Center for the Arts, and the Col­lege of Arts, Media and Design. A meeting last fall between Muto and North­eastern Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun led to the uni­ver­sity hosting the trav­eling exhibit.

Tuesday’s opening recep­tion fea­tured remarks from Muto and Xavier Costa, dean of the Col­lege of Arts, Media and Design. Costa said the exhibit is impor­tant because it shows how archi­tects can play a cru­cial role in emer­gency pre­pared­ness and response.

“This exhibit fea­tures a strong com­pi­la­tion of the great chal­lenges Japan faces and how archi­tects can be impor­tant respon­ders to those chal­lenges,” Costa said.

The exhibit fea­tures work from archi­tects in Japan and around the globe.

Japan’s loca­tion in the Pacific Ocean makes it par­tic­u­larly sus­cep­tible to nat­ural dis­as­ters like earth­quakes and tsunamis. As a result, the country has his­tor­i­cally paid par­tic­ular atten­tion to dis­aster pre­pared­ness and resiliency, ensuring that the public is pre­pared through reg­ular emer­gency drills and pro­tected by infra­struc­ture able to with­stand mas­sive dis­as­ters, said Susan Gill, who works in the consulate’s infor­ma­tion and cul­ture sec­tion. Though the prepa­ra­tions aren’t always per­fect, Japan believes the lessons they have learned, par­tic­u­larly during and after the 2011 earth­quake, are impor­tant to share with the inter­na­tional community.

The exhibit is split into four sec­tions, doc­u­menting issues of emer­gency pre­pared­ness, tem­po­rary housing, recon­struc­tion projects, and for­eign pro­posals. Its curator, Taro Igarashi, Tohoku Uni­ver­sity pro­fessor of archi­tec­ture and building sci­ence, said the exhi­bi­tion focuses par­tic­u­larly on archi­tec­tural advances after November 2011, show­casing projects intro­duced across Japan.

“What you do after a big disaster—an earth­quake, a tsunami, a super­storm, or an act of terror—can be very sim­ilar even if the cause is dif­ferent. Bringing this exhibit and show­casing Japan’s response pro­vides what we hope is an oppor­tu­nity for shared under­standing in thinking about architecture’s role in dis­aster response and resiliency,” Gill said. “It fits in nicely at North­eastern, where people are thinking about these issues and gen­er­ating new ideas and solutions.”

This article was originally published by news@Northeastern.

This year, awards were presented during the reception. The first award was the Alpha Rho Chi Bronze Medal, which is awarded to graduating senior who has shown an affinity for leadership, performed willing service for the school or department, and gives promise of real professional merit through his or her attitude and personality.

This year’s winner was Matthew Stoner, B.S, 2013.

Also presented was the AIA Henry Adams Medal and Certificate. The American Institute of Architects awards an engraved medal and certificate of merit to the top-ranking graduating student in each architecture program accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. A certificate of merit is awarded to the second-ranking graduating student.

Chris Slater, M.Arch 2013, was the AIA Henry Adams Certificate winner.
Jessica Wilcock, M.Arch 2013, was the AIA Henry Adams Medal winner.

Congratulations to all our graduates!

Micro apartments could be a creative solution to the issue of affordable city living for young, single professionals who want to have the urban experience but often can’t afford the high cost of living in some of our larger, denser cities. Small scale, contained apartments would provide alternatives to living with lots of roommates or having a long commute. These small-scale units do come with issues and one big one is how to use common space effectively to allow all residents to have opportunity to expand their living areas occasionally.

Marciano, Munroe and Matthew all see the potential advantages but also are aware of historic precedents where designs like there have gone wrong. They feel the best plan for micro housing would be part of a larger, mixed-income, mixed use structure.

Check out the full article on The Atlantic Cities here.

Check out the full article on The Boston Globe here.

Today, Fichera leads Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s effort to transform an underdeveloped section along the city’s waterfront into the new Innovation District.

The chance to build a neighborhood from scratch doesn’t come around often. Fichera got involved in Boston’s Innovation District—a hub for startups and high-tech companies—as a designer with the design firm Hacin + Associates, where she started as a co-op. After graduating, she quickly transitioned to full-time employee, focused on developing new public spaces to foster networking and creativity.

“Being the Innovation District manager is kind of a dream come true—a way to turn my side obsession into a full-time job.”

Original Post: http://www.northeastern.edu/magazine/fast-track-in-public-service/

Early in April, the School of Architecture held its annual Annual Student Awards Reception at Middlesex in Cambridge. Each year, awards are given to students in each class for the highest GPA earned and for Design Excellence. The Design Excellence awards are selected by the studio faculty. Award recipients received a certificate and architecture monograph chosen by the fauclty.

We had a great turnout at this year’s reception and congratuate all the recipients.

2013 GPA/Design Awards

Class of 2013 M.ARCH

GPA: Melissa Murphy (4.0)

Design:  Jessica Wilcock

Class of 2013 BS

GPA: Erica Garfinkel (3.843)

Design: Jose Latorre and Shawn Bolanos (tie for Comp studio team, as

voted by faculty)

Class of 2014 BS

GPA: Lama Bitar (3.829)

Design: Benjamin Greer

Class of 2015 BS

GPA: Ryan Gagnebin (3.913)

Design: Edward Kim

Class of 2016 BS

GPA: Mary Harly Hutker (3.915)

Design: Carly Krotowski (Architecture)

Design: Jackson Plumlee (Urban Landscape)

Class of 2017 BS

GPA: Daniel Chen (4.0)

Design: Mindi Chen

Photography by Lizzie Flanagan

Additionally, Jill is conducting research, with the support of Behnisch, on re-imagining learning environments to find innovative, community-orientated approaches to inspire creativity and better equip children with the knowledge and skills relevant today. Jill feels solutions and ideas that are formulated through an interdisciplinary, cohesive approach to be the most captivating. During her years of extensive work and travel around the world, Jill has developed an understanding that successful and engaging spaces emerge from respect for the cultural uniqueness of place. Therefore, while the process for creating today’s learning environments can be applied to many different communities, the results may be drastically different in each community.

For Jill, the two most important factors of her architectural education at Northeastern were cooperative education and studio experience. While working in architectural offices during co-op periods, Jill was positioned to be competitive at top firms upon graduation. She found the studio atmosphere at Northeastern to be exceptional. She contributes this to both the physical space (every student is provided with his or her own desk in studio) and the people. As society becomes increasingly mobile due to technological advances, the physical studio space that allows for both formal and informal human connections – exchange of knowledge – is essential. The office atmosphere at the European architectural firm where Jill works, which receives the majority of its work through competitions, has many similar qualities to the architecture studio at Northeastern. As a result, Jill made the transition from university to the professional world with tremendous ease.

While at Northeatern, Jill was fortunate to work on substantial interdisciplinary research with Governor Michael Dukakis (Distinguished Professor of Political Science), Dr. Robin Chandler (Associate Professor of African American Studies), and many others. Being able to reach beyond the architectural curriculum, to courses offered by the many other prestigious departments at Northeastern, was profoundly influential for Jill and helped her developed leadership skills while learning from talented individuals with different perspectives and approaches.

Jill feels it is critical for students to develop their talent and broaden their perspectives rather than solely developing technical skills. Jill encourages all students to explore course offerings outside their department or school of study, as it may offer new and exciting opportunities that can result from interdisciplinary study and collaboration

DNA ARQUITECTOS  Barcelona, Spain

After studying architecture in Rome as a sophomore, Matthew Stoner spent 5 months in Barcelona, Spain, with the firm DNA Arquitectos, focusing on the conceptual design for a number of modular homes, neighborhood developments, urban landscapes, and civic buildings. Working with DNA was an invaluable experience because Matthew was given a lot of responsibility in the design process at this early stage of his education. It was his first opportunity to try his hand at designing something beyond the classroom. At Northeastern, Matthew developed the skills to visually convey ideas and concepts that bridge disciplines and help design reach a wider audience, and this enabled him to contribute at the architecture firm. Matthew was greatly influenced by the diversity and culture of the other young people at DNA, who helped him to develop both technical proficiency and digital art skills within a creative environment.

PERKINS + WILL  Boston, MA

Matthew spent his next co-op at the Boston office of the architecture and design firm Perkins + Will, where he organized and completed the LEED documentation of a university student center as well as participated in the design of another student center for over nine months. During this time, Matthew worked as part of a design team to test building solutions using a wide variety of media, from building information modeling, environmental analysis software, digital rendering, diagramming, and handcrafted modeling.  He felt incredibly lucky to have been a part of this process, and to have contributed to so many stages of the project. He got to do a little bit of everything along the way, and now has a better understanding and appreciation of the long, careful process that occurs before arriving at a final product. The office was conceived of as a large, open “laboratory,” for the exchange of ideas and architectural innovation, and the co-op experience was enhanced by the many extracurricular educational opportunities, from technology presentations, environmental seminars to testing of new design software.