Event from Virginia Innovation Partnership

Virginia Innovation Partnership:

“The Virginia Innovation Partnership (VIP) is a new statewide network that funds and mentors innovative teams and proof-of-concept projects at all of Virginia’s universities and colleges, with the goal of commercialization.  Attracting adequate venture capital funds and high-quality intellectual and business partners is a key to success. VIP will host the Virginia Ventures Forum to bring active venture capital and corporate funds to the VIP network, thus enhancing exposure of our i6-funded research to private sector investors and enhancing the deal flow to new ventures. This supports innovation, job creation, and increased GDP in Virginia based on new technology that is difficult to off-shore.

This year’s event will be again held in the Madison Building at the U.S. Patent and Trade offices in Alexandria, VA on Friday, September 12, 2014.  This full day event will showcase the funded VIP projects, offer keynote talks on the windows on the future, and provide periods of networking time. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required.”

~VIP

Click here to learn more or to register

Architecture Graduate Uses Ancient Painting Form to Shape Modern Buildings

University of Virginia:

“Anna McMillen reconnected with her childhood passion for making Chinese Literati art – plain ink paintings designed to express the artist’s spirit – and combined it with her study of architecture. The result was a better understanding of the importance of grasping the essence of an architectural project, she said.

McMillen, 21, of Chesapeake, graduated May 18 with degrees in architecture and urban planning from the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, as well as minors in architectural history and global sustainability. She studied the ink wash paintings in Shanghai last summer thanks to an Undergraduate Award for Arts Projects program.

The grant, modeled on the University’s successful Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards program, supports creative expression, such as filmmaking, writing and dance, providing students up to $3,000 for projects that expand their expression and showcase artistic accomplishments.”

~ Writes Ashley Patterson of UVA Today

Click here for the full story

Faculty Profiles: Kris Wernstedt

Virginia Teach:

“Kris Wernstedt is an Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech’s National Capital Region campus in Alexandria. Prior to coming to Virginia Tech in August 2006, he spent 15 years as a Fellow at Resources for the Future, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC that conducts research and policy analysis on environmental quality and natural resources.

Wernstedt studies a variety of issues in environmental planning, management, and policy, with topical emphases on contaminated properties, water resources, and climate change and variability. His broad substantive interests include regulatory innovation, decision making under uncertainty, and institutional responses to risk. Research sponsors have included a range of foundations, think tanks, and federal agencies.

He holds both a Ph.D. and a Master of Regional Planning in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, as well as a Master of Science in Water Resources Management from the University of Wisconsin.”

~Virginia Tech

Click here to learn more about Kris Wernstedt

Faculty Profiles: Damian Pitt

Virginia Commonwealth University:

“Dr. Pitt received his BS from the University of Tennessee in 1998, Master of Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon in 2001, and Ph.D. in Planning, Governance and Globalization from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in 2009…

Dr. Damian Pitt’s work examines efforts to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through energy conservation, renewable energy use, land use and transportation policies. He has written several articles, professional and technical reports. Dr. Pitt’s academic background is complemented by substantive practical experience. Prior to resuming his doctoral studies, he served as a consultant for Cogan Owens Cogan, a nationally respected consulting firm in Portland, Oregon. While at COC, he led a variety of projects for public and private sector clients throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Pitt is committed to the pursuit of community-engaged research, which brings together the talent and resources of the university to work on diverse collaborations that benefit the people and communities of the commonwealth. His teaching incorporates students through service learning courses that have produced a number of energy and climate change planning documents for various localities. His most recent efforts included a series of research projects that used the community of Blacksburg, VA as a model for estimating potential energy consumption and GHG emission reductions through residential energy efficiency retrofits, alternative transportation and other local measures. By comparing areas with varying demographic and transportation patterns, Dr. Pitt’s research attempts to produce a flexible yet predictive model for local action planning that can be applied to different types of communities.”

~VCU

Click here to learn more about Damian Pitt

Faculty Profiles: Timothy Beatley

University of Virginia:

“Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years. Much of Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges. Beatley is the author or co-author of more than fifteen books on these subjects, including Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities (recently translated into Chinese), Habitat Conservation Planning, Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age, and Planning for Coastal Resilience. He has co-authored two books with Australian planner Peter Newman: Resilient Cities and Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning From Sustainable Australian Communities. Beatley’s book Ethical Land Use was declared, by the American Planning Association, to be one of the “100 EssentialBooks in Planning” His most recent book is Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning, which argues that cities can and must be designed to permit daily contact with the natural world. It identifies a variety of means for doing this, from green walls and green rooftops to urban forests and sidewalk gardens. Beatley recently collaborated on a documentary film about green cities and urban nature, entitled The Nature of Cities, which has been shown on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) stations all over the U.S. He also writes a regular column for Planning Magazine, called Ever Green, about environmental and sustainability matters. His research has been funded by a variety of agencies and organizations including the National Science Foundation, Virginia Sea Grant, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among others. Beatley holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in Political Science from UNC, a Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Oregon, and a Bachelors of City Planning from UVA.”

~University of Virginia

Click here to learn more about Tim Beatley

2014 AIA DC Unbuilt Awards

University of Virginia:

“The UVA School of Architecture was well-represented in the 2014 AIA DC Unbuilt Awards this year, with Assistant Professor Jeana Ripple winning two awards, including one Award of Excellence in Materials and Innovation as well as a Design Award, and graduate student Kurt West winning a Design Award. Congratulations Jeana and Kurt! See the all of the winning projects at: http://architecturedcblog.com/aiadc-unbuilt-awards-2014-winners/

Jeana Ripple, Breathe Wall, Award of Excellence in Materialsand Innovation [link]

Designed and prototyped as part of the Design-Driven Manufacturing program, Breathe Wall is an infrastructure-scale solution relying on microstructure-scale properties. BREATHE WALL uses charred Moso bamboo—a species that can be grown locally providing superior performance as a carbonized filter due to dense microstructure and high porous surface area—to create an air-purifying retrofit affixed to interstate sound barriers. Living within 300 feet of a major highway increases asthma rates by 8%. In the Washington DC / Baltimore area, a half-million people live within 300 feet of a major interstate and also within an EPA clean-air non-attainment zone.

Jeana Ripple, Evaporative Skin, Design Award [link]

Designed and prototyped as part of the Design-Driven Manufacturing program founded by Ripple (architecture) and Suzanne Moomaw (urban and environmental planning), Evaporative Skin passively conditions intake air in hot, dry climates. A durable, mold-resistant diamond grid disperses mechanically-delivered water droplets while gaining solar heat to increase airflow and evaporation, effectively acting as a large-scale version of a cellulose cooling pad.

Kurt West, POLYHUT, Design Award [link]

POLYHUT is a site-specific proposal exploring a narrative between offsite construction and architectural tectonics. The construction consists of 300+ CNC-milled multi-wall polycarbonate panels sandwiched together by a system of dowel rod connections that weave and intersect strategically throughout the assembly.   The combination of laminated translucent panels, dowel joints and light patterns create a visual and tactile experience.”

~ Matthew Pinyan, University of Virginia

The Rule of 5: How to Succeed in Local Government

How to Stick Out in Your Organization:

“When you’re just starting out in your career, it’s natural to want to figure out how best to progress and get ahead. For this article, I reached out to several colleagues, who are city managers, deputy or assistant city managers, working in communities across the country, who shared their strategies for impressing the boss.”

~ Writes Julie Underwood on Emerging Local Government Leaders

Click here to read her article