VMDO’s Kim Smith will be one of several panelists for the Mentoring Program at the AIA National Convention

Orchestrated by The Women in Architecture Committee AIA New York, this program is an opportunity for architects to meet and mentor other women professionals in a structured networking setting. Attendees will include women of varying professional experience levels. Focused on the technique of mentoring “up and down”, the participants will be selected so that small groups will have a range of levels of advancement in the field. Groups will engage in a discussion for approximately 20 minutes. There will be 3 rotations and an opportunity to meet at least 6 other women “face-to-face”. Conversations may range in topic from the best practices for advancing each woman's career to various career paths one can take, etc. The “take away” should be a set of contacts for all at a variety of levels for future professional relationships. For a look at the entire convention schedule, click here!

Charlottesville’s Architecture Week Features Lautner Films

Thanks to the efforts of VMDO’s Dina Sorensen, American Institute of Architects – Central Virginia will celebrate John Lautner’s birthday during its “Architecture Week” with the screening of the two Lautner documentaries: The Spirit in Architecture: John Lautner and Infinite Space: the Architecture of John Lautner.

The Spirit in Architecture will screen April 25, and Infinite Space will screen April 26. See details on the Architecture Week website.

VMDO offers tours of residence halls to representatives of the University of the Free State in South Africa

 
As Winston Churchill famously noted, “we shape our buildings, and then they shape us.” Administrators at the University of the Free State in South Africa are taking a careful look at how new buildings on their campus can shape a promising future for their diverse, and growing, student body. 

Currently in the planning stage for several new residence halls on campus, Rudi Buys, Dean of Student Affairs, Quintin Koetaan, Director of Housing and Residence Affairs, and architect Anton Roodt made a study trip to the United States to explore some of the best thinking in current residence hall design. VMDO was proud to share a day of their visit touring some of our projects at James Madison University 
and the University of Virginia. We were excited to share the conceptual and material strategies that underlie our work and discuss how these strategies could support students in the South African context. 

Maggie Burkhart Evans, the Director of Residence Life atJames Madison University, graciously hosted our visit on the James Madison campus. She offered our visitors an extensive tour of James Madison facilities and thorough understanding of the strategies behind their residence hall designs. Nancy Takahashi, Principal of Hereford College (and wife of VMDO’s own David Oakland), joined us for a tour of the UVa Lawn and its modern interpretation, Hereford College. 

We are excited to stay in touch with our new South African friends to see how innovative thinking in residence hall design can shape a rich learning environment at the University of the Free State. 

 

Who is the most influential recruiter for a University or college?

Imagine the most influential recruiter for a University or college. The dean? The students? The website? What if I told you it was the director of buildings and grounds. As is often the case, first impressions matter the most. A well kept campus environment shouts “Welcome! We care about how you learn!” The VMDO book club explored this and many other factors both physical and psychological in the book: Educating By Design, Creating Campus Learning Environments that Work, by C. Carney Strange & James H. Banning. This was the kick-off book for the club. The authors explored many factors that influence the campus learning environment as researched and categorized by many leading experts in the fields of education and psychology. The club seemed most drawn to the idea of community as a theme that weaves the sections of the book together. How does environment cradle community and in turn community cradle the individual?

The book club will meet in the near future with Maggie Burkhart Evans (Director of Housing at JMU) and her husband, John Evans (Director of Accommodations at UVA) to discuss the book as well as current trends in housing and the campus environment as a whole.

On to the next book…