Class Acts

Vanellope von Schweetz, the razor-tongued character in Disney Animation Studio's "Wreck-It Ralph," earned a 2013 Visual Effects Society Award nomination for the animators who brought her to life, including former vizzer Michelle Robinson.

Stephen Byrne '75, a popular Texas A&M construction science educator and construction industry leader who helped shaped the top rated construction science program at Texas A&M, passed away Feb. 11 from complications due to back surgery.

For as little as $1, anyone can help finance the development of Simple Bracket, a March Madness app that its developers, two former Texas A&M environmental design students, say will make it easy and fun to fill out brackets and compete with friends and family for the title of best bracket in the land.

Adrian Smith, designer of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and a champion of sustainable design, will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree from Texas A&M at spring commencement.

Nominations for 2013 College of Architecture Outstanding Alumni Awards, which annually recognize former students of exceptional accomplishment, are being accepted through Feb. 22, 2013.

Digital devices in the very near future won’t just be handheld, said a former Texas A&M environmental design student in an online article about technology trends.

A religious sculpture garden in the Texas Hill Country is attracting visitors because of God’s presence at the site, said its builder, Max Greiner Jr. ‘74, a former Texas A&M environmental design student.

The revitalization of an isolated, impoverished East Dallas neighborhood, a collaboration between its residents and a design group led by Brent Brown ’91, a former architecture student at Texas A&M, was highlighted at a recent conference at Southern Methodist University.

A stream of new products, business concepts and patentable inventions, many praised by national publications or recognized with top finishes in innovation competitions, are regularly created by students in the Texas A&M College of Architecture's Design Process class.

Former students are invited to submit items to the Class Acts section of the archone newsletter. Class Acts highlights the professional and personal achievements of former students and friends of the college. It's a great way to keep in touch with your old classmates. See the "Submit News" link in the newsletter's "featured" section or email news to prollfing@arch.tamu.edu.

Residents will soon be able to boat from their home to work, restaurants and shops at Towne Lake, a masterplanned community in suburban northwest Houston that Peter Barnhart ‘95, a former Master of Science in Land Development student at Texas A&M, is helping to develop.

TEX-FAB, an organization founded by three former Texas A&M environmental design students, is facilitating collaborative exchanges through an emerging network of companies, institutions and design professionals in Texas and the Southwest that are working with digital fabrication and parametric modeling.

For their work on Disney/Pixar’s summer smash hit movie “Brave,” two former Texas A&M visualization students are nominated for an Annie award, the highest honor bestowed by the International Animated Film Society.

A new, $250 million stadium to house Baylor Bears football will be designed with the help of a building information modeling system coordinated by Ken Stone ‘11, a Texas A&M construction science former student. “It should be a very exciting project because the design team is 100-percent on board,” said Stone, an engineer with Flintco, LLC.

Students learned what and what not to do when doing business abroad in a lecture by Harold Adams ’61, retired as chairman of RTKL, which he transformed from a one-office design operation to a firm with projects in more than 60 countries.