academics

“Pop/Op,” a new piece of kinetic art inspired by Pop Art and pop-up books, the result of a collaboration between design and aerospace engineering students at Texas A&M, is a new adornment to the Bright engineering buildling’s south entrance.

Circuit of the Americas, a major new Formula One auto-racing venue in Austin, garnered significant praise in an assessment conducted by Master of Land and Property Development students at Texas A&M, who evaluated the facility in terms of its social/cultural, economic, environmental and sensory values.

A section of the Langford A building’s rooftop was transformed fall 2012 into a green roof with succulents, grasses and a weather station by an interdisciplinary group of Texas A&M students in phase one of a three-year research initiative.

Except for the zombies, the dystopian futures depicted in popular Hollywood fare are edging closer to fact than fiction, said Texas A&M's resident futurist Rodney Hill, who believes hope for a besieged world can be found in creative solutions.

An award-winning eco-park concept aiming at informing the public about the systems bringing food to dinner tables and the waste it produces, developed by students in The Design Process class at Texas A&M, was featured in a Nov. 26 Voice of America newscast.

On Nov. 2, five groups of Texas A&M construction science students took field trips to various destinations around Texas to investigate the latest construction, material production and manufacturing practices.

Two hurricanes and a snowstorm buffeted Texas A&M third-year construction science student Nathan Atkins during his internship, but he said the experience has given him complete confidence that he’s ready to graduate and enter the “real world.”

Construction science students at Texas A&M will soon learn to accurately estimate the cost of construction projects in a state-of-the-art lab funded by a $250,000 gift from San Antonio-based Joeris General Contractors.

The teaching this fall of an experimental undergraduate visualization studio was significantly enhanced by the “vertical studio” concept: in addition to learning from peers and interaction with their instructor, the students gained valuable knowledge through mentor/protégé relationships resulting from a unique mix of novice and veteran students.

Art as therapy for chronic pain and “the disembodying effects of the digital age” were themes of final projects by Natalie Pittman and Jose “Weecho” Velasquez, who will walk the Reed Arena stage Dec. 15, 2012 as the first two graduates of Texas A&M’s Master of Fine Arts program.

For the sixth straight year, the landscape architecture degree programs at Texas A&M are rated among the best in the nation in preparing students for professional success in the field, according to rankings published annually by the Design Futures Council, a national interdisciplinary network of design, product and construction leaders.

Ethical quandaries surrounding a hypothetical bidding scenario were identified and resolved by third-year Texas A&M construction science students in recent presentations made before a panel of visiting industry professionals as part of a classroom competiton.

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.

Historic sites at California’s most famous prison, in the jungles of Belize and closer-to-home in the town of Belton, Texas are three of the most recent documentation projects undertaken by Texas A&M’s Center for Heritage Conservation.

Improving communication among architecture practitioners, educators and students throughout Texas is a new priority for Jorge Vanegas, dean of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, who was recently elected to a two-year term as the Texas Society of Architects’ educator member director.