building a better texas

Bob Warden, director of the Center for Heritage Conservation, is heading a team of graduate students using scanning and recording equipment and computer aided-design software to create detailed 2- and 3-D models of one of Texas's most historic structures, the Alamo.

The once-deteriorating Carnegie library in Franklin, Texas, whose restoration was inspired by a 2003 report created by graduate building preservation technology students at Texas A&M, hosted a celebration of its 100th anniversary Jan. 14, 2014.

James Toal ’69, a planning and economic development expert whose distinguished career included a leading role in what WFAA-TV called the biggest urban makeover in Fort Worth’s history, died at his home Dec. 22, 2013.

Leadership in numerous interdisciplinary initiatives at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture has netted Mark Clayton, professor of architecture at Texas A&M, the J. Thomas Regan Interdisciplinary Prize.

Francis Quek, who joined the Department of Visualization in the fall 2013 semester as part of an initiative by The Texas A&M System to attract top-notch faculty, will heighten the department’s involvement regarding the interaction between people and technology.

Communities can improve their hurricane resilience by better protecting wetlands, diversifying their respective economies and building communication networks for socially vulnerable groups, said Sam Brody, Texas A&M professor of urban planning.

Philip Berke ‘81, widely regarded as one of the nation’s top land use planning scholars, is returning to Texas A&M in 2014 to rejoin the urban planning faculty and help lead the university’s Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities.

Texas A&M’s landscape architecture programs and its graduate architecture program were once again ranked among the best in the United States in an annual survey of professional practice leaders who have hired and supervised recent design graduates.

Texas A&M graduate landscape architecture students developed a master plan for a major addition to the university’s College Station campus — the Texas A&M Gardens and Greenway project — a planned transformation of a 46-acre area of West Campus.

A distinguished career in architecture, support of emerging professionals and service to the community has netted Reagan George ’59 the Texas Society of Architects’ 2013 Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Honor of Llewelllyn W. Pitts, FAIA.

A comprehensive plan to guide municipal policymakers in Gonzales, Texas, prepared by graduate urban planning students at Texas A&M, was recognized with the Student Project Award by the Texas Chapter of the Texas American Planning Association.

Cypress Creek Park at Timber Lane, the third in an award-winning series of parks designed by professor Jon Rodiek's landscape architecture students for a suburban North Houston neighborhood, was dedicated Oct. 4, 2012.

Last summer, Texas A&M hazard mitigation researchers partnered with their Dutch counterparts at Delft University in The Netherlands to developed a joint research agenda to combat a common enemy — flooding.

Construction management experts provided advanced training in project planning and scheduling at a Nov. 10, 2013 seminar sponsored by the Texas A&M Department of Construction Science.

The underutilized southeastern area of downtown Houston could see its property values rise with the addition of green space and a signature landmark, concluded Texas A&M Master of Land and Property Development students in an analysis published last spring by the Urban Land Institute’s Houston Council.