The CUDC and CAED are excited to host an interdisciplinary conference on the future of urban agendas. The “Alternatives to the Present” conference will take place November 1-2, 2018 in Cleveland. This call for papers seeks a wide array of projects, propositions, and disciplinary critique from the fields of architecture, planning, sociology, urban geography, and allied disciplines. The conference is in collaboration with The Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS) platform, which is an international nonprofit research organization.Abstracts are due June 5, 2018 and registration opens July 1, 2018. Any questions should be directed to CUDC Senior Urban Designer Jeff Kruth: jkruth@kent.edu
Call for Proposals! 2018 Midwest Urban Design Charrette
This fall, the CUDC and our three academic partners – Lawrence Technological University’s College of Architecture and Design in Detroit, MI; the State University of New York at Buffalo in Buffalo, NY; and Ball State University’s Urban Design Center in Indianapolis, IN – will bring graduate students in urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture to a selected community for a 3-4 day intensive design workshop (or charrette). The Midwest Urban Design Charrette has been conducted for seven consecutive years, most recently traveling to Detroit, MI in 2017 and Akron, OH in 2016.
The CUDC is looking for a community partner from a city, suburb, town, or neighborhood in western New York; northwestern Pennsylvania; northern Ohio; northern Indiana; or the lower peninsula of Michigan, facing a unique urban design or planning challenge and in need of fresh ideas and perspectives.This year, the Midwest Urban Design Charrette is specifically seeking communities with issues related to one or more of the following areas of interest:• resilience to the impacts of climate change;• environmental justice;• patterns of migration into or out of a community, either domestically or internationally; and• immigrant communities.If you’d like for your community to be considered for this year’s charrette, please send a brief proposal no later than April 2, 2018 to cudc@kent.edu. Please see our full RFP in .pdf format here for submission details.Thank you for your interest, & we hope to hear from you soon!
Friend of the CUDC, Chris Maurer of redhouse studio, mentioned in EARTHER article
For their work with bio-materials, or Bioterials as they call them, redhouse studio and principal architect Christopher Maurer were mentioned in a recent article for EARTHER.com titled The Cities of the Future May be Built of Mushrooms. While maybe not mushrooms per se, redhouse is doing exciting research and projects that use mycelium, the threadlike branching hyphae of fungi (think mushroom roots), to bind together waste organic matter like straw, corn stover, or sawdust. Some commercial manufacturers are already making materials for packaging and textiles (ecovative design and Mycoworks) using mycelium. redhouse looks to incorporate the natural abilities of the bioterials to insulate, provide structure, and resist fire to make whole structures.
Material samples for testing.
Having worked in Africa for number of years in under-served communities redhouse hopes to develop techniques that address food security, water security, and economic opportunity, simultaneously with creating eco-friendly shelter. Mushrooms provide high protein food source with minimal energy and resource input and the waste from growing mushrooms can be used to make shelter and filter water and soil. See redhouse’s BIOSHELTER. They are working with local chef, and fellow fun-guy, Jeremy Umansky of Larder Delicatessen to find palatable outlets of the gourmet mushrooms that are not always prized in the developing world.
Interior of bioshelter.
Their newest project could use your support. In BIOCYCLER, redhouse imagines recycling homes entirely. By grinding up lumber, drywall, and insulation of demolished homes and using it for substrates for bio-binders, redhouse can save material from landfills and create new and green building materials directly on site. See their KICKSTER to learn more.
