11.30.06
University Park, PA

Working in East Biloxi
David Perkes, architect and educator

David Perkes is an architect and Associate Professor for Mississippi State University School of Architecture. For the past seven years, David has been the director of the Jackson Community Design Center, and since Hurricane Katrina, has been leading the newly establishment Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. As director of the Design Center, David has overseen projects that range from neighborhood planning to feasibility studies to affordable and sustainable housing. During 2003-2004, he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

11.16.06
University Park, PA

Good Deeds, Good Design
Bryan Bell, architect

Bryan Bell is Founder and Executive Director of DesignCorps, a national non-profit design organization established in 1999. Design Corps shares a vision with many to help solve daily needs and crises of people through design. To achieve this, DesignCorps provides affordable architectural services to those currently underserved by traditional architecture practices, while training students and interns in the practice of quality community-based design.

For more information about Bryan Bell, please visit: http://www.designcorps.org/

10.12.06
University Park, PA

Studio at Large:
Architecture in Service of Global Communities
Sergio Palleroni, architect and educator

Sergio Palleroni, Co-founder and Director of the BaSiC initiative, teaches architecture and sustainable design and development at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is a Research Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development. Prof. Palleroni will share his thoughts about an architecture of global citizenship. He will highlight completed works from Mexico, Cuba, India, and the United States.

For more information about Sergio Palleroni, please visit: http://www.basicinitiative.org/

08.14.06 - 09.01.06
State College, PA

Tri-County Habitat for Humanity Deconstruction Project

Tri-County Habitat for Humanity (TCHFH), in partnership with the Grace  Lutheran Church and the Hamer Center for Community Design at Penn  State, conducted a deconstruction project on two houses in State College, PA.

The purpose of this project was to salvage reusable building materials,  thereby avoiding landfill waste, conserving natural resources and  avoiding pollution from the production of new materials, and providing low-cost building supplies to citizens in the region. The proceeds from the sale of these materials were used to support  the Tri-County HfH - ReStore and affordable housing program. A ReStore is a retail outlet for used and donated building materials that will be  sold to the public. The income from these sales will enable TCHFH to  build more houses for families in need. In the near future TCHFH will be opening its ReStore facility at 1155 Zion Road in Bellefonte. 

For more information about the project, please contact Brad Guy at: guy_brad@yahoo.com or 814-571-8659

06.03.06

Atlanta, GA

Design for Disassembly
Case Study Home Opening

Project parnters include the Hamer Center, the Community Housing Resource Center, and the Environmental Protection Agency

Construction and demolition waste accounts for nearly a third of all waste generated in the United States. This case study home near downtown Atlanta creates new construction while planning for adaptability and disassembly at the onset. Using standard construction components, the home features re-positionable walls and a renovation-ready structure.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/2006news/07-dfd.htm

01.19.06

University Park, PA

Jim Diers, author
Neighbor Power:
building community the Seattle way

Jim Diers, community activist and former head of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods shared his insights and lessons from Seattle neighborhood groups. For more information about Jim Diers, please visit: http://www.neighborpower.org/

01.19.06

University Park, PA

Mathias Heyden, co-editor and founder of K77
Under Construction:
strategies of participative architecture and appropriation of space

Mathias Heyden provided a sample of projects and interviews from Hier Entsteht, a book he co-editied in 2004, that focuses on theories and projects from the 1960s and 1970s that represented informal modernism through participatory means. For more information about Mathias Heyden, please visit: http://www.k77.org