Rice Design Alliance Events Texas, RDA Lectures News, Houston Talks

Rice Design Alliance Texas Events

RDA Lecture Series, USA: Houston’s Future Building Workshop

Aug 3, 2011

Rice Design Alliance Charrette

2011 Design Charrette : Building Workshop Houston’s Future

Interested in designing for a good cause? You can!

Charrette 6 Aug from 8 am – 4 pm
Reception 8 Aug from 6 – 8 pm

Register for this year’s design charrette, “Charrette Shop,” which seeks to maximize the efficiency of Workshop Houston’s current space, and build a plan for expanding this space. More information will be delivered to participants on the day of the charrette, Saturday, 6 Aug 2011 from 8 am to 4 pm (Reception will be held 8 Aug 2011 from 6 pm to 8 pm).

Workshop Houston is a non-profit located in Houston’s Third Ward whose mission is to build foundations for empowered communities through creative and enriching hands-on after-school and summer activities for youth. To learn more, visit Workshop Houston’s website.

We also invite you to a site visit at Workshop Houston (located at 3615 Sauer Street) on Saturday, 30 Jul at 10 am to explore the campus and learn more about the organization.

Rice Design Alliance Events : main page with current information

Rice Design Alliance Film

Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm at the MFAH

May 30, 2011

This film is the first independent video documentary to delve into the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas (shown above). Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive work that questioned everything by posing a set of creative and comedic alternatives.

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Auditorium Theater, 1001 Bissonnet between Main & Montrose.

When: May 24-28, 2011
Tuesday-Thursday, May 24-26, 1.00 pm
Friday, May 27, 7.00 pm (Both filmmakers in attendance)

Tickets: General admission is $7, matinee admission is $6, and children 5 and under are admitted free. MFAH members, senior adults, and students with ID receive a $1 discount.Discount passes, good for 10 admissions each, are $60 ($55 for MFAH members, senior adults, and students with ID).

The MFAH Films box office accepts payment by cash, check, and credit card. Purchase tickets in advance at www.mfah.org/film, in the museum lobbies, or at the box office. The box office opens one hour before show times.

The film is directed by Laura Harrison and Elizabeth Federici (USA, 2010, 78 min.).

RDA – 2011 Initiatives for Houston Winners

Rice Design Alliance Grant Program

18 May 2011

RDA is pleased to announce the winners of the twelfth annual “Initiatives for Houston” grant program, which funds research, study, and problem-solving around Houston’s built environment. From making Houston’s public infrastructure more interconnected to creating an emergency shelter, this year’s winners’ projects seek to improve the conditions of the city.

Winning proposal titles include “Thick Infrastructure” submitted by Susan Rogers, Assistant Professor of Architecture at University of Houston and Director of Community Design Resource Center; “Howard Barnstone Architect: Publication & Online Digital Access” by Architectural Historian Stephen Fox and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Houston Michelangelo Sabatino; and “Emergency Core” by Rice architecture students Peter Stone and Kelly Barlow.

Jury members included Craig Minor, Principal, Minor Design; Wendy Heger, Assistant Director for Planning & Facilities, Houston Public Library; Laura Bellows, Chairman of the Board, W. S. Bellows Construction Corp; Scott Minnex, Director, City of Houston General Services Department; and David Tsai, industrial designer and current Artist In Residence at Houston Community College.

“Initiatives for Houston Grants Program consistently draws a very high caliber of proposals and once again the jury was faced with the challenging task of selecting between a collection of very strong and viable submissions. The best part of the process is realizing that in the end, the real winner is the City of Houston and the potential impact the award winners could make on our city,” says jury member Craig Minor.

Rice Design Alliance – Events Archive from 2011

Rice Design Alliance Sally Walsh Lecture
13 Apr 2011

Rice Design Alliance, in collaboration with the Rice School of Architecture, the AIA Houston Chapter, and the Architecture Center Houston Foundation, invite you to hear Petra Blaisse present the annual Sally Walsh lecture on Wednesday, April 13, 2011.

Blaisse, who will give a talk entitled “Shifting Positions, began her career as a freelance designer and won distinction for her installations of architectural work. Gradually her focus shifted to the use of textiles, light, and finishes in interior space and, at the same time, to the design of gardens and landscapes. In 1991, she founded Inside Outside. The studio works in a multitude of creative areas, including textile, landscape, and exhibition design.

What: The Sally Walsh Lecture featuring Petra Blaisse, free and open to the public.

Where: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Brown Auditorium in the Caroline Wiess Law Building. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is located at 1001 Bissonnet (enter via the Main Street door). Additional parking at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is available until 7:00 p.m. for $6 in the museum garage located at the corner of Binz and Fannin Streets.

RDA Civic Forum

New Orleans, 5 Years After Tomorrow!

9 Mar 2011

RDA civic forum on hurricane planning and preparedness in the Houston region. Our recent lecture series, New Orleans: 5 Years After, concentrated on revitalization techniques after the disaster in the Crescent City. RDA hopes that similar lessons can be applied to the Houston/Galveston region in the wake of Hurricanes Rita and Ike.

The forum will feature County Judge Ed Emmett, Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, and Rice environmental engineering professor Phil Bedient. Lonnie Hoogeboom, Director of Planning and Design at Houston Downtown Management District, and Rafael Longoria, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture, University of Houston, will moderate the discussion.

Rice Design Alliance Symposium

Jaume Plensa Lecture

16 Feb 2011

Rice Design Alliance, in collaboration with Houston Arts Alliance, invites you to a free lecture by sculptor Jaume Plensa at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on February 16, 2011. The lecture will be held one day after Mayor Annise Parker dedicates Plensa’s sculpture Tolerance (seen above), a sculpture project installed along Buffalo Bayou as a gift to the city of Houston.

Plensa will discuss Tolerance, as well as his other work. Tolerance consists of seven human figures approximately ten feet high rendered in his signature stainless steel alphabet mesh. Each figure is formed specifically to rest atop a unique boulder hand-selected by the artist in his native Spain. At night, the figures will glow from within, creating a constellation of beacons.

Plensa designed the installation to reflect Houston’s unity and its diversity. He says, “Despite all of the many differences that make us unique, such as religion or language, we are all trying to achieve similar things, such as love, health, prosperity, and the success of our children.”

WHAT: Jaume Plensa Lecture, free and open to the public.

WHEN: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 6:00 p.m. Pre-lecture reception, and 7:00 p.m. Lecture.

Concrete Utopias

17-18 Feb

As a friend of RDA, we thought you might be interested in a lecture being held at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.
The 1960s was a transformative decade for architectural practice in the Americas, Europe and Asia. It coincided with the social and cultural transformations initiated by student protests and the emergence of the global village theorized by Marshall McLuhan. During those years, a number of architects and urban planners began rethinking the utopian legacy of modernity by looking at the city as a new space and place of intense social interaction. You are invited to join several scholars and architects at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture to discuss the innovations of the utopian projects put forth during the 1960s, as well as their relevance to present day. The symposium will take place February 17-18, 2011 at the College of Architecture Theater, Room 150.

Rice Design Alliance Initiative

Unexpected City: Put Your Houston on the Map

Rice Design Alliance is excited to announce a new initiative, Unexpected City, which celebrates Houston’s unique and most unexpected places.
From the warehouses surrounding downtown to old-school barbershops to open fields, we want to know about the places that give the city its spark. We are asking you to submit your favorite place, which you can do via written word (which can include a short explanation of why this is your favorite place), photography, video, or any other form of expression that suits you best.

Rice Design Alliance Lecture

On January 31, 2011, architect Barry Moore will lecture on Houston Public Library’s renowned circus poster collection. The lecture will take place at the Museum of Printing History, 1324 West Clay Street off of Waugh Drive, and is sponsored by The Friends of the Texas Room, a non profit organization which supports the Houston Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston Public Library.

A reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. followed by the lecture at 7:00 p.m., both of which are free and open to the public.

Rice Design Alliance Events – 2011

RDA 2011 Spring Lecture Series, New Orleans : 5 Years After

With the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina having passed in August, the city of New Orleans remains in the hearts and on the minds of many. Five years ago, images of the Crescent City evoked heartbreak and destruction, but the once-awash city now features a landscape of resilience-both in its people and its infrastructure.

New Orleans: 5 Years After presents the ongoing recovery efforts in New Orleans, including city-wide planning and infrastructure improvements, local neighborhood reconstruction projects, and various other community efforts. Given its close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, Houston and its residents can learn many valuable lessons about hurricane preparedness via the built environment.

The public and RDA members are invited to hear the following speakers during the series:

Wednesday, February 9 – Alejandra Lillo
Partner, GRAFT
Graft Lab

All lectures will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium in the Caroline Wiess Law Building, with a pre-lecture reception beginning at 6:00 p.m. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is located at 1001 Bissonnet. No guaranteed seating for ticket holders after 7:00 p.m. Additional parking at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is available until 7:00 p.m. for $6 in the museum garage located at the corner of Binz and Fannin Streets. For ticket information, please contact the organisers.