Monday, June 24, 2013

SoArch Announces 2014 Highlands Travel Fellowship

JUN 24 -- The School of Architecture is pleased to announce the Highlands Travel Fellowship for the year 2014. The amount of the award will be $12,000. Applications are due to Kristen Frambes, at kframbes@cmu.edu, no later than 5pm, 30 September 2013. Complete details can be found at this link.

The Highlands Travel Fellowship is named in honor of Professor Delbert Highlands who taught courses in architectural design, design theory, and architectural history from the 1960s through the first decade of this century. He has been widely recognized as a seminal teacher, whose skill, and understanding enriched the educations of generations of students.  For the present, the Highlands Travel Fellowship is being offered on an every other year basis.

Professor Highlands emphasized the "individual" and the "local" in his teaching. His courses were grounded in authoritative scholarship and meticuously presented fundamentals, but always went further: asking students to think of "this time", "this place", and "this occupancy". His teaching presented prospects for a life of work that were inspiring, and that would always present fresh challenges to learn more, to go deeper, to design buildings that truly engage our humanity

"Architecture is an art. Sometimes our physical surroundings support our needs but do not have the capacity to enlighten us. Often buildings and the landscape can be inhabited by our bodies but have no space in our minds. To be architecture, our surroundings must accomodate our spirit and support our images. When a building is useful and embraces the useless at the same time, it is architecture." 

An influencial professor over several decades at Carnegie Mellon University, Professor Highlands has touched so many lives, and his "Delbertisms" are still brought to memory today. In keeping with Professor Highlands' thinking and contributions to the School, the Fellowship supports the study of collections belonging to locales. 

The 2012 winner was William Riehm (BArch ‘94). Mr. Riehm’s travel project, “Exploring Gamiban Vernacular through Louisiana Creole Eyes”, looked for connections between the indigenous architecture of Gambia and the vernacular architecture of Louisiana where he lives.  The 2010 winner, Can Tiryaki (BArch '98), researched and documented Byzantine churches in Asia minor that were converted to Ottoman mosques in his project titled "Transitions in Religious Archiecture in Asia Minor". To view slides from both presentations, please use the links below. 

View Presentation by 2010 Winner: Can Tiryaki 
View Presentation by 2012 Winner: William Henry Riehm