t h e i m pa c t o f i n g e n u i t y
S K SLICK JOB J Oil-spill invention nets $1 million prize for two alums, teammates
TWO UW ALUMS who helped devise a better way to ameliorate oil spills were part of a team that won a $1 million prize for its ingenuity. Paul Smith, ’00, and Justin Morgan, ’02, work for The Glosten Associates, a Seattle marine engineering firm that partnered with Elastec, an Illinois-based company that earned the $1 million top prize offered by the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge.
(Wendy Schmidt is married to Google CEO Eric Schmidt). Glosten and Elastec developed a grooved disc that powers through oil spills, sucking up oil at a rate of 4,670 gallons per minute. Smith and Morgan were at the heart of the design effort. Teams participating in the challenge had to meet a target of 2,500 gallons per minute to place and turn their ideas into a functioning device in just 45 days, says Smith, who, along with Morgan, is a principal at Glosten, a firm of naval architects and marine engineers. Both men came to the UW for graduate degrees in Business (Smith) and Computer Science & Engineering (Morgan). Together, they designed the vessel that transformed the typically stationary, oil-skimming tool into a moving, oil-eating machine. If it weren’t for the degree that Smith earned from the Foster School
of Business, Glosten might have missed the opportunity. “My Foster background helped me build the case that sold the venture to my more fiscally conservative partners,” Smith says. —Julie Garner
PHOTO COURTESY ELASTEC/AMERICAN MARINE
STEVE HOLL RECEIVES ARCHITECTURE’S TOP HONOR
AT THE APEX
PHOTO COURTESY ANDY RYAN
ARCHITECT STEVEN HOLL, ’71, was awarded the highest honor in his field—the American Institute of Architects 2012 Gold Medal. Holl, a Bremerton native, is known for taking architecture into the realm of the poetic, even to the edge of what is physically possible. But he also takes seriously such practical matters as energy conservation. Holl’s best-known works include an addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Modern Art in Kansas City (left), five interconnected structures that, like all of his projects, began with watercolor drawings. For Seattle University, Holl designed the Chapel of St. Ignatius. Holl (right) draws inspiration from nature and architectural forebears as well as from philosophers, historians and literary artists. A house on Martha’s Vineyard he designed, for example, was inspired by Melville and his whale. Holl’s firm has offices in New York and Beijing. He is also a tenured professor at Columbia University. “My time at the UW as very important in shaping my focus on architecture,” Holl says. He remembers valuable advice from people such as UW landscape architecture professor Richard Haag, who said, “Be the site.” “Steven Holl consistently delivers news that stays news,” says Daniel Friedman, dean of the UW College of Built Environments, who nominated Holl for the medal. “His buildings embody a singular understanding of the relationship between utility and grace—always poetic, often sublime.”
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