Inspire Vol 6 Issue 1

VOLUME 6 | ISSUE 1 SPRING 2016

LEGAME (BOND) Design students explore mother-child attachment through installation and performances at the Venice Biennale: 56th International Art Exhibition PAGE 2

C O V ER S TO R Y

V EN I CE BIENNALE

By Pia Schneider & Heather Sauer

Students explore mother-child bond with performances, installation

of “All the World’s Futures” through an exploration of legame (bond), said Rome Program Resident Director Pia Schneider, who coordinated the effort.

Illuminated mother-and-child sculptures were displayed behind gauze curtains suspended from domed lights. Photos by Alexander Kuck (above) and Pia Schneider (above right).

How to heal a wounded world? That is the question posed to 48 Iowa State students who studied abroad last fall with the College of Design Rome Program and participated in the Venice Biennale 2015: 56th International Art Exhibition.

From Oct. 22-24, the College of Design presented “Biennale Sessions” in the Arsenale, the former Venetian shipyard, where renowned artists from around the world exhibit their contemporary work.

Students majoring in graphic design, interior design and integrated studio arts addressed the Biennale’s overall theme 2

“In his opening address, Biennale President Paolo Barrata observed that ‘despite the great progress made in knowledge and technology… the world before us today exhibits deep divisions and wounds, pronounced inequalities and uncertainties as to the future,’” Schneider said. “We chose to interpet the broader theme from a psychological perspective and focus on the importance of the mother-child bond, with the goal of raising emotionally healthier, more resilient children—leading to a better future for humankind.”

to working with only one material: gauze.

This semi-translucent fabric, traditionally used for medical dressing, “related well to the theme of a wounded world and to the notion of bandaging, wrapping and healing,” Schneider said. “It also referenced the act of swaddling newborns and bonding with children.”

The ISU sessions drew attention to the mother-child relationship in prison and the practice of separating women offenders from their children, in particular from their newborn infants.

In late September, Schneider and several students visited the Rebibbia prison nursery in Rome to interview staff, childcare workers and inmates. They returned with photography instructor Serafino Amato to document an art therapy session that engaged mothers and children through play and dance with gauze. Other students and faculty visited the women’s section of the Giudecca prison in Venice. The interviews and images, together with other research, helped inform the installation and performance concepts the teams developed for the Biennale Sessions.

Wounds and healing

Playful and somber

Students formed interdisciplinary teams, each with a faculty adviser, to research and compare the approaches to this issue in the United States and in Italy. While in most cases, US newborns are separated from their incarcerated mothers within 24 hours, Italy’s law allows infants to remain with their inmate mothers for three years, Schneider said.

Beyond the constraint provided by focusing on “bond,” students were limited

From a wide range of initial ideas, students decided to create five oversized sculptures representing pregnant women and mother-and-child figures, which were constructed of gauze dipped in gesso draped on chicken wire.

“We built most of the torsos and arms in the studio in Rome and carried them on the train to Venice,” said Taylor Campbell, a senior in integrated studio arts from Pleasant Hill, Iowa.

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At the Arsenale the students finished fabricating and assembling the figures and suspended them with fishing line from the domed ceiling lamps in the exhibition space. Gauze curtains surrounding the figures served as projection walls for animations and video related to issues of attachment/separation and children’s play experiences behind bars.

Students also developed two performance pieces—one playful and interactive, the other somber and contemplative—during which they embodied living sculptures, wrapped in and bound tightly to one another with gauze.

“The first performance was meant to be fun. We wanted everyone to participate— students as well as adult and child visitors to the exhibition,” said interior design junior Cristina Diaz, Aurora, Illinois. “The prop team blew up giant, medium and small white balloons to represent toys and we encouraged people to toss them back and forth with us and with each other.”

In the second performance, student pairs used large pieces of gauze to demonstrate different forms of attachment. “We hoped guests would watch and think about the bonding experience between mothers and children,” Diaz said. “We intentionally made it open to interpretation.”

Other teams were responsible for designing lighting, projection and sound; developing branding, including an event identity, website and posters; documenting the process and sharing the event on social media.

“We posted a promotional video on Facebook to show the design process for the exhibition. We did a timelapse during the installation setup using a GoPro camera mounted in the balcony for an aerial view,” said McLean Jinkinson, a graphic design senior from Clear Lake, Iowa. “We also did interviews with students and faculty throughout the session in Venice to include in a documentary.”

performances and further investigate the idea of mother-infant attachment as a critical basis for securing a child’s future.

Invited speakers included members of the corrections communities, scholars whose work focuses on prison environments and health conditions of female inmates, and a representative of a nonprofit organization devoted to supporting children of incarcerated mothers through play and art therapy while in prison.

“One of our goals as a study abroad program is to expose our students as much as possible to the current social and cultural environment. Every semester, we devise new strategies for crosscultural integration, and the Biennale project provided such an opportunity,” Schneider said. “Our aim is to train our students to become culturally competent professionals with a great respect for other traditions and other values—another approach to achieving a peaceful future.”

Crosscultural integration The third day of the event featured a fashion show of 10 gauze garments designed and produced by women inmates of the Giudecca prison whose work detail is in tailoring. The prisoners received special permits to travel to the Arsenale and help dress students in the garments, some of which represented bridal gowns and maternity dresses.

The session ended with a colloquium intended to provide an opportunity to reflect on the installation and Above right: In the first of two performances, visitors were encouraged to play with large sheets of gauze and white balloons representing toys.

Below: Students model gauze garments made by women inmates of the Giudecca prison in Venice. Photos by William Bassett.

3

A LU M N I P R O F I L E

NICOLE MITRA

By Heather Sauer

Graphic designer finds adventure working abroad

Nicole (Fehlhaber) Mitra thought she’d found her dream job. For six years she and her architect husband, Mayukh, had run a successful design firm in India, but both sought a change. She made the leap first, accepting a highly paid position in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as the creative director at Insignia Worldwide— a large advertising agency where she had 12 graphic designers on her team. They developed designs for five-star luxury hotel groups such as Fairmont, Jumeirah, Anantara and Viceroy.

“It was a very glamorous job at first. But working from 7 in the morning until 10 every night got old quick,” Mitra (BFA 2001 Graphic Design) said during recent conversations via Skype and email. “I think working for these big agencies early in your career is best, because you gain valuable experience and learn how to produce fast under extreme pressure. But once you start a family, forget it! It doesn’t work if you want to see your children.”

When her husband was hired at an architecture firm an hour’s drive from Dubai, they moved with their children— son Ty, 4½, and daughter Maya, 3½—to Abu Dhabi, the capital and the largest of the seven emirates comprising the UAE. Mitra, also pregnant with their third child, wasn’t sure where she would find 4

Clockwise from above left: Mitra with colleagues at Al Dhafra Petroleum in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. City skyline with new ADNOC building at left. Mitra with husband Mayukh, son Ty and daughter Maya; they welcomed daughter Ella in February. Opposite: Mitra’s label design for Glenburn Tea’s range of luxury tea blends. All images courtesy of Nicole Mitra.

a new job, but soon discovered the value of wasta or “who you know.” “I took my son to orientation at his kindergarten class and started talking with another parent. He asked what I do and when I said I’m a graphic designer, he said his company was looking for a graphic designer and I should send him my portfolio. I interviewed and got the job!”

Since October Mitra has been the sole graphic designer for Al Dhafra Petroleum, a sister company of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company), one of the world’s leading oil companies. She works with the corporate support team in the office of the CEO. “This was a new position; instead of outsourcing graphic design work they decided it would be better to employ someone in house. Having owned my own company helped, but in this country, like most others, it’s about who you know—it’s how things are done,” Mitra said. “These connections help you find new opportunities.”

A foot in the door The same might be said for Mitra’s experience in India.

After graduating from Iowa State in 2001, Mitra moved to Chicago to work as a graphic designer for Heyman Corporation. She created fashion lines (“mostly illustrating patterns in Adobe Illustrator all day”) with a team of fashion designers for brands like Target, Oshkosh B’Gosh, Calvin Klein and Stride Rite.

She met Mayukh in Chicago. They were married in her hometown of Rockford, Illinois, in 2007, and the couple soon decided to move to Kolkata, India, where her German-Indian husband grew up. “It was exciting to me; I was curious to learn about the Indian culture and live in a new country. We planned to stay for two years but ended up staying for eight.”

Mitra initially joined Ambuja Realty as its lead graphic designer—the first American ever hired by this multibilliondollar real estate company. She managed

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a team of four designers who created a range of materials, including billboards, brochures, restaurant menus and invitations. She also created templates for an in-house magazine from logo conception to departmental pages to final printed publication.

“I realized soon after moving to Kolkata that there weren’t many graphic designers around, especially none from the United States. Westerners are looked up to in the business world there, so that was also an advantage,” Mitra said.

“I got my foot in the door, networked with people at social events and learned the work culture. I also learned how to speak so people could understand me— in India, I was the one with the accent!”

Word of mouth Within about a year, the Mitras established their own firm, Mitra Design, which specialized in architecture and interior, graphic and web design.

“Most of our business came by word of mouth. When people discovered I was a graphic designer and my work was good, word spread fast. Amazing clients, like the Birla family—which in India is like working with the Rockefellers in America—called with projects they would have normally given to firms in cities like Mumbai or New Delhi,” Mitra said.

The Mitras also struggled with a prevailing penchant for “gaudy, tacky things,” she said. “Half the battle as an architect, interior designer or graphic designer is educating your clients about design. We had grown weary of that battle, so the job in Dubai seemed like a great opportunity.”

Work-life balance Now at Al Dhafra Petroleum, Mitra works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, which allows her to see her children and tuck them into bed each evening. “With two small kids and a baby on the way, Insignia wasn’t my dream job after all. I’m making the same salary working here and I’m in charge of every project from start to finish. You realize as you get older that having balance between your work and your family life is very important to your overall happiness.”

The company treats employees well, she said, and she enjoys working with Emirati nationals and learning about their culture.

Part of that learning involves the values and traditions she must respect when designing for a Middle Eastern company.

have to wear an abaya (traditional long, black robe) or hijab (head scarf), but there is a dress code: Long pants or skirts past the knees and three-quarter-length or long-sleeve shirts for expats.”

Adventurous spirit Such adaptation is part of working internationally, something she first learned to appreciate while participating in the College of Design Rome Program as a junior in 2000. That experience, she says, helped prepare her for living and working abroad.

“My semester in Rome was the first time I ever lived overseas. Experiencing that at such a young age really opened my eyes to the world outside of America. It gave me confidence and an appreciation of other cultures,” Mitra said.

“When you live in a different culture there are things you won’t necessarily be comfortable with at first, so you need to have an adventurous spirit. I have found that a friendly smile can get you very far in both your career and your life.”

“I’m currently designing two different logos, but each must be viewed in English and in Arabic. I’ve had to learn the Arabic alphabet and have people help me to make sure I’m writing it correctly.

I’ve created e-cards like Islamic New Year greetings for the company, which requires learning about Muslim holidays and traditions I’m not familiar with,” Mitra said.

She’s also learning what is appropriate professional attire for Western women in Abu Dhabi. “When I worked in Dubai at the advertising agency, people wore sexier, trendier clothes, but here with a corporate job I’m expected to cover myself. I don’t

Above: Mitra develops designs for Al Dhafra Petroleum in both English and Arabic. Below: A cover featuring the Hindu goddess Durga and inside spread for Inner Eye magazine, which Mitra created for Ambuja Realty while living in Kolkata, India.

The nature of business and the relative lack of a “design culture” in Kolkata became frustrating, however. “Things move very slowly,” Mitra said. “People say they want something right away, but it never happens. The traffic is so horrendous, for example, that clients arrive 45 minutes late for meetings or may not show up at all and fail to call to inform you. This is completely acceptable there, but it’s difficult to get used to.”

5

I N T ER N AT I O N A L S T U D I O

ARCHITECTURE & INFRASTRUCTURE Projects address urban context of Kigali, Rwanda

By Heather Sauer

then developed an intervention by defining a key issue and site to focus on.

Above: Students from Iowa State and the University of Rwanda collaborate during a workshop in Kigali. Above right: Main road in Nyabisindu, Kigali— one of two neighborhoods the students studied. Photos by Marwan Ghandour.

It’s known as “the land of a thousand hills.” Mountains and hills dominate much of Rwanda, a country half the size of Maryland whose capital city, Kigali, is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in east-central Africa. Stemming from the city’s hilly topography, the major commercial and governmental units are situated on its hilltops while agricultural fields occupy the floodplain below; residential neighborhoods inhabit the slopes in between.

In recent years, Rwanda’s government has sought to make the country, and specifically Kigali, a regional center of business. A new master plan completed in 2013 addresses mainly commercial growth and densification in the city center, without enough provisions for low-income neighborhoods lacking adequate sanitation, transportation and other basic infrastructure.

Last fall, architecture Professor Marwan Ghandour’s fourth-year comprehensive 6

design studio studied two Kigali neighborhoods in transition: BiryogoGikondo and Nyabisindu. The goal was to assess the living and spatial conditions of these neighborhoods and propose architectural interventions that engage the topographical, social, economic and material particularities of the place, he said.

“Kigali’s master plan doesn’t really extend to communities outside the central business district,” Ghandour said.

“City leaders are trying to deal with a huge population whose neighborhoods were never regulated and don’t have infrastructure for greywater, solid waste and so on. Our studio fit within their efforts to experiment with alternative approaches to development that integrate architecture with new forms of infrastructure.”

The class first did a general study of the two neighborhoods, including urban mapping and analysis using highresolution maps and photos. Each student

In a concurrent studio at the University of Rwanda in Kigali, 24 Rwandan architecture students developed projects related to the agricultural wetlands in the city’s floodplain. The two groups met during a weeklong collaborative workshop, part of an optional Iowa State field trip to Rwanda Nov. 14-29.

Learning on site Of the 15 students in the ISU studio, 10 traveled to Rwanda. The trip included visits to contemporary architectural projects by Sharon Davis Design, MASS Design Group and Active Social Architecture, as well as office visits to the latter two firms. The trip also included visits to a number of significant architectural, urban and natural sites throughout the country.

“The highlight of the trip was the workshop that brought together students from both universities. We presented the projects we’d been working on independently in each studio. We then formed three joint groups to work on three chief issues: clear water (fit for drinking), greywater (from cooking and cleaning) and waste,” Ghandour said.

Though the workshop projects were

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different from the students’ individual projects, these infrastructural issues were relevant to all of them, he said.

The students collectively visited Biryogo and Nyabisindu to interview residents, analyze urbanization patterns, document construction methods and develop strategies for intervention. The Rwandan students, some of whom live in these neighborhoods, helped their ISU peers interact with the residents and navigate the neighborhoods’ complex fabric. Back at the university, the three groups designed proposals for small interventions that would improve living conditions while reinforcing the neighborhoods’ significance in the urban environment of Kigali.

Greywater filtration “Throughout Kigali you will find large open drains running from the tops of the hills through the residential neighborhoods and eventually reaching the wetlands at the bottom,” said Kendra Koch, a double major in architecture and environmental studies from Adel, Iowa.

“The drains carry rain water contaminated by greywater from homes along the hillsides. This polluted water is used to irrigate crops grown in the wetlands.

And that food ends up on the plates of residents of the surrounding neighborhoods—a public health problem.”

For her individual project, Koch developed a community center for Biryogo that integrated a spatial system to purify the water that drains down the hillsides before it meets the valley floodplain. Koch designed a terrace system with a vegetation buffer to filter out contaminants and provide a better transition between the city’s urban areas and the agricultural landscape.

“Once we visited Kigali I was surprised at how well my proposal fit into the actual site and at the real need for something like that,” Koch said.

In addition to the greywater filtration and a drip irrigation system, Koch proposed construction of a training center with demonstration plots where local residents could learn about more sustainable farming practices they could implement in the wetlands directly below.

Community hubs

“Residents could socialize while preparing meals to take home to their families. The hubs also would offer multi-use space for training seminars by NGOs and for community meetings,” he said.

Originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, and now from Ames, Kurnia also proposed pedestrian path improvements to prevent erosion from heavy annual rainfall and collect rain water for communal uses.

“These enhanced pedestrian paths between the houses will also serve as a place for children to play safely and for local residents to sell their homemade goods and agricultural crops,” he said.

The workshop and neighborhood visits with the Rwandan architecture students helped Kurnia refine his design, he said.

“It was great to see the real site and get a better sense of how the project would serve the community.”

Joshua Kurnia’s project focused on Nyabisindu, “a developing neighborhood with a lack of clean water and community gathering space.”

Ghandour hopes to build an ongoing relationship with the University of Rwanda and offer additional opportunities for collaboration and exchange between students and faculty of both institutions.

He sought to establish community hubs throughout the neighborhood with communal kitchens fueled by a sustainable, affordable biogas system using widely available animal dung to produce methane for cooking.

“African cities are growing fast. In the near future we expect them to become the focus of a lot of development and design work. It’s important for our students to understand how context defines the way they practice architecture,” he said.

Below: Kendra Koch’s proposal for the Biryogo community center features clearwater storage and greywater filtration techniques. Illustrations by Koch.

7

I N T ER N AT I O N A L S T U D I O

S U S TA I N I N G TR ADITION

Ghana studio seeks ways to boost marketability of local crafts

Imagine this is your course syllabus: Craft a pair of sandals from motorcycle tires. Make charcoal from crop waste left over after harvest. Create a pants pocket from pieces of traditionally woven cloth.

Above left: Batik-dyeing workshop at Koforidua School for the Deaf in Ghana. Photo by Chris Martin.

Above: Associate Professor Chris Martin uses a traditional bow drill to create a bauxite bead, a craft process unchanged for hundreds of years. Photo by Nikolai Argue.

These may not sound like your typical college assignments, but for students in art and visual culture Associate Professor Chris Martin’s ArtIS 362 studio, they’re more than that—they’re possible solutions to issues in countries around the world.

First offered in fall 2015, the aptly named Artists, Designers and Sustainable Development studio focuses on how developing countries—Ghana, in particular—can find sustainable ways to make traditional products that embrace local culture. The idea goes back to Martin’s time in the Peace Corps; he and his wife, Tammi (BS 1989 Hotel & Restaurant Management), now a program assistant for the ISU Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, served in Ghana from 2008 to 2010.

“While we were there, we saw some needs that weren’t being met and realized 8

By Chelsea Evers

a perfect opportunity for design students,” Martin (BFA 1990 Craft Design) said.

through those craft processes? Thus, the framework for the Ghana studio was built.

“One of the biggest things we noticed was that while Ghana is modernizing, traditional craft is being left by the wayside. There used to be a huge market in Ghana for things like kente weaving and glass beadmaking, but young Ghanaians don’t want to go into handicrafts anymore because they feel there’s no market for it.”

Reimagining product design

Martin, believing there was a way to not only preserve the art of traditional craft but do so sustainably, asked himself: What can I do to help realize a livelihood in traditional craft that’s been around for years? What can my Iowa State students do to envision useful products that can be created

This past fall, 13 students—with majors ranging from integrated studio arts and architecture to pre-biological/pre-medical illustration and performing arts—enrolled in the studio and traded their winter break for a three-week trip to Ghana to

Members of the Dag aare tribe faculty at dance wit the Mogno h students ri eco-villa Photo courte and ge in northe sy of Sarah ast Ghana Reagan. .

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learn, work and ideate alongside talented Ghanaian craftspeople.

Before the trip, though, the class spent a semester reframing their ideas of traditional product design and manufacturing. First, students were challenged to repurpose what would normally be considered trash into something useful. Projects included turning used water bottles into a kayak, using inside-out chip bags to create a solar reflective panel and crafting something similar to a Rubik’s Cube from empty soda cans.

While many of the products were deemed unsuccessful, students say it was the process, not the final product, that made them consider how they could use this “out of the box” way of thinking when it comes to Ghanaian crafts.

“It got us thinking about using things that aren’t normally used in making crafts,” said Autumn Dunham, a junior in integrated studio arts from Jewell, Iowa. “We ended up using our knowledge from our own crafts to work on ideas for traditional crafts that Ghanaians could make and sell in the United States.”

As a follow-up to the recycled-material project, students worked in teams to complete a traditional Ghanaian craft, such as glass beadmaking, kente weaving, brass casting or batik dyeing, then use those processes to create a sellable new product.

“This allowed us to appreciate traditional craft while also looking with a critical eye to find ways to create sustainable methods of production,” said Sarah Reagan, Apple Valley, Minnesota, a double major in integrated studio arts and international studies. “It ended up teaching me a lot about the need for more conscious consumerism.”

Ghana as a classroom From Dec. 19 to Jan. 9, the Martins led the students, some of whom had never traveled outside the Midwest, on the trip to Ghana. Their first task? Find an unfamiliar item in a crowded market in Ho, the capital of the Volta Region.

“We did this to get the students to go out in public, ask questions, talk to the locals and not just make a beeline straight for the item they needed,” Chris Martin said.

“It was a good way to get students more comfortable from the beginning.”

Throughout the rest of the trip, the class participated in workshops on a variety of crafts, including Adinkra (stamping on cotton cloth with symbols representing virtues), kente weaving, glass and bauxite beadmaking, batik dyeing and brass casting. One of the most profound parts of the trip, students say, was their experience with Our Talking Hands, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to helping Ghana’s deaf people make a living through traditional crafts.

students and teachers at Our Talking Hands, and many of them took full advantage.

“To actually go and see their products was eye-opening,” said Nicole Sommers, a fifth-year architecture student from Faribault, Minnesota. “It was a little difficult for us narrow it down to what they need and what we can help with.

They need assistance with the next little steps—not necessarily the bigger picture, which is something we all struggled to keep in mind throughout the trip.”

A big part of that help, the class learned, is knowing when to step back and trust locals to take charge. Martin says this issue is something he hopes to address in the studio as it continues in a second year and beyond.

“What you have to do when you’re trying to effect change is to find a champion who will head up the project after you leave,” he said. “I would love to see this turn into a semester-long project, where we can partner with Ghanaians to collaborate and find both the problem and the solution together.”

“The students at Our Talking Hands are growing up in a place where people don’t necessarily think they can be productive members of society,” Dunham said.

“They’re trying to break that stereotype by learning a trade they can use later in life.”

Martin says his students were given free rein to interact with and learn from

“

Glass-beadm aking wor kshop at C Odumase Krobo in so ed utheast Gha i Beads in tribe is kn na. The Kro own for th is craft. Ph bo oto by Chris Martin.

”

It ended up teaching me a lot about the need for more conscious consumerism.

ia Market, Kumasi’s Kejet Students tour t Africa. es W in en market the largest op . rtin Photo by Chris Ma

– Sarah Reagan, Apple Valley, Minnesota

9

G LO B A L P R AC T I C E

BECKMAN SCHOL ARS

By Veronica Lorson Fowler

Architecture students gain global experience in China a permanent job after completing the scholars program and graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in August.

“But this is such an incredible opportunity. Just about every day, I think about how this is setting me up for doing things I couldn’t have even imagined.”

Global practice skills Students like Johnson are accomplishing everything the Beckman Scholars program set out to achieve. Established

by Bill (BArch 1972) and Connie (Matsui) Beckman, the program covers nearly all the expenses for two ISU architecture students—one undergraduate and one graduate—to travel to China to study and work for several months. The program is entering its third year with the goal of raising Iowa State’s profile and helping students develop strong global practice skills that prepare them to become leaders in the increasingly international professional world of architecture.

Rachel Johnson visits Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai’s Old City during her semester abroad in China. Photo courtesy of Johnson.

You don’t need to tell Rachel Johnson that the world is getting smaller.

Then an Iowa State senior in architecture, Johnson, from Eagan, Minnesota, headed for Shanghai last spring as part of the Beckman Scholars China Study Abroad Program and became so enamored with what she found that she never returned.

“I think my parents were a little taken aback,” she said with a laugh during a recent Skype interview. It was conducted from her industrial-chic office at Disney Research in Shanghai, where she landed 10 10

As with many study abroad programs, students spend a semester studying at another institution—in this case, Tongji University in Shanghai. But the Beckman program is exceptional in that it includes a professional component. Participants gain invaluable real-world experience by doing a summer internship in the China offices of United States-based architecture and design firms—Goettsch Partners, DLR Group and Gensler.

Johnson says it’s this unusual combination of extended living, studying and working in China that makes it so powerful in cultivating students to become international links in the profession moving forward. She spent spring 2014 in Italy with the College of Design Rome Program and loved it, but wished there had been more time and structure to delve more deeply into the culture and make stronger connections with Italian students and architects.

In China, she’s making personal and professional connections that will last a lifetime. She’s learning Mandarin, and she’s able to observe subtle cultural differences that affect the working relationship between American architects and Chinese contractors. If an architect doesn’t detect or know how to negotiate these differences, it can slow projects and create misunderstandings, Johnson said.

She’s learning first hand how to engage with Chinese colleagues and clients.

Other participants have similarly high praise for their experiences. Dora Pollak (MArch 2015) said her Shanghai study and work experience in 2014 “gave me insight into contemporary urban design issues, the development of style in modern and historical architecture and emerging issues of sustainability in China.”

Mutual goals and benefits Steven McKay, senior principal/global design leader with DLR Group in its Seattle office, worked with Iowa State on crafting the internship portion of the Beckman Scholars program. DLR, which has offices across the US and also Shanghai, already had a close working relationship with the ISU Department of Architecture and College of Design.

The Beckman Scholars program was an ideal fit because it tapped into DLR’s commitment in China.

“We want to be invested in the people and the places and the history, so we work in China with Chinese people,” McKay said. “The power and the value that brings is clear.”

McKay said DLR also “feels the intern experience is incredibly important; we do everything we can to support interns.

Providing professional experience to students through this program also helps advance our international profile and our engagement in China.”

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College of Design Dean Luis RicoGutierrez says it’s critical that ISU students become more internationally connected, and the college is asking more of its programs overseas.

“Traditional study abroad programs offer opportunities for personal growth and help develop students as world citizens. Global practice programs like the Beckman Scholars program take this a step further, adding a professional training component that exposes students to different modes of practice,” he said.

Increasingly, the client base of many firms is global, Rico-Gutierrez points out. “In particular, China’s growth is fueling the development of very interesting projects.

The combination of international study with work experience in an international office is very attractive for employers.”

Life-changing experience

Through the Beckman Scholars China Study Abroad Program, students’ travel and tuition expenses are covered and they are given a stipend, making it affordable for a wider range of students. This is achieved with a Beckman scholarship, a scholarship from the sponsoring design firm and free housing offered by Tongji.

It’s that affordability that attracted Brandon Fettes, a Master of Architecture student from George, Iowa, who was selected for this year’s program. Having never traveled outside the US, he looks forward to experiencing the fast-paced, urban environment of Shanghai from February through August.

“I probably would have been less inclined to apply without the assistance,” Fettes said. “A major reason I haven’t traveled internationally before was the financial implications.”

inspire Inspire is published twice per year by the Iowa State University College of Design and is mailed to more than 15,600 alumni and friends.

Newsletter Staff Editors Heather Sauer, Charles Sauer Writers Chelsea Evers, Veronica Lorson Fowler, Heather Sauer, Pia Schneider Photographers Nikolai Argue, William Bassett, Marwan Ghandour, Seung Yeon Kim, Alexander Kuck, Chris Martin, Nicole Mitra, Pia Schneider, Julie Stevens Graphic Designer Alison Weidemann

Bill Beckman knows how life-altering an international trip can be. The Ames native, the first in his family to attend college, traveled to Europe in 1969 with 40 architecture classmates and visited cities including Helsinki, Berlin and London.

“I felt this experience to be extraordinary and life changing,” he recalled.

The Beckman Scholars program is important in another aspect, RicoGutierrez says. It has a multiplier effect: It gives individual students a professional boost and expands opportunities for the larger architectural community in the United States, thus improving the career outlook for future students.

Contact Us 134 College of Design Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011-3091 designews@iastate.edu design.iastate.edu facebook.com/CollegeofDesign @ISUdesign

Beckman went on to graduate school at Stanford University, where he met his wife. After years of serving on the ISU College of Design Advancement Council and contributing to Iowa State in other ways, “I thought, ‘How could I best make a difference?”

The program also enhances international ties between universities and design firms, which in turn encourages more international exchanges. And in the bargain, the Beckman Scholars program has created a template for expanding global opportunities for students in other disciplines and countries.

Alumni Updates Have you married, moved, changed jobs, published or exhibited your work or earned an award? Let us know at www.design.iastate.edu/ shareyournews.php.

He reflected on the impact of that European study-abroad trip and decided to do one better than what he had been able to experience. “I said, let’s do something even more nontraditional.”

“No one else has anything like this,” Beckman said. “It’s evolved exactly the way I’d hoped.”

Dora Pollak at Shanghai’s famous waterfront, known as the Bund.

Photo courtesy of Pollak.

On the Cover During a fashion show at the Venice Biennale last October, Iowa State interior design students model gauze garments made by women inmates of the Giudecca prison in Venice.

Photo by Julie Stevens.

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Office of the Dean 134 College of Design Ames, IA 50011-3091

VOLUME 6 | ISSUE 1 | SPRING 2016

Studio Andino crowdfunding campaign a resounding success Iowa State’s first-ever crowdfunding campaign—conducted on behalf of the College of Design’s Studio Andino— exceeded its $7,000 goal, with $9,480 raised to support the spring 2016 interdisciplinary option studio taught by architecture Associate Professor Clare Cardinal-Pett. The studio works with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations as well as faculty and students from the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences on projects that aid marginal neighborhoods in the Lima metropolitan region.

Of the 73 donors, 21 were Studio Andino alumni from each of the prior four years of the studio and 12 were Peruvians, including some students who have been involved all four years of the studio.

This spring, the studio is continuing to improve a community center playground in an economically challenged neighborhood on Lima’s periphery and developing elements of a wharf improvement master plan produced by the 2015 studio. Projects include recycling one of many wooden fishing boats abandoned on the beach near the pier, which will help create a public awareness of issues affecting the fishing industry.

Eighteen ISU students majoring in architecture, landscape architecture and interior design are collaborating with counterparts in Peru via the university’s CyBox, Facebook and Skype. They will travel to Lima over spring break in March.

A majority of funds raised will go toward building materials; transportation

Students will recycle an abandoned fishing boat like this one. Photo by Seung Yeon Kim.

expenses in Peru; the cost of water, power and meals provided by community members for construction crews; tools and hardware purchased from local shops; and small project-management stipends for Peruvian partners. Funds above the initial $7,000 will reduce the study-abroad program fee for this year’s studio by about $100 per student, Cardinal-Pett said.