Notes
ST U DENTS Devki Gharpure, junior in architecture, was one of a group of 12 College of Design students who participated in a self-initiated alternative spring break trip to Biloxi, Mississippi, to volunteer in the Gulf Coast relief effort, from March 4-10. The group worked with Architecture for Humanity through the Hands On USA organization, camping outdoors at night and spending the work days on various building sites de-molding, gutting and tearing out interiors, reroofing, and/or clearing out tree limbs. Some of the group returned to Biloxi this summer. They hope to establish a tradition of a design and volunteeroriented trip annually during spring holiday. Photos from student trip to assist Katrina victims in Biloxi.
Industrial Design student Chris Owens, who transferred into design from mechanical engineering last year, made an Internet splash when he completed a design fundamentals project that required the use of LEDs or batteries. His five-week project culminated as an illuminated shelving system. The weight of items on each of the three sections of the shelf triggers the illumination. In the photos above, all three sections have been triggered. “I was extremely excited to see the words ‘North Carolina State University’ and ‘design’ together on the front page of sites like Engadget.com and Gizmodo.com,” said Owens. “I have seen this project posted to large German and Italian blogs, among others. Hopefully, this has brought some additional international attention to what we have going on here in our program.”
Industrial Design Graduate Student Robert Bailis won First Prize at NC State University for his design, “Aqua Flight,” in the 2006 Rhein Medall Prize for Community Art. The annual art contest, which is sponsored by Rhein Medall Communities of Charlotte, N.C., included sculpture designs from students attending several universities in North Carolina. Bailis received $3,000 for winning First Prize in the contest’s initial round of judging and also qualified for competition against the First Prize winners From the other participating schools for the 2006 Rhein Medall Prize for Community Art Grand Prize. The theme of this year’s competition was “Water’s Connection With the Environment.” In the fifth annual Collection: Art to Wear fashion show held April 7, Amanda Barrett included four pieces made out of material from the Gates in Central Park project, the famous public art project by the artist Cristo. The material was sent by the artists to a textile recycling center.
Jon Harris, master of graphic design student, working with colleagues at IBM, two of which are NC State College of Design alumni, Wilbert Joyner (BGD 2001) and Tyler Walters (BGD 2001), recently received a patent for a graphic user interface for database manipulation. The patented interface appears within IBM software named BSE (or business strategy execution). The idea is to use a visual editor to drag information for manipulating scheduling and financial databases instead of manually entering and editing figures. Master of Industrial Design student Harnish Jani had his conceptual design “Lapalmtop – Personal Computing Assistant” included in the Spring 2006 Innovations magazine. Innovations is produced quarterly by the Industrial Designers Society of America. Jani’s design was featured in a section titled “The New Face of Consumer Electronics.” His was the only student concept featured in the section. For more information visit www.ncsuidsa. org/hvjani.
Graphic Design graduate students Tyler Galloway (BGD 2006) and Jon Harris collaborated to produce one of 90 winning entries for “: output,” the international student graphic design competition based in Germany. Their work, “Global Loves Local symposium poster,” will be published in a book, : output 09, this fall. Graphic Design graduate students Jamie Gray (MGD 2006) and Tyler Galloway (MGD 2006) were presenters at the Duke University International Student Conference “Thinking Through New Media.” Gray presented “Digital Collecting: Designing Tools for Online Collecting Behaviors,” while Galloway presented “iTunes: Music Mediator, Social Facilitator,” a paper prepared for Professor Scott Townsend’s graphic design seminar last year. Most other presenters were Ph.D. candidates form the United States and abroad, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, Duke and the University of Edinburgh.
Freshmen Zena Jeffress, majoring in architecture, and Alexandra Wiedemann, majoring in graphic design, have been named as Park Scholars for 2006. The Park Scholarships program is among America’s most prestigious undergraduate merit scholarship programs. The scholarships pay expenses for four years of study at NC State, and include a computer stipend and funds for academic enrichment activities.
Ph.D. Candidate in Design Orcun Kepez received first place recognition in NC State’s first Graduate Symposium held during spring semester. Kepez was one of four first place winners, based on discipline. The name of Kepez’s research is “The Effect of Space on Health and Well-Being: An Environmental Assessment for Home-like Long-term Care Settings.” His Ph.D. committee members include: Dr. John Tector, chair; Robin Moore (Design), Henry Sanoff (Design, Emeritus), Dr. Christopher Mayhorn (Psychology) and Dr. Chuck Korte (CHASS-Emeritus). This is Kepez’s second award from NC State during the 2005-06 academic year. In fall 2005, he received a Graduate Research Grant from Institute for Nonprofits. This grant was awarded to two graduate students whose work is relevant to research agenda of Institute for Nonprofits. Traci Rider, Ph.D. student, earned her B.Arch. from the University of Cincinnati in 2000 and her master’s from Cornell University in Environmental Sociology in 2005. In 2003 Rider was recognized in dwell Magazine as the featured Nice Modernist (July/August issue) for her work with the US Green Building Council's Emerging Green Builders program. She received a USGBC National Leadership Award last November for the same, which led to Rider being featured in May 2006 issue of Vanity Fair as one of the Re-Inventors. There is an Emerging Green Builders group in the Triangle and she’s actively recruiting NC State students. Graphic Design graduate student Reneé Seward was selected as a recipient of the Larsen Design Award, a $2,000 scholarship, through the Worldstudio AIGA 2006-2007 Scholarship Program. There were only 17 winners from the more than 550 applications submitted. STUDENT NOTES
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