A few months ago, the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University organized an open international design ideas competition.  The competition, Imagining Recovery, which coincided with Obama’s first 100 days of presidency, asked participants to imagine what recovery could look like and supplement the maps, charts and graphs of Recovery.gov with images of lived experiences, as announced earlier on AD.Submissions were received from 25 different countries and on May 13, the distinguished jury selected ten projects for recognition and of these, only three to be the prize winners. The competition jury selected Jill Stoner & Marie Sorensen, Benjamin Loeffler & Kathryn Spurr, and David Ruperti & Andrew Miller as the Imagining Recovery prize winners.  The remaining jury selection included Leor Lovinger, Sharif Khalje, Gwendolyn MacFarland, David de Cespedes, Will Robinette, Zachary Colbert & Daniel Kidd, and Matthew Lutz & Nicole Koltick.Following the competition, a collective publication and video exhibition will be distributed in New York, Paris, Beijing and Amman, as well as online. http://www.archdaily.com/23247/imagining-recovery-announces-winners/

Landscape architecture student Brennan Baxley has reason to celebrate after receiving an Award of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects Florida Chapter for his project "Ephemeral Boundaries", completed as part of Assistant Professor Roberto Rovira’s Landscape Architecture Design05 studio, and recognized at the 2009 Annual Design Awards Jury held in Orlando, FL, in May. This year the Florida Chapter received 70 award submittals from professionals and students around the state, and Brennan’s submission was the sole winner in the Conceptual category and only one of two student projects recognized. The project proposed the ecological integration of natural and built systems at the Miami-Everglades boundary. The presentation of the award will take place at the 2009 FLASLA Annual Conference and Expo on July 23-25 in Ft. Myers, FL. For more information about the FLASLA and the 2009 Annual Design Awards go to: http://www.flasla.org/awards/2009/2009%20DAC%20Florida%20Awards%20release.pdf

FIU’s Top Scholars were honored by FIU President and Provost FIU Top Scholar Roberto Rovira, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, was named Landscape Architect of the Year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) - Miami chapter. The competition, part of AIA’s annual Design Awards, recognizes practitioners in the field of landscape architecture who have demonstrated outstanding performance and professionalism in the discipline.

FIU Top Scholar John Stuart, professor of Architecture, was awarded Florida Book Awards’ Silver Medal in Florida Nonfiction for co-editing The New Deal in South Florida. The book, a collection of studies and essays, examines the impact of a wide variety of New Deal projects in the region through letters, photographs, public murals, housing, parks and architecture.

The Department of Architecture extends a warm welcome to our entering freshman class. The academic accomplishments of this class are already quite impressive; the average high school GPA is 3.98 and they were selected from over 1000 applicants. The faculty, staff and students all look forward to meeting you and your families this fall!

The SOA would like to congratulate the class of 2009. The faculty and staff of the school extend our best wishes to those graduating students who will be leaving Miami this fall to attend graduate and PhD programs across the nation and at programs abroad. We look forward to hearing of all your successes.

Sara Aguirre Pratt Institute Ray Bourraine Parsons The New School of Design Francis Waltersdorfer University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Columbia University, Architecture Association Cyntia Navarro Columbia University, Architecture Association Adrian von der Osten Pratt Institute Adrian Heid Princeton University, Yale University, SCIARC, Pratt Institute Mario Menendez Pratt Institute Manny Dorticos Pratt Institute George Valdes Columbia University, Pratt Institute, SCIARC Ailyn Mendoza Internship at Sasaki Walter and Associates Jovanna Suarez Parsons The New School of Design Glen Santayana Harvard University, Columbia University, Pratt Institute Michael Bennett Georgia Tech Hai Zhang, Rafael Viñoly Architects 2009 Grant for Research in Architecture.

FIU MArch Alumnus wins Rafael Viñoly Architects 2009 Grant for Research in Architecture. Hai Zhang, a member of the research group focused on "Housing in China, Exploring Steps Toward a Solution", graduated with his MArch from the FIU SOA around 2002.

The New Deal in South Florida: Design, Policy, and Community Building 1933-1940 (University Press of Florida) by John A. Stuart, professor of architecture, and John F. Stack, Jr., director of the School of International Studies and Public Affairs has won the 2008 Silver Medal from the Florida Book Awards for Non Fiction. More than 130 books entered the competition, most from major publishing houses including HarperCollins, Ballantine, WW Norton, Houghton Mifflin and Putnam & Sons.