Arthur Lubetz, a visionary architect whose bold and colorful designs transformed Pittsburgh’s architectural landscape, passed away early in the morning on July 4, 2025. Art served as an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture for over 30 years. He influenced generations of students, as well as his colleagues, the school, and the City of Pittsburgh over the course of his nearly six-decade career.
In this issue of e-SPAN, we say farewell to Mary-Lou Arscott, Associate Studio Professor and Associate Head for Design Fundamentals, who retired this spring after 18 years with the school. We include the story of her unconventional architecture path in her own words. We also share images from this year's Spring Thesis Exhibition, Commencement and the inaugural Building Performance and Diagnostics Symposium which took place at CMU in April.
Carnegie Mellon Architecture is proud to announce the student recipients of our spring 2025 awards program. This spring’s awards provide over $56,000 of funding support to undergraduate, Master's and PhD students. Awards recognize student work in design and representation, public interest design and sustainability, as well as professional promise. We extend our thanks to the juries, and to EPIC Metals for sponsoring the reception following the ceremony.
Assistant Teaching Professor Sarosh Anklesaria is the recipient of the 2025 Henry Hornbostel Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor recognizing a teacher in the College of Fine Arts. The award is named after Henry Hornbostel, the first Dean of the College of Fine Arts and the architect of several Carnegie Mellon University buildings. Anklesaria will be recognized at Carnegie Mellon’s Celebration of Education Awards Ceremony on April 24.
In this issue of e-SPAN, we explore how industry partnerships can strengthen the research at Carnegie Mellon Architecture by talking to three faculty recipients of the PJ Dick Innovation Fund Faculty Grants Program: Azadeh Sawyer, Vernelle A. A. Noel and Juney Lee. We also invite alumni and friends to join us this year during Spring Carnival Weekend, April 3-5. Finally, we see some images from student travel over spring break.
In this issue of e-SPAN, we dive into a niche area of AI in architectural practice: Building Information Modeling (BIM). We talk to a PhD student, Yael Nester (PhD-AECM ’27), who feels confident that AI cannot replace the human architect's judgment. We then speak with alumnus Jared Friedman (B.Arch ’10) who describes some of the innovative ways he uses BIM and AI in his work as a Computational Product Manager at Walter P Moore. We also get to see work from Tannaz Afshar's (PhD-AECM ’26) in-progress dissertation about deconstruction and material reuse on a university campus. Finally, we recap some exciting recent celebrations, including NOMA Pittsburgh's 10th anniversary gala, where faculty, students and alumni won awards, and the PJ Dick Innovation Fund Faculty Grants Program round one showcase.
Carnegie Mellon Architecture is proud to announce the 2025 awardees of the PJ Dick Innovation Fund Faculty Grants Program. Funding has been awarded to 12 project and teaching grant proposals (eight and four respectively) during this second round of the program. Established in 2023 by PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group, the Faculty Grants Program will award a total of $400,000 over four years beginning in 2024.
Carnegie Mellon Architecture is pleased to announce that applications are now open for the Spring 2025 Awards. Applications are due on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 11:59pm ET. Up to $52,000 of funding is available to support undergraduate students and graduate students (Master’s and PhD). Awards recognize work in design and representation, public interest design and sustainability, as well as professional promise.
In this issue of e-SPAN, we talk to the student organizers of the 2024 AIAS Northeast Quad Conference, "DES[AI]GN: Artificial Intelligence in Architecture,” which took place from October 31 to November 2 at CMU. We preview some upcoming course offerings related to artificial intelligence and share news about the 2024 Fall Awards cycle, which saw exciting proposals from students and faculty for their research and travel activities. And we catch up with the Master of Urban Design students to learn about their field trip to the Sweet Water Foundation in Chicago, where the group was hosted by Emmanuel Pratt, the inaugural Watson Chair in Architecture at Carnegie Mellon Architecture.
Carnegie Mellon Architecture is proud to announce the student and faculty recipients of the Fall 2024 Architecture Awards. This fall, over $72,000 in funding has been awarded to support travel, projects, internships and research for undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty. Awards also recognize student work in sustainable design.
