News

TEDxCalgary’s Energy: Full Spectrumevent is coming to the University Theatre on May 11 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

With the municipal election looming, we are approaching what some refer to as the silly season around City Hall. Witness the recent and very public airing of differences of opinion between Mayor Naheed Nenshi and the Calgary chapter of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association over growth management.

The fifth annual Dale Taylor Visiting Seminar was led by visiting lecturer Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design + Architecture and EVDS Assistant Professor Jason S. Johnson. This intensive 4-day design, fabricate and build workshop explored digital form-finding techniques to produce a series of scaled architectural prototypes for freestanding pavilion structures.

A Calgary technology expert says online ticket scalping is a complex problem that is likely here to stay.

Earlier this month, tickets for a concert in May by the popular group Mumford & Sons sold out in seconds.

The tickets were scooped up by online ticket brokers using sophisticated “bots,” software that lets them make thousands of transactions in seconds.

The brokers then resell the tickets at inflated prices.

Designed to delight during the day and dazzle at night, this year’s IllumiNation Outdoor Light Art Gallery in Ottawa featured public art by Environmental Design alumni Chris vander Hoek and Maria Landry.

The annual IllumiNation Outdoor Light Art Gallery displays public works of art that provide a magical experience where the play of shadow, light and colour catches the eye and transforms the site.

We hear a lot about human trafficking and sex slavery in poor, far-away countries. Yet this problem is occurring a lot closer to home.

The 2012 feature film Eden is based on the story of Chong Kim, a Korean-American girl who was abducted and forced into prostitution in warehouses in the U.S. Recently, CTV’s W5 program aired a documentary showing how the York Regional Police Drugs and Vice Unit is trying to shut down pimps in that part of Canada.

Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS) recently launched makeCalgarytalk, a multi-platform initiative aimed at stimulating discussion and dialogue around urban planning, development and design issues in the Calgary context.

In January 2013, a directed studies course offered within EVDS spearheaded the makeCalgarytalk website featuring blogs, interviews, videos, pictures and longer responses to current urban debates between local movers and shakers.

The Design Matters lecture series, hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS), welcomes to campus influential speakers who explore design in our contemporary culture. For Earth Month the series welcomes Leon van Schaik.

van Schaik is professor of architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Melbourne, Australia, where he holds an Innovation Chair in practice-based research in design. He promotes local and international architectural culture through practice-based research which focuses on creating and sustaining innovative communities.

For the past few weeks, the usually yawn-inducing topic of governance has figured prominently in newspaper headlines. Of note, Mayor Naheed Nenshi was lauded for his decision to hold off on fundraising and concentrate on governing, and yet criticized for the steep entry fee to his first fundraiser; and The Economist carried a special feature singling out good governance as the secret weapon of Nordic success in the global economy.

The jury for the 2013 Flat Lot Competition in Flint, Michigan has awarded EVDS architecture graduate student Michael Ting an Honorable mention for his AC.H2O Pavilion. His project was one of three projects from 220 submissions to receive an honorable mention.