News

Tom Keenan, a professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design, has been recognized by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for his lifelong dedication to science promotion.

A graduate of the Faculty of Environmental Design is helping lead the transformation of Calgary’s high-profile East Village.

Kate Thompson is director of development at Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), the agency responsible for the implementation of the Rivers District Community Revitalization Plan.

A graduate from the University of Calgary with a Master of Architecture, Thompson has been a strong advocate of helping grow Calgary into a dynamic community to work, play and live.

From planning more off-leash dog parks in Grand Prairie, to calling for more trees on Calgary streets, Bev Sandalack, professor and associate dean in the Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS), is always thinking about landscape.

The urban planner, with a private practice and a research and teaching career, started out as a landscape architect: “It always came back to landscape and the environmental aspects of everything you do in planning,” she says of her decades of work.

While the tarsands get all the press, Albertans have another energy demon to face down. Our province is endowed, or cursed — depending on your perspective — with some of the biggest coal deposits in North America. It’s a primary reason why we have some of the lowest electricity rates in the world. But as a recent Pembina Institute report details, there are high costs for that cheap power.

Not a week goes by where Calgarian’s voices on urban sprawl and planning go unheard. From roads to the redevelopment of neighbourhoods, the topic of how Calgary’s landscape will be shaped elicits ideas and, sometimes heated, debates.

Organized by the Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS), the Design Matters lecture series brings to Calgary a range of important speakers who explore design in our contemporary culture. This month the series welcomes Nader Tehrani.

While finishing up his Master of Architecture education at the University of Calgary, David Correa stumbled upon an opportunity that almost any designer would dream of.

The Sony Creative Center in San Francisco was seeking a design for the launcher on their upcoming smartphone, the Xperia Z series.

A launcher is that short animation and wallpaper that appears when users initialize their phones. Sony was interested in a particular type of architecture and was looking for someone who could interpret the intent of the creative brief for them.

The Environmental Design Students’ Association (EVDS SA) hosts annual networking events to connect students with practicing professionals, and strengthen ties between the faculty and community. The next event takes place Thursday, Feb. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m.

The event provides Master of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Design students with the opportunity to meet representatives from design firms, municipalities, and other professional organizations from Calgary and the surrounding area.

Innovative, award-winning architect Alvin Huang will share his insights and experience at the Faculty of Environmental Design as he makes a guest appearance this week for a student workshop, public lecture and gallery opening.

Huang joins the design faculty for the Taylor Visiting Lectureship, a one-week design studio established in honour of Dale Taylor, past director of the department’s architecture program.

Forty years ago, Calgary was an up and coming city with a population just below 400,000. Fast forward to 2013 and Calgary’s population has more than tripled with 1,214,839 people calling the city home.