The festival, which commemorates the 150th anniversary of the founding of land-grant universities and the US Department of Agriculture, will be June 27 to July 1 and July 4 to 8 in Washington, DC.

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act on July 2, 1862, paving the way for rural and working-class Americans to gain access to higher education. UT benefited from the act in 1869.

One million people are expected to attend the festival and visit UT’s Living Light house during the ten-day event. It is co-sponsored by the National Park Service. All events are free.

Living Light seeks to teach festival goers about sustainable science, technology, and design. Other festival presentations will feature master gardeners, Hawaiian traditional healing, managing invasive species, and helping communities recover from natural disasters.

The festival program, “Campus and Community: Public and Land-Grant Universities and the USDA at 150,” will focus on four themes that reflect the current work of public and land-grant universities and the Department of Agriculture: reinventing agriculture, sustainable solutions, transforming communities, and building on tradition. About twenty-five land-grant universities are participating.

The program will cover an array of ways universities and the Department of Agriculture put research to action every day.

Living Light is a functioning energy-efficient, solar-powered house that competed at the 2011 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. The house placed eighth overall in the competition and earned high marks in the areas of architecture, energy efficiency, and engineering. More than 30,000 people have visited Living Light since it opened its doors. It is the only house from the solar competition to be featured in the Smithsonian festival.

“It is fitting to represent Tennessee’s land-grant university with a sustainable living project,” said George Dodds, associate dean of academic affairs and research for the College of Architecture and Design. “The Living Light project showcases the scholarship and outreach of outstanding faculty and students across multiple disciplines, exemplifying the excellent activities happening at the University of Tennessee.”

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is intended to increase public understanding and appreciation of the contributions and accomplishments of land-grant and public universities over the last fifteen decades. The festival will feature Smithsonian U., a series of mini-courses taught by master teachers, a discussion stage that promotes conversation about important issues affecting universities, music and dance showcases, and hands-on activities for families. UT and Living Light will contribute to several of these courses.

To learn more about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, visit the festival’s website.

Learn more about the Living Light house at the Living  Light website.

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CONTACTS:

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

Kiki Roeder (865-974-6713, kroeder@utk.edu)

The certificate programs and concentrations in high-performance buildings and conservation and stewardship begin in fall 2012.They join two other recently added areas of study: urban design and sustainability.

The four new concentrations address the leading building trends in architecture today. They acknowledge the need to design structures that are environmentally conscious, energy-efficient, and keep to current ideas and practices in preservation.

The UT Graduate Architecture Program offers both a professional and a post-professional graduate degree. These degrees are distinguished by the length and level of studies required.

Practicing professionals who have completed a bachelor’s degree may pursue the certificate programs. Master’s students may take the four certificate programs as concentrations.

Adding the specialty areas enhance offerings in the college’s graduate architecture curriculum and provide opportunities for professionals and master’s students to gain a specialization.

“We see these new certificate programs and concentrations as a way to better differentiate our graduate program from those of our peer institutions, to help us attract the best students and provide the best service to the state and region,” said George Dodds, chair of the Graduate Architecture Program.

The College of Architecture and Design currently has an ongoing partnership with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop technologies, design solutions, and materials for high-performance buildings.

“Professor Edgar Stach, who has long been a leading researcher in light structures, has spent the last few years focusing on ‘zero-energy’ design,’” Dodds said. “He is now leveraging the lessons learned through these projects into a new concentration.”

The conservation and stewardship concentration and certificate will teach students and working professionals about concepts in preservation that may range from individual buildings to large-scale restoration projects.

“The conservation and stewardship concentration and certificate are just the beginning of our college’s efforts to address a longstanding and unmet need in Tennessee and the region, ranging from the preservation of discrete buildings to large-scale issues of landscape restoration and regenerative practices,” Dodds said.

The UT Graduate Architecture Program is noted for a design-centered curriculum that promotes professional development through hands-on projects, cross-disciplinary learning, and in-depth research practices.

Enhancing UT’s graduate programs is a core goal in the university’s quest to become a Top 25 public research university.

Recent program activities have involved design-build projects such as the New Norris House, an award-winning LEED Platinum home, and Living Light, a zero-energy, solar-powered house. The College of Architecture and Design promotes course work at its urban design centers, as well, which include its Knoxville downtown studio and partnership with the Nashville Civic Design Center.

For more information, visit the Graduate Architecture Program website.

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C O N T A C T S :

Kiki Roeder (865-974-6713, kroeder@utk.edu)

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

Dodds, a professor of architecture, will oversee the program’s three tracks in master of architecture studies. He has served as interim chair since August and replaces Associate Professor Mark DeKay, who held the position from 2008 until this year.

“In his role as interim chair, I have witnessed his dedication to recruiting, advising and mentoring,” Dean Scott Poole said. “Dr. Dodds has extensive experience teaching graduate students in our college, as well as at the University of Pennsylvania and Clemson University.

“By way of his own graduate studies and through his service as executive editor of the Journal of Architectural Education, he has built an impressive network of colleagues who can assist us in our efforts to establish a graduate program with national stature.”

Since joining the college in 2000, Dodds has published two books, Building Desire: On the Barcelona Pavilion and Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture. In 2006, he was named the executive editor of the Journal of Architectural Education and the James R. Cox Professor, an honor given by the university to faculty who demonstrate excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.

A Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, he earned his bachelor of architecture from the University of Detroit and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. During his doctoral studies, he was a fellow in landscape studies at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Library and Research Center in Washington, DC.

The college’s graduate program in architecture is distinguished for its strengths in sustainable building, urban design, high-performance building technology and the history and theory of architecture. The program currently has nearly fifty graduate students and anticipates increasing student enrollment next year.

To learn more about the UT graduate architecture program, please visit http://www.arch.utk.edu/Architecture/Graduate/index.shtml.

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C O N T A C T S:

Kiki Roeder (865-974-6713, kroeder@utk.edu)

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lola.alapo@tennessee.edu)