Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

The world is getting smaller, but cities are getting bigger. That growth represents a key challenge and a key opportunity for 21st century sustainability. In November, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will present URBANISM(S): Sustainable Cities for One Planet, an international symposium exploring the future of global urban design. The two-day event will feature a range of talks on the ecology, infrastructure and social life of cities, as well as keynote address by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne.

A series of application workshops will be held for students interested in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to be held at Washington University in St. Louis April 5-7, 2013. The workshops will focus on application criteria and developing the required Commitment to Action. A Commitment to Action is a concrete plan that addresses a pressing challenge in one of CGI U’s five focus areas: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, or public health. The first workshop will be held from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, in Brown Hall, Room 118. 

For decades, author, educator, environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben has been telling us things we don’t want to hear — presenting scary scorched Earth scenarios due to carbon emissions in the atmosphere. He also leads a global initiative — 350.org — to try to solve the climate crisis. McKibben will give the keynote address for the Sustainable Cities Conference Thursday, Nov. 1, on campus. 

James Siena is a New York-based artist whose complex, rule-based linear abstractions, or “visual algorithms,” result in intensely concentrated, vibrantly colored, freehand geometric patterns. This fall, Siena served as the Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Visiting Artist at Island Press, the nationally known print shop in WUSTL’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, now on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, collects dozens of smart, problem-solving projects from around the globe. On Saturday, Oct. 20, six St. Louis not-for-profits will present their own “Community Design Challenges” as part of the museum’s fall Community Day. The free, all-ages event also will feature art-making, scavenger hunts and other activities.

Interdisciplinary faculty collaboration is fast becoming a hallmark of Washington University in St. Louis. To help support interdisciplinary teaching, the Office of the Provost announces the second round of the Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant Program. The application deadline for the teaching grants is December 1. In order to assist prospective applicants in putting together proposals, the Provost will hold a workshop from 3:30-5 p.m. in DUC 234 on October 23 facilitated by faculty who were successful in the previous round. Please RSVP for the workshop to Marion G. Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and vice provost at WUSTL, at mgcrain@wulaw.wustl.edu.

Over the last century, nearly 1,900 square miles of Louisiana wetlands — an area approximately the size of Delaware — have disappeared. Now the Sam Fox School’s John Hoal is leading STUDIO MISI-ZIBBI, one of three finalist teams in the international competition “Changing Course: Navigating the Future of the Lower Mississippi River Delta.”

“Improvisation isn’t matter of just making any ol’ thing up,” jazz great Wynton Marsalis once observed. “Jazz, like any language, has its own grammar and vocabulary.” On Thursday, Oct. 4, guitarist William Lenihan and poet Eileen G’Sell will put that analogy to the test with “The New Beat Generation,” an evening of improvised music and poetry, presented as part of the Jazz at Holmes Series.

Last fall, students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts created Parking Plot, a subversive look at just what constitutes “urban nature.” Now, Parking Plot is one of two projects with ties to the Sam Fox School included in the U.S. Pavilion of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale — arguably the profession’s leading international showcase. In addition, Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School and associate professor of architecture, curated the Nordic Pavilion in its entirety.

Chelsea Clinton announced during the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York on Sept. 25 that Washington University in St. Louis will serve as the host of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), April 5-7, 2013, on the Danforth Campus.  President Bill Clinton launched CGI U in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. Each year, CGI U hosts a meeting where students, youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities discuss solutions to pressing global issues.