NCARB awards Parsons and Clemson University $50K to develop new integrative curricula

The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards have announced that the architecture programs of Parsons The New School for Design and Clemson University are the 2014 recipients of the NCARB Award.

NCARB will award the schools a total of over US$50,000 to support the development of each school's proposed program, which explore new paradigms of integrating architectural practice and education. The award is timelier than ever, in relation to NCARB's major announcements to expedite the architectural licensure and examination process in the U.S.

Read more about each school's program below.

Program: Clemson University, School of Architecture - Clemson, SC
Proposal: “Graduate Program in Architecture + Health”
Total Award: $30,000

Summary: "The mission of the project is to advance health care facility design through collaboration among architects, academia and members of the health care industry. The primary outcome will be to expose a cohort of architecture and health (A+H) Master of Architecture students—through three integrated courses within the A+H Curriculum—to the challenges of designing health care settings that support the delivery of high quality, cost effective, culturally relevant health care for medically under-served populations.

Program: Parsons The New School for Design, School of Constructed Environments - New York, NY
Proposal: “Student-Practitioner Partnerships in Building Performance Evaluation”
Total Award: $20,232.50

Summary: "While there is increased emphasis on sustainability, instruction on performance measurement is lacking. The proposal addresses a new and critical opportunity for architecture students to improve the environmental performance of buildings through measurement. The project involves purchasing new tools to enable students, during seven-week assignments, to work with practitioners to evaluate the real-world energy performance of buildings. Equipment purchased with the Award includes environmental meters for the measurement of temperature, humidity, air velocity, light level, sound pressure, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other performance factors."

Since 2001, the NCARB Award and NCARB Prize has donated more than $900,000 to support these integrative programs. The donated funds have been awarded to more than one-third of NAAB-accredited degree programs in the U.S.