Maurice Cox in the News
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Urban Studies and Service Learning in Cape Coast Ghana
[by Jane Ford, UVa News Services]A recent trip to the Ghanaian city of Cape Coast provided 16 University of Virginia students with an opportunity to work with community members on economic development projects aimed at introducing tourists -- drawn to the city by its historic slave castle and forts -- to some lesser-known attractions associated with its multifaceted history and culture.
The trip was part of a January-Term course, "Community as Classroom: Urban Studies and Service Learning in Cape Coast, Ghana." The academic leaders — Maurice Cox, associate professor of architecture; Scot French, associate professor of history and director of U.Va.'s Virginia Center for Digital History; and independent scholar Gina Haney, a 1997 architectural history alumna who has worked on conservation and tourism development projects in Cape Coast for more than a decade — sought to create a program that would allow for the sharing of ideas and experiences across traditional boundaries.
[for the complete article, follow link to UVa News]
Friday, October 5, 2007
Assoc. Prof. Maurice Cox Named Dir. of Design at NEA
According to a statement issued yesterday by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), Assoc. Professor of Architecture Maurice Cox has been named the NEA's Director of Design. In this position, Cox will supervise the panel selection and grant making process in design, oversee the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and Your Town programs, and provide professional leadership to the field.
Cox will be splitting his time between U.Va. and the NEA this semester.
Of Cox’s appointment, NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said, “We are excited that Maurice Cox will join us to direct the Arts Endowment’s design initiatives. His wide-ranging experience, from professional practice to academic instruction to civic leadership, fits well with the NEA’s mission of promoting broad public access to artistic excellence. We know he will provide invaluable guidance for our programs.”
Cox noted, “With the NEA’s commitment to the arts as a way to enrich the lives of ordinary citizens and my own experience of design as a fundamentally democratic and public art, I am confident that together we can make design socially and culturally relevant to the everyday lives of Americans, in whichever community they live. Well-designed environments are not a luxury—they are a public necessity.”
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Please see additional articles in the following publications:
AIA Architect (11/2/07)
Architect Magazine (November, 2007 issue)
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
U.Va. Group Fostering Communities that Embody Sustainability
News Source: Explorations
Sept. 12, 2007 -- At U.Va., you have only to walk as far as the Lawn to see an example of a sustainable community — Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. As in all sustainable design, the relationship of structures to the environment was an important consideration for Jefferson. He placed his suite of buildings at the end of a long ridge with an uninterrupted view from the Rotunda to the Ragged Mountains in the south. The classrooms and living quarters are in close proximity — and the Rotunda serves as a natural gathering place. This built environment encourages the exchange of ideas between faculty members and students — a process that is essential to its long-term viability. The Lawn also incorporates the cultural ideas of the time as well as enduring values of balance and proportion. Almost 200 years after its creation, it still excites our imagination.
As School of Architecture dean Karen Van Lengen points out, “Sustainability, broadly defined, is not only based in the ecology of an area, but supports equity and embodies important cultural ideas.” As part of U.Va.’s Sustainable Communities Group, Van Lengen and her colleagues seek to create and support communities that extend the characteristics of the Academical Village for our time.
[For the complete article, please visit Explorations online - Fall 2007 issue]
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
A-School to Hold J-Term Course in Ghana
Associate Professor of Architecture Maurice Cox and Associate Professor of History Scot French, with the assistance of architectural historian Gina Haney, will be directing the 2008 January-Term Course AAS 403Z/ARCH 595 Community as Classroom: Urban Studies and Service Learning in Cape Coast, Ghana. The course will be sponsored jointly by the Woodson Institute and the School of Architecture. The course is the University’s only upcoming travel opportunity in Africa. The curriculum has been designed to "transform the community into a classroom," which will engage students in a number of site-specific service learning projects with Cape Coast local civic leaders and community stakeholders. The goal is to not only create a meaningful learning opportunity for UVa students, but also to leave something behind which will truly be "useful" to the Cape Coast community. Fifteen third and fourth-year undergraduate students will be admitted to the program which is open to all schools in the university.Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Students Win Honors in BSA Design Competition
Three students have won awards for design in the Boston Society of Architects’ In the Pursuit of Housing design competition. The competition was established to "engage younger members of the profession and student designers to think critically about the housing issues facing their generation." Matthew Young (4th Year Architecture) is recognized for his project, "Dwelling in Sert's Shadow,” a proposal for modular faculty/staff housing in Cambridge, MA that combines individual units with collective courtyards. Young developed the proposal as part of Assoc. Professor Judith Kinnard's ARCH 401 Urban Housing Studio. The team of Allison Dryer and James Pressly (MArch Program) is honored for their project, “(Re) Building Blocks,” a proposal for new housing in the Gulf Coast that they developed in Assoc. Professor Maurice Cox's ALAR 702/ 802 Higher Density on High Ground Studio. The winning projects will be on display at the Residential Design and Construction Convention and Tradeshow in Boston April 4 and 5, where the students will receive cash prizes.Friday, August 18, 2006
ecoMOD2 and "Higher Density, Higher Ground" Competition Merit Award Winners Featured in Virginia Magazine
The installation of the ecoMOD2 house, preHAB, in Gautier, Mississippi during the summer is featured in the Fall issue of Virginia Magazine along with a mention of graduate students Justin Laskin and Kathleen Mark's merit-award winning entry in the "Higher Density, Higher Ground" design competition.The ecoMOD Project is directed by Assistant Professor John Quale.
For additional information, visit the ecoMOD website.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Assoc. Prof. Maurice Cox and his Spring Studio Featured in The Hook
"Its been a big year for UVA architecture professor and ex-Charlottesville mayor Maurice Cox. Last November, Cox was invited to serve on the Mayors Institute on City Design for the Gulf Cities resource team, coaching dozens of Gulf Coast mayors on ways to rebuild their cities…" "Cox's army: UVA team has winning coast design" The Hook, May 25, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Graduate Students Receive Merit Award in High Density on the High Ground Design Competition
A student design team in ARCH/LAR 702/802 under the direction of Assoc. Professor Maurice Cox will receive the Merit Award in the professional category of the High Density on the High Ground residential design competition sponsored by Architectural Record and Tulane University School of Architecture. Graduate students Justin Laskin and Kathleen Mark are one of three teams in the competition to receive the honor. Two additional School of Architecture student design teams, Lorenzo Battistelli and Kristin Hennings and Alli Dryer and James Pressly from the Cox Studio will have the honor of their designs included in an exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans. The competition attracted more than 600 entries in the professional and student categories from around the world.
Entrants were asked to design a 140-unit housing community on a high-ground site by the Mississippi River. The winning designs will be featured in the June issue of Architectural Record and will be on display at the annual AIA Convention, held this year in Los Angeles in early June, as well as at the Ogden Museum.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Assoc. Professor Maurice Cox Wins Hejduk Award for Architecture
Maurice Cox, Associate Professor of Architecture is the 2006 recipient of the John Hejduk Award for excellence in research and the practice of teaching. The John Hejduk Award, established in 2003, is given to an alumnus of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union who has made an outstanding contribution to the theory, teaching and/or practice of architecture. The recipient reflects the passion and commitment that John Hejduk, Cooper Union faculty member from 1974-2000 and Dean of the School of Architecture from 1975-2000, had for architecture.The award was given at Cooper Union's Annual Founder's Day Dinner in New York City on April 21, 2006. Maurice Cox was introduced by Toshiko Mori AR'76, Professor in Practice and Department Chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, herself a recipient of the John Hejduk Award in 2003. Maurice Cox is a 1983 architecture graduate of Cooper Union.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Faculty and Students Develop Charlottesville Streetcar Proposal
A University-based group of architects and students have unveiled an exhibit for their plan to connect vital parts of Charlottesville with a single-track trolley system, according to a University press release.
The team includes former Charlottesville Mayor Maurice Cox and Gary Okerlund, both current adjunct professors in the Architecture School, as well as Architecture graduate students Justin Laskin, Justin Walton, Tommy Solomon and Jayme Schwartzberg and Shannon Yadsko and Architecture undergraduate Sally Foster. The project is co-sponsored by the Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation. … Cavalier Daily Friday, Nov. 18, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
Faculty Take Part in National Design Initiatives for Gulf Coast
School of Architecture faculty are playing key roles in the planning and redesign phases of the Gulf Coast's recovery from the recent hurricanes. Quesada Professor William Morrish has been appointed a member of the Urban Land Institute's advisory panel to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's "Rebuilding Committee". The panel is visiting the area November 13-18 and plans to issue a report at the end of December.Associate Professor Maurice Cox will serve on the resource team for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design for the Gulf Cities to be held in Biloxi, MS and New Orleans next week. The sessions will provide mayors from dozens of affected cities in the region with guidance on planning and design.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Assoc. Professor of Architecture Maurice Cox Serves on Jury for 2005 P/A Awards
Assoc. Professor of Architecture Maurice Cox is profiled in the January issue of Architecture magazine, focusing on his award selections as a juror for the 2005 P/A Awards. The P/A awards recognize unbuilt projects demonstrating overall design excellence and innovation in the fields of architecture and urban design.In the article, Cox comments extensively on the jury's unprecedented choice this year to grant the award to only one recipient. A single P/A award went to the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design for, "L.A. Now: Volume 3," an urban design research project encompassing 35,000 housing units in downtown Los Angeles. Cox believes his experience with emerging architecture, politics and design education had a profound influence on his jurorship of the competition.
