Awards and Recognitions

ENTERGY FUND ENDOWMENT

This scholarship award recognizes a demonstrated excellence in the understanding, application and tracking of the Vital Signs of energy performance as integral to the process of Design-for-Sustainability. The scholarships are made available through an endowment provided to CERES by the Entergy Corporation; an integrated energy company whose corporate social responsibility aspires to contribute to a society that is healthy, educated and productive. Where none of its customers live in poverty and the environment poses no threat to future generations.

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2024
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Kapua Arsiga, Nicholas Law

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2023
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Carolyn German, Tessa Hill, Nick Law, Eric Lohse, Navy Lynch, Shayla Tran, Javier Barrera, Emily Berge

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2022
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Collin Beresford, Sarah Bone, Nick Brauer, Noah Gibson, Kendall Johnson, Zachary Nichols, Emily Rheinheimer, Treus Sestoso

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2021
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Davis Bruchett, Kyle Drenth, Chase Holloway, Mitch Isenhart, Rachell Lindemann, Deng Yao, Darwin Ybarra

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2020 
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Bri Barr, Al Mitchell

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2017
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Victoria Bell, Emily Epple, Nikki Klein, Zach Rooker, Landon Underwood, Megan York

Title: The CERES Entergy Fund Scholarships for Energy Performance Design
Year: Spring 2015 
Agency: Entergy Corporation 
Recipients: Sean Costello, Alex DeKemper, Duke Bennett, Bryce Derhammer, Reva Ogle 

EXTERNAL (THIRD-PARTY) RECOGNITION

In addition, its staff, fellows, affiliated faculty, and students have been recognized over the years by external third-parties.  Samples of these recognitions are listed below.

Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC)
King Student Medal for Excellence in Architectural + Environmental Design

Named in honor of the late Jonathan King, co-founder and first president of the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC), this award is given to one student per ARCC member college, school, institute, or unit. Selection of recipients is at the discretion of the individual member institutions, but is based upon criteria that acknowledge innovation, integrity, and scholarship in architectural and/or environmental design research. The award may be made at either the graduate or the undergraduate level.
More information about the ARCC / King Student Medal Program:
http://www.arccweb.org/awards/King_Student_Medal/

Year: 2024
Recipient: Spencer Whitmore
Project/Program: High Density, Low Impact: Exploring Viable Pathways for Zero Carbon Design Through Adaptive Reuse and Urban Infill.
This thesis contends that the principles supporting urban infill and adaptive re-use will be crucial to combating the climate crisis. These strategies are at the crossroads of numerous environmental design solutions including the limitation of urban sprawl, utilizing existing materials, land preservation, and reducing transportation emissions. Beyond environmental benefits, these strategies address social issues by revitalizing urban identity and creating spaces for essential typologies. 

Year: 2023
Recipient: Tanner Mote
Project/Program: Communal Healing
This thesis explores the use of biophilic patterns to enhance the experience of neighborhood residents in need of health education, health care treatment and emergency vehicle response.  As a case study, the Bates-Hendricks neighborhood, located south of Downtown Indianapolis, IN, was chosen as a typical underprivileged community; a neighborhood separated by a railway, roadways, and interstate from other nearby neighborhoods. All of which limit pedestrian access to health education, health care treatment and emergency vehicle response to medical needs.  A multi-block architectural intervention of walkable roofscapes connecting over streets using biophilic patterns of Visual Connection with Nature, Thermal and Airflow Variability and Prospect/Refuge spatiality provides the neighborhood residents with access to health education, health care treatment and interaction with one another in a place of Communal Healing.

Year: 2022
Recipient: Kyle Drenth
Project/Program: Architecture Automated
This thesis explores a small facet of the larger conversation concerning responsive architecture with focus on the development of a kinetic facade system. With the integration of motorized components within the built environment, architecture can reach out to provide for many needs while reflecting the beauty and efficiency of nature's design. A highly iterative design profess was necessary in order to simulate a natural phenomenon in a kinetic facade. The core of the system functions comparably to how nature operates-in a way that receives inputs and generates outputs. The kinetic facade system aims to mimic the cycles of which nature functions, i.e., Plants respond to seasonal changes. Through a use of automated architectural components and biomimetic design solutions, the built environment can form a symbiotic relationship with nature and living beings.

Year: 2021
Recipient: Hanan Tufashiey
Project/Program: Living Skin: The Bloom
With the evolution of the global world into very advanced societies, environmental issues and the health of all living things are in increasing danger. Since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims a 68% improvement in air cleanliness and a decrease in associated health complications cause by polluted air. However, the EPA does not account for a major factor in the reduction of pollutants. The air quality improvements were not purely because of implementation of federal and state regulations. Rather, the improvement of air quality also benefited from the collapse of the American industry, starting in the late 1980s when the bulk of American productivity began moving from the industrial manufacturing into the service sector. Moreover, air pollution is not the only type of pollution concern; solid waste, noise and light also impact the many natural settings of water, land and soil which are so important to all living things.

Year: 2020
Recipient: Al Mitchell
Project/Program: Tuning the Masses: Climate Specific Energy Optimization Guidelines.
This project creates an easy to use, accessible, and open-source framework to improve building performance specifications in the schematic design phase.  By using direct-search optimization methods, this study determines where the acceptable ranges for building performance specification need to be set, such as limits on wall insulation and window performance specifications. These are determined through thousands of iterations on ten different house geometry typologies in the nineteen distinct climate zones in the United States. These newfound limits on performance ranges get baked into a new, climate specific script that can be used to fine tune a schematic mass, and provide the designer with simple, project geometry and climate distinct building specification for a design.

Year: 2018
Recipient: Reva Derhammer
Project/Program: Interstitial Urbanism: Architecture for the Creative Mind.
This project explores the scripting of experiential complexity using a graphic translation of the many design tenets embodied in the writings of Jane Jacobs, Lawrence Halprin and Kevin Lynch. When applied at differing scales in the development of building-interior ‘urban landscapes’, these microcosms of thoughtful city constructs can give spirit to occupant life. This research and example design applications demonstrate that internal spaces of a building composed of systematic circulation and communal space configuration can facilitate the social dynamic of human interaction on micro and macro scales. Specifically: micro-level interactions of one-on-one interpersonal exchange and macro-level interactions of immersion in a ‘social atmosphere’ comprise an architecture which can ‘feed’ the creative mind.

Year: 2017
Recipient: Chris Crosley
Project/Program: ArchitectureOS: Intelligent Architecture Will Define the Next Era of Computation and Design.
This project explores the creation of a new operating system for architecture, which could revolutionize the way that we, as occupants, experience the built environment and the way we, as architects, design it.  While simulations have traditionally been used by the industry as a design tool, they can also be used by the building itself to provide a form of self-awareness. Once properly calibrated to reality, the simulation engines can be used to inform applications which modify building elements in real-time. The project outlines the critical elements of ArchitectureOS, describes how qualitative descriptions of space can be programmable, and uses a fictional "Kickstarter" project to explore how even simple products might change when enabled by such an operating system.

Year: 2016
Recipient: Chris Reinhart
Project/Program: Commonwealth of Design + Cooperation = Design for All.
This project examines the trends in web-based platforms for design collaboration, shifting notions of intellectual property, and the changing role of professionals in society; using the results to
inform a synthesis of new models of architectural practice based on cooperative forms of ownership and crowd-sourced funding models to enable the delivery of architectural services to more people; theoretically (and ideally), everyone.

Year: 2015
Recipient: Chenyuan Gu
Project/Program: Symbiosis: Village + Park.  Using Eco-Tourism to reviatalize the Xiamen Village of Tea Valley National Park.
The project introduces ecotourism as a sustainable economic development strategy based on conserving environmental heritage (including natural and cultural heritage) by engaging local communities and other stakeholders in the tourism development process. This project explores sustainable expansion design strategies for constructing and operating a national park, with its surrounding village.

Year: 2014 
Recipients: Emily Newton and Jaben Temple
Project/Program: A Comparative Analysis and Critical Assessment of Green Building Rating Systems.
This research examines the concepts and evaluation structure underlying each of multiple rating systems, comparatively analyzes specific projects certified under these respective ratings systems, and cross-references the findings with data derived from interviews with academic and professional personnel.

Year: 2012 
Recipient: Wes Stabs
Project/Program: Optimizing Energy Performance with Climate, Context and Client.
This research inquiry involved an exploration into residential energy issues with the underlying intent of reducing fossil fuel consumption. The research is aimed at understanding architecture’s role in defining single family energy demands. The exploration illustrates that we can dwell in symbiosis with nature while reducing environmental impacts by embracing the power of architectural design.

Year: 2011 
Recipient: Christopher Rhoads
Project/Program: Modifying Double-skin Facades for Medical, Residential, Educational, Office and Performing Arts Facilities.
This work breaks new ground in translating the concerns for fabrication, operability and performance of double-skin facades as driven by climatic factors and/or interior space use.

Year: 2010
Recipient: Nitin Desai
Project/Program: Retrospecting Vernacular: A Journey into the Timeless... 
Nitin compiled an extensive research database on the construction traditions of vernacular architecture embedded in countless projects throughout India; and the rekindling of those many traditions of craft and place-based design decision-making and appropriate-technology construction practice. He translated this technical research and documentation into specific line-item recommendations for the transformation of the formal architectural curricula currently offered in India.

Year: 2009
Recipient: Todd Adams
Project/Program: Use of High Dynamic Range Imaging in Photorealistic Illustration of AGi32 Renderings
This award recognizes Todd's contribution to the ongoing work of the CERES Lighting Lab.  Specifically, his role in examining high dynamic range photography methodologies and software applications for use in constructing high dynamic range imaging of electronic models generated by the AGi32 lighting analysis software.