RICE DESIGN ALLIANCE AWARDS

The Rice Design Alliance has chosen three proposals for funding under its Initiatives for Houston grants program.

Urban Ecology of Houston, a proposal from Rice University undergraduates Jean Daly, Katherine Dankberg, and Benjamin Regnier, was awarded $2,000. The students proposed identifying and indexing existing ad hoc urbanisms in order to assemble a tool box for the creation of an urban ecology of competing identities. The students will then project a strategy for identifying the Pierce Elevated area of Houston, and show the potential for these strategies to work together and add up to an urban fabric as the re-urbanization of Houston occurs.

Donna Kacmar, an assistant professor at the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, received a grant of $3,000 for her proposal, “Accommodation in Houston: beer, burgers, and barbacoa.” Kacmar will study Houston’s version of public accommodation through several non-traditional ritual sites, such as ice houses, burger joints, and taco stands, that are specific to Houston.

Thomas M. Colbert, also an associate professor at the U of H Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, received a grant of $5,000 for his proposal, “Documentation and analysis of Prison Architecture in and around Houston.”

The jury for the awards included David Gresham, executive director of the Citizens’ Environmental Coalition; John Mixon, University of Houston Law Center; Carrie Shoemake, of Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects, Inc; and Flora Yun Yeh, Clark Condon Associates Landscape Architects.