AKI ISHIDA

January 28, 2020

Aki served as the moderator for the 2020 Laskey Charrette, which took place January 24-26 at the Washington University in St. Louis. For this year's challenge, students were asked to create light modulating concrete walls.The Laskey Charrette honors Professor Emeritus Leslie J. Laskey and his singular approach to design education during his 35-year tenure at Washington University. For this intensive, weekend-long workshop, second-year architecture students work in teams to brainstorm ideas for a given design challenge. Their final designs are exhibited and reviewed, with a jury of faculty awarding prizes.

January 01, 2020

Aki's book Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture: Material, Culture, and Technology, forthcoming in April 2020, can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com or Routledge.com. The book brings to light complex readings of transparent glass through close observations of six pivotal works of architecture. Written from the perspectives of a practitioner, the six essays challenge assumptions about fragility and visual transparency of glass. Foreword by James Carpenter.

May 06, 2019

Aki served on a panel entitled Perspectives on Careers in Creativity and Innovation at ICAT (Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology)  Creativity + Innovation Day at Virginia Tech. The day showcased Virginia Tech’s latest innovations from the university’s Creativity and Innovation District, a new community designed to foster the creative process, from idea creation to commercialization. The panel, which included professors and students in STEAM fields, was moderated by Dr. Lisa McNair, director of the Center for Research in SEAD Education at Virginia Tech.

March 22, 2019

Aki served as the jury chair and moderator of the 2019 Fitzgibbon Charrette at the Washington University in St. Louis. Open to all juniors and seniors in architecture, the annual charrette celebrates architectural drawing through a one-day sketch problem where the students refine and further develop one of their studio drawings. The students were asked to select one of their drawings that spoke to a particular phenomenon or experience specific to their project and further develop it. The winner was Senior Jenna Schnitzler. Igor Marjanović, the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor, and assistant professor Kelley Van Dyck Murphy also served on the jury.

October 26, 2017

Aki presented "Transparent Ambiguity: SANAA's Glass Pavilion in Toledo" and participated in the Natural Light & Architecture panel at Parsons School of Design in NYC.  Other panelists were Davidson Norris from Carpenter Norris Consulting and Star Davis from Arup. The host and moderator was Glenn Shrum, Director of Parsons' MFA Program in Lighting Design.

April 21, 2017

Aki presented the paper "Material and Culture of the Glass Ceiling" at the third Frascari Symposium at the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center of Virginia Tech. The symposium honors the memory of sidereal architect, theorist, and educator Marco Frascari (1945–2013). The paper will be a chapter in the book Ceilings and Dreams: the architecture of levity edited by Paul Emmons, Federica Goffi, and Jodi La Coe and published by Routledge in 2019.

December 19, 2016

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has awarded Aki Ishida with the 2016-2017 ACSA/AIAS New Faculty Teaching Award. The award recognizes demonstrated excellence in teaching performance during the formative years of an architectural teaching career.

September 22, 2016

Aki Ishida is presenting a paper entitled "Sanatorium Zonnestraal and a Case for a Nuanced Approach to Light Exposure" at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Fall 2016 conference at the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

September 01, 2016

The Center for Instructional Development and Educational Research (CIDER) recognizes Aki for engaging students in cognitive and sensory learning opportunities that foster student-driven discoveries.

June 12, 2016

Aki Ishida is one of Virginia Tech faculty members embarking on a research effort to invent new ways to utilize paving materials combined with technology to redefine and enhance the Drillfield experience.

November 18, 2015

Aki Ishida is named one of 25 most admired educators by DesignIntelligence. Each year, DesignIntelligence honors excellence in education and education administration by naming 25 exemplary professionals in these fields. The 2016 class of education role models was selected by DesignIntelligence staff with extensive input from thousands of design professionals, academic department heads, and students. See the list of all 25 here.

June 16, 2014

Aki Ishida and her collaborator Lynnette Widder were Runner Up in the 2014 Core77 Design Awards. The Project Making the Giraffe Path created workshop events and artifacts for the not-for-profit CLIMB (City Life is for Moving Bodies) to explore, record, and enhance the relationship between five parks along Northern Manhattan’s major escarpment and the communities along their edges. See what the jury said here.

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June 18, 2013

Lantern Field, a light and sound installation at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery in Washington, DC, is one of a dozen international winners of a 2013 Architectural Lighting Design Award. See jury comments and a video made by Architectural Lighting magazine here.