Hearst Lecture Series Brings Award-Winning Young Designers to Cal Poly

SAN LUIS OBISPO – The Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design’s Hearst Lecture Series continues this winter with “40 below,” a series of talks on campus that will focus on young design professionals.

All of the free public lectures will highlight designers in their 40s and younger and will take place in the Rotunda of the Business Building.

The winter series kicks off Jan. 20 at 4 p.m. with a presentation about Cal Poly’s award-winning entry in last fall’s Solar Decathlon Competition. Architecture professors Rob Pena and Sandy Stannard will be joined by Solar CalPoly student team members Nicholas Holmes, Robert Johnson and Austin Quig-Hartman, who will talk about the solar home they designed and built and the challenge of moving it 2,394 miles to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Competing against 18 of the nation’s top universities, Cal Poly’s project earned third place overall.

Clark Construction will sponsor the appearance of Andy Cohen from the Gensler architecture firm at 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 27. Gensler is one of the world’s largest and most successful architecture companies. Cohen will focus on how design can empower people and transform organizations through teamwork and innovation.

The series will continue Feb. 3 at 4:30 p.m. with a joint lecture about affordable housing and sustainability by architects Larry Scarpa and Angela Brooks of the Pugh + Scarpa firm. Both work with the non-profit organization Livable Places Inc.

Local landscape architect and Cal Poly alumnus Jeffrey Gordon Smith will talk about his award-winning garden, lighting and outdoor furniture designs at 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 10. His work has been featured in Garden Design, Metropolitan Home and Sunset magazines. His latest project is the 85,000-square-foot Cal Poly Engineering Plaza scheduled for completion in 2007.

The series will wrap up March 3 at 3:30 p.m. with Cal Poly alumnus Bruce Tomb, an architect from San Francisco. Tomb started the studio, Interim Office of Architecture with Cal Poly alum John Randolph. Now on his own, Tomb continues to focus on furniture and industrial design, installations and exhibit design, as well as architecture. He is an adjunct professor in the Architecture and Sculpture programs at California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco and Oakland.

The Hearst Lecture Series will also feature UC Berkeley architecture professor Lisa Iwamoto, a partner at IS.Ar IwamotoScott; Paul Lewis, a partner in the LTL-Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis studio of New York and the director of Graduate Studies at Princeton University; Hitoshi Abe from Atelier Hitoshi Abe of Miyagi, Japan; Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein from Tokyo; and Tezuka Architects from Tokyo.

The lecture series is sponsored by a grant from the Hearst Foundation. For more information, call the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at 756-1311.

Editors: For more information or to arrange for an interview with the lecturers, contact Ray Ladd in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at (805) 756-7432.

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