Standing at over 12 feet tall, the installation, “Rural Construct,” combines elements of a deer stand and a duck blind, traditional hunting structures that hold deep significance in rural communities. McDaniels, assistant professor of landscape architecture, studies artifacts as a way people in the Appalachian region curate themselves and reveal a forward-thinking outlook rooted in tradition.

The installation is one of 12 in the DTour, a 50-mile, self-guided route through Sauk County working farmlands, punctuated by site-responsive artworks, pasture performances, roadside poetry, local food markets and more.

Prado, associate professor of design and structural technology, collaborated with McDaniels to introduce new technologies in designing and building the blind. Through augmented reality and computational design, the pair and student workers constructed the blind in the Art + Architecture Building before transporting it to Wisconsin.

Although not intended for hunting, McDaniels and Prado intentionally painted the installation neon pink paint to call back to animals’ colorblindness.

“Deer are red-green colorblind and cannot distinguish between red, orange or green. We camouflage these structures into the landscape based on our preferences,” said McDaniels. “By branding a familial rural form in color, we hope to prompt discussions on the complexity of hunting, food systems, and rural necessities.”

As visitors made their way through the Driftless Region, they encountered land-scale art that challenges, inspires, and celebrates the rich cultural landscape. And as they passed by McDaniels and Prado’s towering structure in the cornfield, they were invited to see the land—and their place within it—through a new lens.

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ADUs—commonly known as guest homes or accessory apartments—are a smaller, independent residential dwelling unit on the same lot as a stand-alone, detached single-family home. Almost all residential lots in Knoxville can legally sustain an ADU which can generate income for homeowners and support intergenerational living. The competition aimed to increase awareness and motivate change while providing tools to help address the region’s housing supply shortage.

Jurors included Lindsay Crockett, principal planner and design review program manager at Knoxville-Knox County Planning, Matthew Griffith, architect and founding principal of In Situ Studio, and Ross Miller, principal of FormGrey Studio.

“The School of Architecture is committed to generating knowledge and disseminating high-impact ideas about the built environment,” said Carl Lostritto, director of the school and UT representative on the AIA East Tennessee Board. “I’m especially excited to see entries that are feasible and productively disruptive. In this case, my expectation is that the winning drawings will influence the culture of development in Knoxville—a good example of the real-world agency of academic discourse.”

The jurors said, “Missing middle housing is a critical issue that architects can play an important role in addressing in their communities. Seeing all the different creative approaches and concepts to designing ADUs was quite refreshing and will hopefully spark further conversations in the Knoxville and East Tennessee communities. We selected [six] submissions in the two categories for their design merits.”

In the ‘Small Footprint’ category, which included studio and one-bedroom homes of 500 square feet or less, the jury selected “On Writing Home” by Cameron S. Bolin (MArch ’14), “Shifting Phantom ADUs” by Sanders Pace Architecture, founded by alumni John Sanders (’97) and Brandon Pace (’97), “54321” by Jonah Pruitt, and “Minimal Living Prefabricated ADU” by Professor and Dean Emerita Marleen Kay Davis.

“This was a win/win/win concept,” said Davis. “We were able to have faculty and students collaborating, while supporting AIA East Tennessee.  I was pleased to work with a great fourth year student Micah Kincaid.”

In the category ‘Standard ADU’, which included two-bedroom-homes of up to 750SF, jurors selected “Bento House” by Jakob Mikres (BArch ’24) and “Common Ground” by Marion Forbes (BArch ’14).

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As a young boy, lying in bed with the nightlight on, he’d imagine his bedroom furniture as buildings in a city.

“One of my earliest memories was sitting on the living room floor playing with blocks,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “I still have thousands of Legos.”

That passion for design led Davis to a long and influential career that’s touched hundreds of students, influenced architecture around the state, and left an impact on the field of urban design.

A at the Nashville architecture and engineering firm, Gresham Smith, will celebrate Davis’s career and the publication of his new book, The Presence Of The Absence, which chronicles 36 urban architecture design studio semesters he oversaw during his four years as design director at Nashville’s Civic Design Center and his subsequent 15 years running the Nashville Urban Design Architecture Studio, both cooperative arrangements with UT.

In the forward to Davis’s book, �ֲ���ý Dean Jason Young wrote, “(Davis) has elevated conversations about the plight of cities, engaged civic leaders, and involved University of Tennessee students as partners in participatory civic design to develop solutions to pressing urban problems for the public good…. Perhaps Professor Davis’s influence is most deeply seen in our state’s capital. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the amazing transformation Nashville has undergone in the past 15 years without Davis’s involvement.”

A Center of Energy

After earning his bachelor’s degree in architecture at Cornell University, Davis spent a few years in “bottom rung” positions at architectural firms in Hartford, CT, and Boston. He found the work dull.

“I went back to graduate school (at Cornell) as rehabilitation,” he said. After completing his master’s degree, Davis spent a year in Italy. He was on a Fulbright scholarship to study architecture with his wife, Marleen, who he’d met during their undergraduate years at Cornell, and was directing Syracuse University’s Architecture Program in Florence.

When they returned to the states, TK also joined the faculty at Syracuse University.

The couple moved to Knoxville in 1994; Marleen was named dean of UT’s �ֲ���ý, and TK joined the college’s faculty.

During his career in academia, TK Davis estimates he’s taught more than 800 design students and an equal number of students in architecture theory courses. He co-chaired three major conferences, including the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s 2001 regional meeting, “Modern Architecture: An Incomplete Project,” and the American Institute of Architects Tennessee’s 50th Anniversary Conference in 2003. From 1995-2003, he organized 120 lecturers, hosted a film series, and assembled numerous exhibits. He made sure news about these activities got into the hands of the most influential architecture minds in America and beyond.

“I was helping to put the school on the map as a center of energy,” he said.

Addressing Cities Issues

From 1995-2002, Davis ran the Kingsport Regional Interactive Design Studio. From 2004 to 2008, he served as design director at the Civic Design Center.

In those roles, he solicited input and helped gauge public sentiment on development plans, brought in expertise from UT faculty and Nashville leadership, and engaged students to create designs based on real community issues.

Such efforts were “totally consistent with the mission statement of a land grant institution” because it “increased the value of citizenship in our state through outreach,” he said.

The Civic Design Center is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 by a collection of passionate Nashvillians to encourage visionary design and community engagement in urban design. Back then, UT loaned a faculty member to serve as the Design Center’s design director.

UT Professor Emeritus Mark Schimmenti was the Civic Design Center’s first design director; Davis succeeded him.

UT Architecture alumnus Gary Gaston, now chief executive officer of the Civic Design Center and host of the Oct. 17 reception, said Davis started his role with the mission of promoting “The Plan of Nashville,” a community-based vision for the city’s urban design going into the 21st century.

During his time at the Civic Design Center, Davis co-hosted a 12-episode public access television series on civic design and spoke about urban design issues at more than 120 events.

“TK brought really competent, respected leadership,” Gaston said. “He not only influenced emerging architects to understand civic design principles but to become stewards of those principles in their careers.”

Davis said he’s especially proud to have helped provide data and input that enabled Nashville leaders to adopt the Civic Design Center’s recommendation to build the 2.1 million-square-foot Music City Convention Center in its current location—close to hotels, restaurants, public transport, and in a spot where the enormous, beautiful building would encourage ongoing development.

“TK used the city as a laboratory for his design students, which proved to be hugely beneficial to Nashville and Middle Tennessee,” Gaston said.

Honors Abound

During his time running the design studio in the Tri-Cities, Davis was awarded the “Keys to the City of Bristol.”

In 2008, he received a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects, one of the highest honors the AIA can bestow upon a member, for being “a leading advocate for enlightened civic and urban design.”

In 2012, he received a Collaborative Practice Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The project, “Collaborations in Transit-Oriented Development,” was praised for “nurturing the teamwork of students from various backgrounds and community members to address significant urban design challenges.”

In 2013, he won a C. Peter McGrath University Community Outreach Exemplary Program Award—one of six given nationally—for a project entitled “A Participatory Outreach Partnership in Greater Nashville.”

And in 2016, TK and Marleen shared the Samuel Morgan Lifetime Service Award for Contributions to Architecture in the Public Realm, one of the two highest honors that AIA Tennessee confers. The award honors architects and individuals who have exhibited a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.

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The team’s submission, Knox Yards, was a part of Professor Tricia Stuth’s Housing America VI: The Unfinished and the Incremental studio held in the spring in collaboration with an integrations seminar led by Assistant Professor Jeremy Magner. The competition presented a challenge for students to delve into wood construction in Knoxville’s Depot District.

Stuth had the studio focus on the Regas Building, an 1891 five-story building originally named the Caswell Harris Building, which now stands two-stories tall and serves as a non-profit resource center and headquarters to Knoxville Leadership Foundation.

“The building’s history has evolved over the century with the nearby train station drawing people into the city and, later, the interstate driving families into the suburbs,” said Stuth. “Soon after, the building suffered a damaging fire, its context had changed so drastically that there seemed no reasonable argument for refurbishing the building and the top three stories were unceremoniously removed.”

With the past decades seeing a resurgence of Downtown Knoxville, Calhoon and Rupan reimagined the building with an additional eight-story heavy timber structure offering housing. The pair drew upon personal experiences of housing’s economic and social concerns that have impacted them as out-of-state students.

Rupan, an international student from India, proposed one of their target audiences after her own experience struggling to find affordable housing upon moving to Knoxville.

“Old Knoxville itself had a history of immigrants, Irish immigrants in particular, so we drove off of that,” she said. “Between the history and my personal experience, it showed us that we need to cater to international students, particularly for housing. We also saw that the area has a lot of unhoused individuals, and the nearby temporary shelter is always full. There is a lack of institutions that are trying to provide adequate housing.”

Calhoon added that the hope would be that the international students and young families, although maybe in different life stages, would be able to communicate with each other and share life experiences.

The pair drew inspiration from UT’s Art + Architecture building’s open atrium to allow individuals to connect by seeing each other across walkways.

“It would allow these different age groups to come into accidental meetings, where you bump into a person and have a chat in community spaces like a shared kitchen or gathering room,” said Rupan. “We were focused on creating these little moments and spaces in our design rather the architecture being the dominant hand of the whole project.”

The pair considered the financial situations of their audience and challenged themselves to consider cost saving solutions in their design that would keep tenants bills low.

Their design included an all-electric ductless HVAC system (offset by a rooftop solar array) with heat recovery ventilators for residential units to allow users individual control over their environment and indoor comfort levels. Residents will be encouraged to use passive systems that lower energy consumption through ceiling fans and cross ventilation. The pair included a green roof to assist in rainwater management, collecting and re-circulating water within the building for secondary uses.

“I really appreciate the commitment of Anna Grace and Rupan to tackle the premise of ‘integration’ beyond the logical or practical coordination of building systems,” said Magner. “Their project manages to bring a complex set of technical and social aspirations together in hopeful and imaginative ways that produce synergy between people, buildings, and environment.”

The pair began to consider ways timber could be incorporated into the design where they would traditionally use steel or concrete frames. Calhoon said the pair wrestled with technical demands of exposing the structure of the building, but ultimately loved the richness and warmth that the material added.

Jurors for the competition included Omar Al-Hassawi, ‎Washington State University; Erik Barth, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Gensler; and Veronica Madonna, Athabasca University. The competition is administered by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and sponsored by the Softwood Lumber Board.

Housing America is an ongoing series of studios, led by Stuth and Professor Ted Shelton, that use housing as a vehicle to consider how architects are to operate ethically in contemporary society.

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The Reeve’s daughter is a part of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s School of Architecture Class of 2027, dubbed the Gerber Scholars, a group that received a transformational gift from Jeff (’82) and Marla Gerber before their first day of classes in the fall of 2022.

Their historic $5.2 million support paid for the last-dollar tuition and fees for the five-year program for all 78 students in the architecture class.

To pay forward the generosity their students received, the classes’ families united to establish the Jeff and Marla Gerber Honorary Scholarship Endowment, a scholarship and endowment to support a third-year student in the �ֲ���ý who demonstrates extraordinary professional promise.

The endowment was presented to the Gerbers during a Family Weekend tailgate where 57 School of Architecture Class of 2027 families traveled from 15 states to meet Jeff and Marla and share in the celebration of the endowment.

“Soon after we made the scholarship announcement two years ago, we began hearing that the families and students were responding to the gift by providing assistance to others, either financially or through volunteerism,” said Jeff. “This Saturday, when the endowment was announced, we were thrilled and honored, but not surprised. Over the past two years, we have seen first-hand the high character of this group. We are so proud to be associated with them.”

Students in the cohort have corresponded with the Gerbers since that day, sending notes of gratitude, updates on their studios, and personal milestones.

“We knew the scholarships would definitely have an effect, but we had no idea how it would turn out to be such a gift back to us,” said Marla. “It’s meant the world to us. We are grateful to learn about each student and their family. It helps to confirm that this is happening at the right place, at the right time, with the right people.”

Moved by meeting the Gerbers and the impact they’ve had on their son’s education, David and Lane Anderson and their family chose to increase their contribution following the event.

“The incredible and continuing generosity of the Gerbers cannot possibly be repaid,” said David. “Their impact on the Class of 2027 has gone far beyond financial support. This gift will last a lifetime and, when these new architects go out into the world, they will be moved to pay-it-forward through service and philanthropy. We are proud to help in establishing this endowment so that the kindness and generosity will forever be part of the �ֲ���ý.

To the shock of the families and students, the Gerbers had a surprise of their own.

“As I told the students that night three years ago, the scholarship is very personal to me. The idea came together twenty years ago, and it took a lot of stars to align for it to finally come to fruition,” Jeff said. “And if it all had ended that night, it would have been worth it 100 times over, but that’s not what happened.”

He shared that his biggest regret while at UT was not going abroad. Although Jeff desperately wanted to, it was not financially feasible at the time.

The Gerbers announced they would be supporting the college’s efforts to provide greater access to global engagement for the Gerber Scholars. The students’ will receive aid towards the college’s planned preferred programs which fulfil their off-campus study requirements.

“This scholarship is really intended to give you all the tools necessary to not only be successful here, but to be successful when you get out and, in your careers,” Jeff said. “I hope that you are now free to dream big in your life and your career.”

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In 1996, ��á�Գ����� founded JSa, a leading architecture practice in the renewal of the Mexico City, with more than 70 employees and offices in Mexico and Peru. The firm is well known for their comprehensive architectural interventions that rehabilitate and restore the urban fabric. They have designed and built over 180 projects in Mexico, South America and Europe.

In 2006, JSa’s project, Brazil 44, a small housing rehabilitation project in Mexico City, won ��á�Գ����� and the firm the Golden Lion for Best Urban Projects at the Venice Biennale.

“This was a very small project, but with big importance,” said ��á�Գ�����. “People do not need the same space to live. Like families today, they do not need to have a common structure. Families subdivide, they add, subtract, they work and live. So how do you make a space that can adapt to all those needs that families today have?”

This type of adaptive design will be incorporated into ��á�Գ�����’s fall studio with students from three of the college’s schools. They will embrace ��á�Գ�����’s rehabilitative practice as they reimagine the former General Shale building in Downtown Knoxville, maintaining the building footprint and adapting it into a community hub that celebrates the proximity to the Tennessee River.

This week, ��á�Գ����� will take 16 architecture, interior architecture and landscape architecture students to Mexico City and Oaxaca to view and other impactful sustainably focused designs and landscapes in Mexico.

Join the college for ��á�Գ�����’s , at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23.

��á�Գ����� graduated as an architect with honors from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM), received his master’s degree in real estate development from Columbia University in New York City. In 2008, he was selected as an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Since 2013, the BarberMcMurry Professorship has funded internationally recognized architects as teachers and researchers for the benefit of students at the �ֲ���ý.

The professorship was established by Knoxville-based firm, , to promote design excellence through teaching and research by a prominent visiting professor who is an internationally or nationally recognized practicing architect. It is the result of a bequest from Blanche Barber and a match by BarberMcMurry Architects to produce the $1 million endowment.

Previous BarberMcMurry Endowed Professors include Lawrence Scarpa in 2013; Wendell Burnette in 2015; Billie Faircloth in 2018; Mitchell Squire in 2020; and Jenny Wu and Dwayne Oyler in 2021; and Ryan Jones in 2022.

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, Anthony Titus, September 9

Surface Mining — A Sequel will focus upon the structure of Anthony’s transdisciplinary practice of art and architecture. He will speak about a selection of exhibitions, projects, and teaching pedagogy that spans the past decade, emphasizing the processes and procedures and the final product of the works.

Anthony is looking to explore and discover new possibilities between the spaces of architecture, sculpture and painting. The conversation and exchange between these disciplines serves as a rich space of opportunity to enhance and expand our current understanding of space, form, color, and structure as participants in a larger cultural landscape.

, Javier ��á�Գ�����, HFAIA, September 23

JSa is a Mexican architecture studio founded in 1996 by Javier ��á�Գ�����, with urban acupuncture as a vision to conceive comprehensive architectural interventions that contribute towards the continuous rehabilitation of the urban fabric.

Today, partners Aisha Ballesteros and Benedikt Fahlbusch —alongside ��á�Գ�����— are the core of the practice. And together lead a team headquartered in Mexico City, and a secondary studio in Lima, Peru led by Irvine Torres.

Stemming from the French tradition of the atelier, the team approaches design as a collective process, immersed in a continuous cycle of research, urban approximation, architectural project and adaptability to the ever-evolving social, urban and environmental challenges. With this conviction as premise, the studio gained early recognition with a series of seminal projects that together prompted the renewal of downtown Mexico City at the turn of the century.

Throughout the past three decades, JSa has realized over 180 projects in Mexico, South America and Europe. Encompassing five cross-complementary axes around: the recovery of heritage and promotion of culture; the conception of unique hospitality and dining experiences; the design of versatile community and workspaces; the integration of sustainable solutions; and the continuous exploration of housing as the foundation of the urban ecosystem.

, Kim Yao, FAIA, September 24

In conjunction with the fall 2024 publication of the monograph Architecture. Research. Office., Principal Kim Yao will present the design of the practice as a project in itself. “Architecture” is the firm’s ultimate objective, which for ARO means creating beautifully crafted work that benefits people; “research” grounds its methodology and informs its approach; and “office” reflects the idea that creating architecture in support of people starts with the community and culture of the firm itself. Key projects completed over the past three decades, representing the firm’s diverse body of work, will be the means to describe the principles that guide ARO’s work, the firm’s methodology and its culture.

Yao’s lecture will be held off-campus in collaboration with AIA East Tennessee at 11:50 a.m.–1 p.m. at the Foundry On the Fair Site.

, Lucy McRae, October 28

In 20 to 40 years’ time, technologies such as CRISPR will transform humanity and redefine many of society’s structures. When humans are born outside of the body in labs, who will shape these reproductive habitats– and for what purpose?

Calling forth these likely futures, we explore new and interdisciplinary avenues for architecture and design through a process of narrative prototyping: provoking impossible questions and exploring ways in which science fiction can spark real-world discourse.

Incubating a mind state that trusts the unknown, Lucy develops methods for pioneering new aesthetics, new stories, and new ways of being together in the world.

Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley, November 3–December 4

The exhibition will be held in the Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture. Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley is curated by School of Archiecture’s Assistant Professor Micah Rutenberg.

, Mark Lee, November 18

Mark Lee is a founding partner of Johnston Marklee, based in Los Angeles. Since its establishment in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 50 major awards. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee are diverse in scale and type, spanning fourteen countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent projects include the permanent home for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program (ISP) at Roy Lichtenstein Studio in New York’s Greenwich Village; the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, Texas; the UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, California; and a renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Current projects include the residential towers, Ray Nashville, in Tennessee, and Ray Phoenix, in Arizona; a renovation of the UCLA Reverend James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center in Los Angeles; and the interior architecture and museology within the Kunstmuseum Hauptbau in Basel Switzerland, in collaboration with Christ & Gantenbein.

Support for the �ֲ���ý’s lecture series is championed by the Robert B. Church III Memorial Lecture Fund.

Unless otherwise noted, lectures are held at 5:30 p.m. in McCarty Auditorium, room 109, in the Art + Architecture Building.

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“Ever since I wanted to study architecture, one of the motives that led me towards the career was the beauty and the embracement of materials in Scandinavian architecture,” Daniel said. “I’ve been in love with Scandinavian architecture and their culture, in how they depict a sense of minimalism and elegance not only in their day-to-day lives but also in design.”

The 15-credit hour program spans May to August and satisfies the program’s off-campus requirement. Students studied at Aalto University, named in honor of Alvar Aalto, a prominent Finnish architect and designer.

“Another motivation for me to select the program was being at Aalto University and learning the history and architecture that defines the pragmatics and identity of the country that has uplifted in recent years. This program allowed me to have an additional layer of conceptual and design knowledge that will play a vital role in my future practice.”

Throughout the program, students could travel independently and as part of the curriculum.

“One of the memorable experiences that I will always remember and cherish was when went to a town called Kiljava for an architectural retreat,” said Daniel. “On our second night, we sat on the beach, grilled sausage, and different kinds of Finnish foods. Towards the end, we sat around the bonfire and professors shared their favorite memories of the program and how it evolved over time.”

Daniel and his friends embraced Finnish culture including saunas and local customs and traditions.

“In Finland and among other Scandinavian countries, there is a holiday called Mid-Summer where people always outside partying or out for a picnic with the family for the longest day in summer. My friends and I went to nearby island where it had a festival, hiked, and ate a lot of Finnish food.”

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Caroline Robertson, a fourth-year architecture student, traveled abroad as abroad as a part of the School of Architecture’s Finland Summer Architecture Institute in Helsinki, Finland.

“First arriving in Helsinki felt overwhelming but exciting because I had been anticipating it for several months and there had been a few meetings beforehand it felt surreal to then finally be in Helsinki,” she said. “I had a feeling of wanting to maximize all of the new opportunities and explore every inch of the city. Every corner there was something new which was refreshing because I often catch myself bored of new experiences and too comfortable in Knoxville.”

For Robertson, one of the most impactful experiences took place shortly into the program. The cohort traveled to Kiljava, a village in the municipality of Nurmijärvi and Hyvinkää in southern Finland.

“Driving along the Finnish countryside was stunning and the summer cabin we stayed at in the woods appeared like a hidden gem,” Robertson said. “Sleeping in bunk beds, sausages by the fire, and sitting by the lake with the sun still high in the sky at 11:00 pm felt like I was at camp but 10x better. We learned how to measure the summer cabin by hand and translate these measurements into drafted drawings.”

The 15-credit hour program spans May to August and satisfies the program’s off-campus requirement. Students studied at Aalto University, named in honor of Alvar Aalto, a prominent Finnish architect and designer.

The country gave Robertson a new outlook on the built environment.

“Stepping onto a campus designed by Alvar Aalto was a privilege and I got to see first hand how his drawings translated in beautiful spaces. While Alvar Aalto made a tremendous impact on Finnish architecture, the Finnish design culture was unlike anything I had experienced. The Finnish design culture prides itself in well built things, design competitions that yield beautiful public spaces, and attention to every detail. These are just a few design approaches that I am now determined to use in my future practice as an architect and designer.”

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“In light of the incredible work Katherine has done as associate dean for academic affairs and research over the last three years, and based on what I have seen her managing across both roles,  I believe that the college is at a point where we need to split academic affairs workflows from research workflows, and move forward with two associate deans,” said Young. “This will allow us to go to the next level in both areas of college leadership.”

Ambroziak will continue to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, overseeing curricular development, compliance and accreditation, student academic discipline, and supporting student organizations and events.

Sachs joined the college in 2009 and was promoted to full professor earlier this year. She is a historian and theorist of architecture and landscape, with a particular interest in the relationship between design and research in the formation of design disciplines and professions in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where her dissertation focused on post-World War II architectural research in American schools. Her book Environmental Design: Architecture, Politics, and Science in Postwar America received the SESAH Award of Excellence in 2019.

Since moving to East Tennessee, Sachs has focused on the Tennessee Valley Authority and its impact on the environment and society. Her upcoming book, The Mechanized Landscape: Statecraft and Environment in the Tennessee Valley Authority, co-authored with Micah Rutenberg, is set for release in late 2025. The TVA is also the subject of her 2023 release, The Garden in the Machine: Planning and Democracy in the Tennessee Valley Authority, which focused on the transformation of utopian ideals into professional practice in architecture, landscape architecture and regional planning.

“Dr. Sachs is well suited for leading the college in the research area,” Young said. “Given that her own scholarly interests have helped position the role of research in schools of design historically, she will bring focus to our strategic initiative to build a more robust research culture among college faculty, which in turn will elevate the teaching and learning culture for our students.”

Ambroziak joined the college in 2004 and was named associate professor in 2014. Her research examines how designers and users become conscious of their built and natural environment and what this may mean to the generation of healthy perceptions and memory. She focuses on spatial theory related to sensory response and body perception, ritual theory, and contemporary memorial theory. This research finds application in the community engaged Odd Fellows Cemetery Reclamation, an initiative in partnership with Knoxville Re-Animation Coalition and the City of Knoxville. The project has been recognized by the Association for Gravestone Studies, Faith & Form Magazine and The Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture, and AIA East Tennessee.

Ambroziak has been recognized at the university as the 2024 James R. Cox Professor acknowledging her excellence in teaching, scholarship and service, and the 2015 UT Excellence in Academic Outreach. She has been awarded the national Diversity Achievement Award by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the preeminent organization in architectural education, as well as the Fred & Rosalee Oakley Award, a national recognition from the Association of Gravestone Studies.”

The college will begin a formal internal search for an associate dean of research during the spring semester.

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