October 30, 2013October 31, 2013 by shannonchance

Closing a Chapter

In preparation for our chapter, Tim Cole updated me on VBCPS's sustainability strategies.

Last month, while working on our chapter, Tim Cole and I discussed VBCPS’s sustainability strategies.

I’m celebrating a moment of success here before I hit the sack for the night.

I just submitted a full draft of a chapter called “Designing School Buildings to Enhance Performance and Learning” for a book called Marketing the Green School: Form, Function, and the Future that will be part of the Advances in Educational Marketing, Administration, and Leadership (AEMAL) Book Series. To make that project more fun, I enlisted Virginia Beach City Public School’s Director of Sustainability, J. Timothy Cole, as my supporting author.

This chapter provides a way for me to share some of the research I did for my dissertation and to extend my knowledge — I got to learn from Tim’s successes in Virginia Beach. Tim has helped create 8 LEED-quality school facilities (5 are certified and 3 are in process to become certified). He even helped pilot LEED v1 in the 1990s.

This is the second chapter I have completed in the two months since I’ve been home. The other chapter is called “Bringing it all Together Through Group Learning.” It is for a Wiley publication called New Directions for HIgher Education. That project was fun because I got to work with the book’s editor, the illustrious Dr. Pamela Eddy.

Since returning home on August 23, I’ve also managed to compile and submit a dossier to my University, submit a grant proposal asking for funding to help conduct future research, spend a good amount of time with my students, implement some new teaching techniques, and — this week — get my midterm grades in on time and prep to advise students.

Oh, yes, and tonight I also had a lovely dinner with my dad and step-mom, Joyce, who are in town on business! It was a real treat to spend a few hours with them. Joyce is the Director of Admissions for the Vet School at Virginia Tech and she is recruiting at Hampton University in the morning.

All this is pretty typical in the day of a professor… but I will sleep well tonight, knowing that I’m doing the best job I can possibly be doing right now, despite all the odds I’ve stacked against myself.

It is really nice to step back, take a deep breath, and be thankful for work and health and a ray of happiness every now and then.

And now, to sleep. There’s much more to do in the morning….

A plan of the new Kellam High School, now under construction.

Tim gave me a tour of the facility, inside and out.

The highlight is the central courtyard, which the students helped design.

It includes an “edible” garden, a bio-retention infiltration garden, and an interactive gathering garden.

January 13, 2013 by shannonchance

Glimpses of Trinity College

Visiting Trinity College’s campus is a highlight of any trip to Dublin. I’ve neglected to show you pictures of this awe-inspiring place. But it’s never too late to make amends….

The main entry to Trinity, as seen at sunset. (Copyright Shannon Chance, 2012.)

Trinity College’s most formal courtyard. (Copyright Shannon Chance, 2012.)

Trinity’s monumental bell tower. (Copyright Shannon Chance, 2012.)

I love the cobblestone paving. It shimmers in the moon light. (Copyright Shannon Chance, 2012.)

Incidentally, you can see more images and read about Trinity at the Sacred Destinations website.

December 2, 2012 by shannonchance

Bringing Prague Home

You can view the whole set of boards I produced after our one-week trip by clicking here.

Here are some photos of the exhibit that my Hampton University architecture students assembled after our 2008 spring break trip to Prague. In addition to the exhibit, we also delivered a lecture on campus and another for the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Those talks were about the urban issues each of us studied on our one-week trip.

With the help of Lenka Schulzova, an alumna of our program who was born in the Czech Republic, I’d planned an itinerary that included lots of warm spaces inside where we could draw (Prague is chilly in March) as well as outside spaces.

It was truly amazing how this group came together during this trip. Everyone on the trip embraced the challenge to practice sketching as much as possible. Daisy Williams (a truly amazing teacher who is now working at the University of Oregon) provided instruction on drawing before and during the trip.

Each day of our trip, the students eagerly explored the city. They frequently asked to stop to make sketches. And they enthusiastically discussed and critiqued each other’s work. We developed so much skill and knowledge during this trip! And we brought what we learned home to share with others.

Prague is remarkable in that so many grand, public spaces are available indoors. It also has lovely courtyards embedded inside the blocks of streets. This is the case in many cities, but in Prague the courtyards are often accessible to the general public — which is a great treat for visitors and residents alike!

Discovering all this, I titled my series of boards “insideout|side spaces” and described different qualities of these Czech spaces on each board.

The exhibition of our work from Prague.

Mark Matel, sailing through.

We generated lots of sketches, photos, and knowledge on this one-week trip!

Brandon Clark and Shannon Chance in the Bemis atrium.

It’s a lovely space.

Mark documenting the exhibit. My Plecnik board is hanging to the middle right.

December 1, 2012December 2, 2012 by shannonchance

Learning from Prague

The modernism of Jože Plečnik.

Cubism is one of the aspects that makes Prague’s skyline so energetic. I’ve uploaded a gallery of boards I made following the week-long study abroad program I organized to the Czech city.

The travel group was energetic, too. We had such fun sketching and learning. I asked each traveller study one specific aspect of the urban environment. My own assignment was to capture characteristics unique to Prague.

I made these boards for the exhibit our group posted in Hampton University’s Bemis Laboratories building. We also presented the work at the Hampton Roads AIA Pecha Kucha Night.