In August, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) announced the creation of a grant program that will give a total of $10,000 each academic year to architecture schools to assist in the creation and implementation of new ideas and methods of integrating practice and education. The first recipients of the NCARB Grant are the University of Kansas (KU) School of Architecture and Urban Design and the North Dakota State University (NDSU) College of Engineering and Architecture.
The KU School of Architecture received $6,000 for its proposed “Sustainability Immersion” initiative. Through the program, architecture students will learn sustainability concepts in introductory courses and put them to use in studios and in the development of case studies while working with building industry professionals.
The NDSU College of Engineering and Architecture received $4,000 for its effort to help local architecture firms implement building information modeling (BIM) through the school's design studios. The school's students will analyze the production operations of a firm, create BIM components that will be tested by the firm, and then study the software's effectiveness.
