Program 9:15am - 6:00pm CT

Earn up to 3 AIA HSW CEUs

9:15 AM CT

Virtual Doors Open

9:30 AM - 9:40 AM CT

Welcome

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  Dionne Darling

  VP of Brand Partnerships

  The Architect’s Newspaper

  Dionne Darling

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  Dionne Darling has been with The A|N Media Group for over six years. As A|N’s Associate Publisher, she manages A|N’s Texas headquarters and handles accounts in the West, Southwest and Europe territories. Dionne has over 28 years of direct B2B sales, management and business development experience.

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  Dirk Kestner CO-CHAIR

  Director of Sustainable Design

  Walter P Moore

  Dirk Kestner CO-CHAIR

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  As director of sustainable design, Dirk Kestner provides overall guidance and resourcing to the entire firm, ensuring that all designs incorporate industry-leading expertise in sustainable strategies. His project work, teaching, and coaching throughout the firm and broad-reaching influence in the industry help maintain Walter P Moore’s status as a national leader in sustainable approaches and outcomes.

  Trained and experienced as a structural engineer, Dirk applies his immense passion for environmental accountability in design to elevate the knowledge and expertise of all those around him, creating better results for clients and projects. Dirk guides each team through a client inquiry process that produces bespoke sustainability goals for each project, and then leads the team to achieve those goals.

  He was founding chair of the Sustainability Committee of the ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) and is widely acknowledged as a national thought leader in the advancement of sustainable structural solutions. Dirk publishes and lectures frequently on topics that range from durability and deconstructability to salvaged structural steel and life cycle analysis. As a member of the LEED Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group of the US Green Building Council, he helps guide the important technical criteria of the LEED rating system.

  Dirk is a professional engineer in Texas and Georgia and is a LEED Accredited Professional/Building Design + Construction. He holds a Master of Science in Structural Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and graduated Cum Laude from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.

  His experience in digital design, geometric rationalization, and environmental analysis allows him to bring the highest level of value to his clients while also helping designers deliver projects to the highest level of design sophistication while maximizing performance and minimizing cost. Erik’s portfolio expresses both national and international work with extensive experience in the New York market, bringing expertise in buildings old and new, across academic, commercial, and cultural sectors. In addition to Erik’s professional accolades, he teaches enclosure design at a number of leading universities.

9:40 AM - 10:40 AM CT

Facade Retrofit: Recladding Strategies to Boost Performance

Across the country, cities are experiencing spates of new development. Nestled within these same urban areas, however, are legacy “architectures” spanning myriad typologies and waiting to be adapted for contemporary use. This panel will highlight two case studies that exemplify this trend and attest to the technical intricacies of breathing new life into historic structures.

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  Rachel Calafell

  Principal

  Walter P Moore

  Rachel Calafell

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  Rachel Calafell is a Principal and Project Manager at Walter P Moore, and a licensed Professional Engineer with over 12 years of experience in structural engineering. She has worked on a diverse range of projects including healthcare, commercial, sports, performing arts venues, education, and significant renovations. Rachel's passion is rooted in solving unique challenges and collaborating with coworkers and clients. From 2014-2018, Rachel managed the structural engineering efforts for the 957,000 sf Houston Methodist Walter Tower which was awarded the 2019 ENR "Best Healthcare Project" in Texas & Louisiana. In 2015, Rachel received Walter P Moore's esteemed Horvilleur Award, which is presented annually to one young structural engineer at the firm who has best exemplified excellence in technical design, client service, and business acumen. Rachel has mentored young engineers and shared an adjunct professorship in the Architecture Department at the University of Houston. She has also authored several publications in Modern Steel Construction and Panstadia magazines.

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  Joseph Welker

  Studio Director

  James Carpenter Design Associates

  Joseph Welker

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  Joseph Welker is Studio Director at James Carpenter Design Associates, managing the studio’s cross-disciplinary staff and coordinating its collaborations with landscape architects, architects, structural engineers, environmental engineers, fabricators and materials engineers. Welker works across the studio’s diverse range of projects, from public art to design elements and spaces that enhance the public realm. Fundamental to each project is an enhanced experience of light, unique to each project site and resulting in integrated art and structural designs that transcend form and style. Welker studied architecture and design at Cornell University, holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree led JCDA’s work on the Nordstrom NYC flagship store and the Ion innovation hub in Houston, Texas.

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  James Carpenter

  President

  James Carpenter Design Associates

  James Carpenter

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  James Carpenter has worked at the intersection of architecture, fine art, and engineering for nearly 50 years, advancing a distinctive vision based on the use of natural light as the foundational element of the built environment. Originally studying architecture before concentrating on the fine arts, Carpenter founded the cross-disciplinary design firm James Carpenter Design Associates in 1979 to support the application of these aesthetic principles to large-scale architectural projects. Carpenter’s work is driven by a deep awareness of materiality and craft as a means of enhancing the individual human experience within the built environment.

  Carpenter has been recognized with numerous national and international awards, including an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Smithsonian National Environment Design Award. He holds a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and was a Loeb Fellow of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Mellon Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago.

10:40 AM - 11:10 AM CT

Workshop/Session

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  Metal Mesh Made Easy - Selecting a Pre-Engineered System

  Metal Mesh Made Easy - Selecting a Pre-Engineered System

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  Stop Wasting Money on Firestopping, Visit STI Firestop

  Stop Wasting Money on Firestopping, Visit STI Firestop

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  Lightweight Cladding

  Lightweight Cladding

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  Choose Framing First for High-Performance Facades

  Choose Framing First for High-Performance Facades

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11:10 AM - 11:20 AM CT

Methods + Materials Break
Virtual Trade Show

11:20 AM - 12:20 PM CT

Facing the Big One: Straightforward Solutions that Prioritize Resiliency

As was most recently demonstrated by Hurricane Laura, the Gulf Coast is prone to severe, increasingly frequent tropical cyclones. While no substitute for long-term urban planning policies, building enclosures can be designed, detailed, and upgraded to mitigate disaster. Panelists will illustrate topical strategies through varied case studies, with an eye toward identifying widely applicable solutions.

12:20 PM - 12:50 PM CT

Workshop/Session

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  Customized Metal Mesh: Transforming Ordinary to Extraordinary

  Customized Metal Mesh: Transforming Ordinary to Extraordinary

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  Firestopping Done Right – From Design to Project Completion

  Firestopping Done Right – From Design to Project Completion

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  Lightweight Cladding

  Lightweight Cladding

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  Choose Framing First for High-Performance Facades

  Choose Framing First for High-Performance Facades

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12:50 PM - 1:00 PM CT

Methods + Materials Break
Virtual Trade Show

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CT

Museum District Rising: A Closer Look at the Kinder Building

Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts offers a constellation of high-profile works from big-name architects, including Mies van der Rohe, Rafael Moneo, and Lake|Flato. Joining this eclectic bunch is the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, a 200,000-square-foot museum expansion designed by Steven Holl Architects. This panel will peer behind the building’s semiopaque glass “curtain,” an ingenious response to the region’s age-old scourges—stifling heat and intense daylight.

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  Chris McVoy

  Senior Principal

  Steven Holl Architects

  Chris McVoy

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  Chris McVoy was born in 1964 in Ankara, Turkey. He received his Bachelors Degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia, pursuing studies in Venice in 1985. He graduated with a Masters of Architecture from Columbia University in 1992 and upon graduation worked with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Chris McVoy joined Steven Holl Architects in 1993 and was made the first Partner in 2000. Mr. McVoy has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a William Kinne Travel Fellowship and an American Scandinavian Foundation Grant. He has participated in international arts symposia and lectured widely on the firm’s work.

  He is responsible for overseeing the projects in the New York office, working closely with Steven Holl and clients to finalize the program, design, and budget, and coordinating and managing the full consultant team, including associate architects. He has been the partner-in-charge and co-designer for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Whitney Water Purification Facility and Park, the Campbell Sports Center at Columbia University, and the Glasgow School of Art and the partner-in-charge for the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, the Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa, and the recently completed REACH at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC. He is currently partner-in-charge for the Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Winter Visual Arts Building at Franklin & Marshall College.

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  Olaf Schmidt

  Associate

  Steven Holl Architects

  Olaf Schmidt

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  Olaf Schmidt has been with Steven Holl Architects since 2002. He was the Associate in Charge of the Queens Library project for the Department of Design and Construction, the Campbell Sports Center at Columbia University in New York City, and the Knokke Heist Casino Development in Belgium. While at Steven Holl Architects he has been the Project Architect for the Residence at the Swiss Embassy in Washington DC (2006) and the Loisium Hotel in Austria (2005). Mr. Schmidt received his Masters Degree in Architecture from ETH Zurich.

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  Roman Schieber

  Associate Director

  Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

  Roman Schieber

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  As both an Architect and a Certified Facades Engineer, Roman leads the Knippers Helbig Facades team in Stuttgart and New York. His association to structural engineering, environmental design and deep knowledge of the latest fabrication techniques allow him to transfer structural efficiency and thermal performance into facade design. The center aspiration of this work is to create a balanced link between architectural motivated and performance-driven design.

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  Nadir Abdessemed

  Project Manager

  Transsolar

  Nadir Abdessemed

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  Nadir is a project leader at Transsolar’s Stuttgart office. He had been based at the New York office for several years and has managed international projects of different complexity. Inspiring and realizing design vision resulted in internationally recognized architecture and urban developments, but also local projects with emerging offices where he developed practical strategies for climate responsive design in various climates of the world. His background as scientist and experience in applied technologies allows him to define the relevant questions relative to sustainability and to overview the solutions to design challenges at all scales, from a single dwelling to complex masterplans.

  Nadir is currently a guest lecturer at the GSD at Harvard University. He graduated from the Department of Mechanics in Darmstadt and received his PhD from Imperial College London, where he developed novel computational tools to model the airflow past complex geometries. In Germany he had served in the expert committee on human thermal comfort for the German Society of Sustainable Building.