Ball State will host the head of Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom for two days to compare international research on low carbon cities with students.
Phil Jones has been working internationally on researching low carbon cities can lessen the impact on environment.
“His area of expertise is mission critical, actually not only for our institution but for any institution that takes the environment seriously,” said Guillermo Vasquez, the dean of the College of Architecture and Planning. “It’s always very interesting for us to see what Europe, or in this case the UK, are doing and compare notes.”
For the past five years he has worked with Bruce Race, an associate professor practice, on his doctoral thesis on how architects are planning for climate change, and how climate change will change the form of our cities.
Jones will be speaking at 5 p.m. today in the Architecture Building about the push towards being carbon neutral.
“[I would like students to] really to appreciate the need to design more sustainability,” Jones said. “Just to appreciate the basic elements of sustainability. It’s not difficult ... It’s a need to get back to people. It’s not rocket science, it’s just going back to basic design principals.”
He is also working with studios and master students of urban design at the Indianapolis center.
“It is our practice that whenever we bring a speaker, especially one of his caliber, we get them real busy,” Vasquez said. “We line up classes, we line up smaller groups for more informal conversations and give them as much exposure as possible.”
Last year, Jones said he advised students over Skype, but in person, he has noticed differences between schools.
Jones and Race said Ball State has more interdisciplinary opportunities, while in the UK they are more focused on the building and physics side of design.
But, they both said, both Ball State and Cardiff University have the goal of producing architects who are useful and can design building from day one at a future job.
