Ian Caine, RA, SMArchS
Rahman Azari, PhD
Dean John Murphy named Assistant Professors Ian Caine and Rahman Azari as co-winners of the College of Architecture Construction and Planning’s Outstanding Teaching Award. The award, presented at the CACP Scholarship Banquet, recognizes exceptional contributions to architectural pedagogy in the college. Caine and Azari co-taught an undergraduate design studio that produced a national COTE Top Ten Award for Students, was selected for a national pilot curriculum project by Architecture 2030, and named by Metropolis Magazine as one of “the 7 best sustainable design courses in America.”
Caine and Azari’s COTE Studio embraced the goals and methods of the Architecture 2030 Challenge, which commits that all new buildings and major renovations will be carbon-neutral by 2030. The two studio instructors—one with expertise in building performance and the other in architectural design—initiated a critical feedback loop, creating dialogue between issues of analysis and design, performance and form. The larger goal of the studio was to explore the oft-misunderstood relationship between architectural sustainability and aesthetics.