In the world of Charlotte Lillie Balogh ’17, rowing and storytelling have long played prominent roles. This fall, those two influential forces came together for Balogh with the publication of “,” (Delacorte Press), a young adult mystery novel centered on a girls’ competitive rowing team.

“I can’t help but see a story anywhere I go,” says Balogh, a Remembrance Scholar who majored in at Syracuse University’s . “I’m always people watching or taking notes.”

The Los Angeles-based author, screenwriter and former competitive rower turned coach spent eight years working on “Capsized,” which she originally pitched as a TV script. Now, in a full-circle moment, �����’s developing it as a pilot for Hulu. In summer 2025, she published her first young adult novel, “Kill the Lax Bro,” (Delacorte Press), a darkly comic murder mystery.

At Syracuse, the Boston area native competed for the Orange women’s rowing team for a year and got a firsthand look at the entertainment industry through the , interning with NBCUniversal. But it was screenwriting professor Keith Giglio who recognized her affinity for superheroes and comics and put Diane Nelson ’89, then head of DC Entertainment, and Geoff Johns, an acclaimed superhero screenwriter and executive, on her radar.

She met Nelson on a Newhouse visit and built a relationship with her that eventually helped her land a job as an assistant to Johns at DC Entertainment, where she worked on numerous projects, including “Wonder Woman 1984,” and the CW series “Stargirl.”

Balogh shared more insights in a conversation with Syracuse University Today.

The in the (VPA) is celebrating the release of two albums showcasing the Syracuse University Singers and faculty.

“” features the Syracuse University Singers, conducted by , professor and director of the Setnor School of Music. VPA alumni and faculty contributed new a cappella choral music for the project.

The University Singers began gathering contemporary music in 2022 when the ensemble was invited to present the featured closing concert of the Society of Composers, Inc., Region 2 Conference, hosted by the Setnor School of Music in Crouse College.

The program debuted all new music, including three works by guest composer and alumnus Nilo Alcala G’09.

“The concert was in November and went very well, so at the end of the semester we recorded the music during the last couple of days of classes,” says Warren.

Two additional songs were added during the spring semester, including the album’s namesake, “Sing Me Awake,” by Dylan Kim ’24, then a student composer in the choir. , associate professor of composition in the Setnor School of Music, also contributed a piece, “I Have a Bird in Spring.”

While celebrating the release of the album, the University Singers are also looking toward the future. This February, they will hold a concert bringing the 40-part voice piece “Spem in Alium” to life with the Southern Tier Singers’ Collective and the Binghamton University Chamber Singers.

The Setnor School of Music also commemorates the release of an album from two faculty members, composer Draper and organist , associate professor of applied music and performance (organ).

The culmination of a six-year artistic partnership, “” presents eight contemporary works that place the organ in conversation with violin, trombone, solo voices, choir and three distinctive pipe organs.

The project began in 2019 when Laver asked new VPA faculty member Draper to write her first work for organ. Draper’s use of the organ impressed Laver.

“What surprised me most was how quickly Natalie adapted to the organ and made it an extension of her compositional voice,” says Laver. “The organ can be a daunting instrument to write for, but Natalie embraced the challenge.”

As the music took shape, the pair drew on the University community. The album features Setnor faculty , violin, and G’26, soprano, Department of Drama instructor G’24, mezzo-soprano, as well as the Hendricks Chapel Choir under the direction of . Setnor alumna Katerina Skafidas ’20, soprano, also contributed.

The album’s use of the academic phrase et al. (“and others”) is a nod toward the collaborative spirit it embodies.

The organ itself becomes a collaborator through the work of Draper. In the title work, “Interlaced,” violin and organ intertwine to create what she describes as a “super-instrument.”

“The organ is so often a solo instrument—it felt liberating to open it up to chamber possibilities,” says Draper. “In many ways, this album is a celebration of the collaborative spirit on every level.”

That vision was made possible with support from organizations including the New York State Council on the Arts, CNY Arts, Sonoma Bach and several chapters of the American Guild of Organists, whose support helped transform an initial commission into a multi-year creative endeavor.

All are welcome to celebrate the album’s release at a on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 11 a.m. in Setnor Auditorium.

Coco Wing Yun Wong G’27, a clinical mental health counseling master’s degree student in the and former graduate student employee in Health Promotion at the Barnes Center at the Arch, has been named the 2026 recipient of the .

The award is given to just one student nationally each year by the Foundation for Play Therapy. Named in memory of Dr. Charles Schaefer, a co-founder of the Association for Play Therapy, the scholarship provides $5,000 toward training and supervision as Wong works toward a registered play therapist credential.

Wong’s path to the field began in high school in Macau, China, where a single picture—of a colorful room full of toys, a child and a play therapist—stuck with her long before she had any formal training.

That interest carried her through an undergraduate degree in psychology at Peking University, a gap year that included two months as a full-time volunteer supporting children and adolescents with developmental disabilities in Yunnan, China; two full-time jobs in Macau (one in a residential setting for adults with substance use disorders; one as a pre-school counselor); and, eventually, a weekly ferry commute from Macau to Hong Kong, the closest place she could find training in Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT).

In this interview, Wong talks about the scholarship’s importance, what play therapy is (and is not), her experience studying with the School of Education and her future goals.

, professor in the University’s , has always been drawn to studying the legal issues that impact families, Indigenous communities and identity. He has long shared that research with audiences beyond the classroom.

That expansion began around 2011 when he started writing for The New York Times and continued with the release of his debut children’s book, “” in 2019, which the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal and the . His second book, “ published last year and was listed on Kirkus Best Books of 2025.

His third book for children, “,” will be released on Oct. 13.

“I like to do the same topics over and over, but for different audiences, so it’s making this type of scholarship accessible,” Maillard says.

His latest book, “The Ones Who Came Before” explores the idea of belonging and “who came first” through a child and grandfather. Maillard says it was sparked by an unexpected encounter with bears during a family trip to Vermont.

“We were all sitting by the window in the dark, and then something blew on our faces,” he says. “It was really hard and stinky. We couldn’t see it, but we were nose-to-nose with a bear in the window. We ran out screaming, and then we saw another bear in another window. And we realized we were surrounded by bears.”

When the game warden arrived, the response to his request for help removing the bears stopped him in his tracks.

“He said, ‘Actually, the bears were here long before you, and they’ll be here long after,’” Maillard says.

The warden’s words stuck with him, and the idea for the book grew.

“That forest ranger’s words reminded me of something very important,” Maillard says. “You have to recognize that there was somebody else here before, and you’re in their spot. They’re not in your spot.”

Maillard, an ��enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, shares more with Syracuse University Today about his newest book and the links between his scholarship and his writing for children.

Three Syracuse Architecture faculty members contributed projects and programming to , the annual art and architecture festival held at on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York.

The 2026 festival launched “Acts of Construction,” a new three-year curatorial initiative exploring how architecture can adapt, evolve and support future uses, performances and forms of public engagement. The first installment, “Act One: Staging,” features faculty, students, architects, artists and designers from institutions across the country who constructed large-scale architectural prototypes, installations, interventions and activations designed to serve as infrastructure for future activities and public engagement.

Hannibal Newsom Collaborates on ‘Wildflowers’

Assistant Professor contributed to BuildFest 2026 through “Wildflowers,” a collaborative installation created with and , both of whom are former Syracuse Architecture faculty members and now teach at .

Supported by Syracuse University’s Coca-Cola sponsorship, “Wildflowers” begins with a custom-designed, recyclable 3D-printed PETG joint that enables multidirectional wood-to-wood connections. The joints connect dimensional lumber into cross-shaped columns that rise from the ground like wildflowers after rain and brace the structure together, creating a layered field of thresholds and frames that draws the eye across the landscape. Inspired by the resilience of wildflowers, the pavilion was designed to go up quickly and yet be easily disassembled and rebuilt year after year. Relying only on simple hex bolts, the connections can be removed, reorganized and reattached while leaving the wood largely intact for future use. Shaped like a four-petaled flower, the open theater-in-the-round pavilion features fabric wings that tint the sunlight and sway in the wind. The installation will host a year of performances before being disassembled and repurposed for future performances and activities at next year’s festival, as part of the next phase of “Acts of Construction.”

“Wildflowers” brought together students and faculty from both institutions to fabricate and install the pavilion. Seven Lehigh University students and four Syracuse University students worked alongside Newsom, Scott and Zhang throughout the fabrication and construction process. The project was also supported by Lehigh University’s Hammerschlag Design-Build Initiative, which helped provide funding for student participation.

The Syracuse Architecture student team included Danna Ochoa Cardenas ’29, Mia Mueller ’27, Selina Peh ’27 and Carson Probert G’28, while the Lehigh University student team included Chloe Cheng ’26, Shenandoah Dawn DeNardo ’28, Mitchell Ertle ’27, Jacob Hammer ’27, Teniece Harris ’28, Aimi Saloum ’27 and Catherine Sanchez ’28. The project also involved Syracuse students throughout its development: architecture research student Mingrui Xie ’26 helped develop design models and prototypes for the project submission, while Yicheng Zhou ’28 worked in the shop over the summer to prefabricate the 3D-printed components and prepare the lumber for installation.

“This project gave our students the opportunity to be involved in every step of the design-build process, from developing models and prototypes to prefabricating components and completing the final installation,” says Newsom. “Working alongside students from Lehigh University, they learned to collaborate, adapt and problem-solve in real time as they brought the pavilion to life.”

Benjamin Vanmuysen Explores Reuse with ‘Flying Buttruss’

Instructor participated in BuildFest 2026 with “Flying Buttruss,” an intervention that reimagined materials from a previous BuildFest project to explore themes of adaptation, reuse and performance in construction.

��Working alongside 10 students—six from Syracuse University and four from the (RPI)—Vanmuysen mined lumber, hardware and LED lighting components from “Stacked & Strapped,” a 2025 BuildFest installation, and reconfigured them into a lightweight illuminated truss suspended between trees on the Bethel Woods site. Through a process of disassembly, reconfiguration, relocation and reconstruction, the project transformed the compact, monolithic bench into an elongated truss.

Like its predecessor, the new intervention explores the relationship between compression and tension, with the pressure-treated studs and ratchet straps working together to create the structure. Its appearance also changes throughout the day and into the night as the LED rope lights illuminate the truss from within. Conceived on the historic camping grounds and raised in the woods, “Flying Buttruss” responds to the site’s history while transforming the construction process itself into a form of performance.

The Syracuse Architecture student team included Gabriela Casciani G’29, Hallie Meyer ’27, Michael Papagni G’29, Katherine Tang ’27, Daniel Antonio Velasquez G’29 and Chelsea Zhang ’27, while the RPI student team included Allyson Devine ’27, Abby Lagana ’27, Nihar Menon ’27 and Jack Zhang ’27.

“‘Flying Buttruss’ revolves around a series of acts, including disassembly, pre-tensioning and finally the raising of the truss,” says Vanmuysen. “In the last act of construction, the structure became the protagonist of the building performance.”

Ekin Erar Hosts Design-Build Workshop

Instructor participated in BuildFest 2026 by leading “Froggo Bench,” a hands-on design-build workshop offered as part of the festival’s public programming.

The workshop introduced students to reversible and iterative construction methods that do not rely on conventional hardware. Using a CNC-milled, mono-material system, participants assembled a bench through dry-fit connections and wooden pegs, gaining firsthand experience with joinery techniques and material behavior through the act of building.

Rather than creating a fixed piece of furniture, the workshop explored assembly as an open-ended design process. The adaptable joinery system allows “Froggo Bench” to be repeatedly disassembled and reconfigured, enabling new arrangements to emerge over time. In this way, the bench’s final form is not predetermined by the original design but can be continuously reshaped by those who assemble and use it.

“Froggo Bench” was developed as a furniture-scale prototype of the assembly logic used in the 10⁶ mirrored pavilion, which Syracuse Architecture students previously constructed at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum. By working at full scale, students connected digital fabrication techniques with hands-on construction, using the building process itself as a tool for exploration and design. The workshop emphasized construction not simply as the execution of a finished concept, but as a creative process through which students tested, adapted and reimagined an open-ended assembly system.

“The open-ended assembly system developed through “Froggo Bench” operates simultaneously as a building and a design method, allowing students to produce rapidly deployable architectural interventions while developing an understanding of the potential of reversible, monomaterial assemblies designed with future reuse, disassembly and recycling in mind,” says Erar.

The work created during “Act One: Staging” will provide the foundation for the next two editions of “Acts of Construction,” with the installations produced this year serving as the starting point for “Act Two: Choreography” in 2027 and “Act Three: Performance” in 2028. Learn more about BuildFest 2026 and the “Acts of Construction” initiative at .

“To grasp the Anthropocene is to apprehend, at once, both the enormous power and bewildering fragility of human beings,” says Syracuse University professor Susannah Sayler, alongside her collaborator, Edward Morris.

Such irony underscores “,” a collective photographic exhibition at running through Dec. 11. The project, which includes a companion book, is the brainchild of artists Sayler and Morris (known as Sayler/Morris) and Christina Seely.

A professor of art photography in the in the (VPA), Sayler says that “museum” is 10 years in the making.

“The project features unmanipulated photographs taken during our time as Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows,” she says, referring to the trio’s 2014 fellowship that coincided with the disassembly of the iconic Fossil Hall at the . “Only later did we find out that the space was being redesigned and rebranded as the ‘.’�ĝ

Sayler/Morris and Seely were awarded the fellowship to study climate change, species extinction and ecological consciousness in context of Deep Time (i.e., geological time spanning billions of years). Fate had other plans.

“We ended up chronicling the dismantling of the hall,” says Morris, a former VPA Professor of Practice. “The drama of it all seemed to contain everything that we were curious about.”

The trio had free rein of the space for more than a month, documenting (often after hours) the packing of fossils, tearing down of venerable murals and dismantling of dioramas and reconstructed dinosaurs.

Two years ago, a studio visit with a curator impelled the artists to reexamine the images.

“Time amplified their dreamlike qualities,” says Seely, a visual artist and independent scholar who, like Sayler/Morris, is a former Guggenheim Fellow. “We saw the photographs in a new light.”

A Site for Muses

During the Smithsonian fellowship, the trio engaged with brilliant minds. Chief among them were Kay Behrensmeyer, Senior Research Geologist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Mary Parrish, the Smithsonian’s legendary paleo artist.

“Kay was our mentor who gave us access to her research, slides and tools. Mary let us photograph her drawings, drafts and artworks,” says Seely, characterizing the women as “pioneers in a male-dominated field.”

Set against the dark ambience of the century-old hall, the photographs conjure up a flurry of adjectives. “Bizarre.” “Sad.” “Humorous.” “Poetic.” Some images depict dinosaur skeletons draped in plastic costumes; others portray them propped like stilt puppets.

“We captured the breaking down of a museum exhibit, literally and figuratively,” says Sayler. “Gone is the air of certainty and authority, and in its place is the rediscovery of the original meaning of museum—a site for muses, where knowledge is always changing.”

Of Breath and Bone

Al Newberry G’26 was a member of the MFA program in art photography while serving as Sayler/Morris’ assistant. One of his jobs was to remove dust, scratches and emulsion marks from film scans, which eventually found their way into “museum.”

“Susannah and Ed taught me to situate my art as a social practice,” says Newberry, who is the University’s multimedia operations manager. “Their approach to art and ecology has influenced my work significantly.”

Such curiosity plays out in other ways in “museum.” For instance, one of the artists’ favorite images serves as the frontispiece for their monograph, co-published by Gnomic Book and Light Work with support from the .

The photograph in question shows an ink drawing of dinosaur footprints. At the top-right corner, Parrish has scribbled a note, asking if she should add a fourth toe to the back foot.

“Looks good,” the recipient (presumably a curator) responds, proving that the combination of data and what Parrish calls “informed imagination” helps bring illustrations of the Deep Past to life.

“It’s a deeply collaborative process between artist and scientist,” Sayler says.

Three hundred years after the birth of James Hutton, the Scottish scientist known as the father of modern geology, Syracuse University students from the����(EES) walked the same landscapes that inspired many of his groundbreaking ideas. Hutton’s observations of rock formations along Scotland’s coast helped transform scientific understanding of Earth’s history, laying the foundation for today’s discoveries.

Joined by EES faculty and alumni, the students trekked across Scotland’s dramatic glens, crags and coastlines, visiting some of the world’s most important geological sites as part of an international field study. Opportunities like these are central to the (A&S) educational journey, where students across majors and academic disciplines are encouraged to move beyond the classroom and build hands-on research and analytical skills in their field.

In the Footsteps of Geology’s Pioneer

The trip marked the fourth international EES excursion in recent years, following previous visits to British Columbia, Iceland and Newfoundland. Led by professors����and��, the program took students to three key locations: Glasgow, the Isle of Arran and Edinburgh.

The trip gave students the opportunity to visit the places where Hutton observed rock formations during the late 18th century, revealing Earth’s relentless, ongoing geological processes. These observations led Hutton to argue that the planet was far older than commonly believed, and that its history could be explained by processes we can see or infer through observation of the natural world, ideas that transformed scientific understanding of Earth’s evolution.

“He is to geology what Darwin is to biology and what Isaac Newton is to physics and mathematics,” Samson says.

A major destination was the Isle of Arran, often described as a geological miniature of Scotland because of the diversity of rock formations and geological features found across the island. Students were based for four days in the village of Lochranza, where they stayed at a field station and worked closely with a local geology expert who guided the group through important field sites.

Building Skills Through Experience

Students prepared for the trip by reading scientific literature related to the locations they would visit. Once in Scotland, however, the learning shifted from theory to direct observation—as it did for Hutton so long ago as he searched for field observations to support his revolutionary Theory of the Earth.

The group examined rock formations, geological structures and historic outcrops that have helped shape scientific understanding of Earth’s history. Among the highlights was a visit to the most famous angular unconformity described by Hutton, known as Siccar Point, a geological feature east of Edinburgh that demonstrates vast spans of geological time.

“This set of rocks changes your whole world view,” says Ivany.

At Siccar Point, Hutton saw evidence that Earth continually renews itself through cycles of sedimentation, uplift, mountain building and erosion, challenging the idea of a static world with a fixed endpoint. This insight led to his famous conclusion, “We find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end,” capturing his view of Earth as a dynamic planet shaped by continuous cycles of change over immense spans of time.

“His insight completely transformed the study of our planet,” says Ivany. “This place is why we came on this trip.”

“Few people have ever seen it in person,” Samson says. “But this set of rocks is in every single geology textbook ever published in the entire world.”

Fieldwork challenged students to apply what they had learned in the classroom to direct observation. They were tested on their ability to identify and sequence rock samples based on evidence they had gathered in the field.

“They had to put specimens in order from oldest to youngest based on what we had learned at the geological outcrops,” Samson says.

The exercise required students to analyze, interpret and defend their conclusions using real geological evidence, mirroring the work performed by scientists working in the field.

The trip provided students with a valuable first opportunity to study geology at a professional field scale. Rather than examining samples in a laboratory or viewing photographs in a textbook, they worked directly with landscapes, rock formations and geological structures.

For Christopher Paradis ’28, an environmental geoscience major in A&S and an environment, sustainability and policy major in the , the expedition reinforced his passion for field-based science. After hearing about the opportunity from faculty, he was immediately drawn to Scotland’s rich natural history and globally significant geology.

“This experience has absolutely confirmed for me that I want to study a science that puts me out in the field as often as possible,” Paradis says. Exploring rocky riverbeds, rolling pastures and coastal cliffs gave him a firsthand look at landscapes shaped over hundreds of millions of years, bringing the geologic history he’s learned about through his coursework to life.

No matter the assignment from her photography professors at Syracuse University, always chose horses as her subject.

Depict a cemetery? Livingston captured the gravestone of Man o’ War, widely considered the greatest American thoroughbred, buried at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.

Shoot a sunset? Livingston staked out the stables at , waiting for the ideal moment when the sun’s rays descended into the foreground, perfectly illuminating the horse.

This love affair with documenting horses began at age 10, when Livingston’s parents made the 30-minute trek from Schenectady to Saratoga to watch legendary horses like Secretariat, Alydar, Affirmed and Ruffian. Livingston still proudly displays the prints depicting Ruffian’s victory in the Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga, when Livingston was 13 years old and knew she was destined for this line of work.

“I was determined to become the best horse racing photographer possible,” says Livingston, who currently has an exhibition at the . “I’m driven to shoot the best photographs I can and always aim to do the ‘right thing’ for each equine subject. I have near-limitless patience and will stay at a farm for many hours awaiting just the right light. Does it always work out as I’d like? Definitely not, but it’s the pursuit of excellent images that drives me.”

That same eye for the perfect equine moment has defined more than 50 years behind the camera. Livingston, chief photographer of the , has garnered six Eclipse Awards (racing’s highest honor), with four��awards for photography and two for audio/multimedia projects.

Livingston has also published seven books, including her popular “Old Friends” series, which spotlights the lives of retired thoroughbred racehorses. The series in part inspired journalist and philanthropist Michael Blowen to start , a home for retired racehorses in Georgetown, Kentucky. Blowen says Livingston’s photography has helped raise more than $50,000 to .

Livingston, who graduated with an experimental photography degree from the , sat down with Syracuse University Today to reflect on her decorated career. Scroll to the bottom to view a photo gallery of Livingston and some of her favorite photos.

Growing up as an��Akwesasne Mohawk��in Central New York, Jadalyn George ’30 knew that seeing herself reflected in her teachers��fostered a sense of belonging.����
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“It also��made me a better student,”��she says.����
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Convinced that representation matters��in the K-12 classroom,��George��is part of the new����(ITPP) in Syracuse University’s����(SOE).��
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She��is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in����while minoring in��.��The program enables her to��be��certified in New York state to��teach grades 1-6 and students with disabilities in all grades.������
��
George��is excited to��interact with other “native educator minds” on campus.��
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“I have so many knowledgeable peers,”��she��says. “I also have spaces where I can study, eat and hold meetings with people with similar interests and backgrounds.”����

Reducing Barriers

George found out about ITPP from Tammy Bluewolf-Kennedy ’04, G’10,��an assistant director of admissions who��is in charge of��Indigenous recruitment and supports partnership programs.��
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The��Oneida Nation citizen��has worn many hats at the University, but������’s��her current one of which�������’s��proudest—not just for what it��represents��but also the tasks associated with it.����

“ITPP is personal to me,”��Bluewolf-Kennedy��says. “Young Indigenous minds need to see themselves in their teachers, who, in turn,��must��understand their��students’��cultures, histories and lived experiences.”��
��
ITPP��offers��the��,��the result of an anonymous��$150,000 gift.����
��
The��scholarship, whose name is��Onondaga for��“They Build a Path for Them,”��is awarded up to��seven undergraduates per cohort.��In addition to covering��30% of��each student’s��tuition, it��underwrites the costs of��professional development, conference��participation��and study-away opportunities.����
��
“We’re reducing financial barriers for Indigenous students��who want to become��inclusive education and community teachers,” says Bluewolf-Kennedy,��who also��chairs the University’s Native Faculty and Staff Association, as well as the Native American Indian Education Association of New York.��“It’s mission critical.”������

��Learning on Sacred Ground��

The lack of consistency in Indigenous teacher preparation programs is well documented. The barriers are��financial,��cultural��and systemic.������
��
“Most teacher training programs are local in scope,”��Bluewolf-Kennedy says. “Ours��extends��to the��nearly��600��sovereign��Nations��across the United States and Canada. This��breadth��is reflected in our faculty and curricula.”����
��
Becky Rose, assistant director of academic and career advising in SOE,��notes��the holistic nature of ITPP.����

She��explains that��students can pursue a B.S. in��inclusive childhood education or��,��the latter of which��leads to New��York state-certification to teach grades 7-12 and students with disabilities in all grade levels.����
��
“ITPP��is completed in eight semesters, five of which have a field component,”��says Rose,�����ձʱ�’s��dedicated academic advisor.��“We offer��many��experiences in the Syracuse area and��throughout��New York��City��via��[SOE’s]��.”��
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Another selling point is�����ձʱ�’s��many nonacademic offerings—from the����and��the����group, both housed at 113 Euclid Ave.,��to��the����in��Shaw Hall.��
��
“These supports are coordinated for student success,”��says Rose, a tribally enrolled member of the Echota Cherokee.������
��
“Syracuse University��stands on the ancestral lands of��the Onondaga Nation, Firekeepers of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy,”��says Bluewolf-Kennedy.��“Whether you’re Indigenous or not, you’re learning on sacred ground.”��������������

Visitors stepping into the New York Botanical Garden’s will find a perforated aluminum structure, the curved panels etched with the patterns of a microscopic view of plant leaves.

The structure, designed and constructed by Syracuse University instructors Hermine Demaël and , draws attention through its shape to the curved glass of the greenhouse. Its elements, including a water mister, create a microclimate within the conservatory, offering shade and cooling to visitors and plants alike.

“Hopefully there’s a real sense of what design can do and what design could be,” Zimmerer says. “That’s something that we both think about in our teaching and also the way that we hope our work interfaces with the general public.”

Since its installation, plants have quickly grown over the installation, drawn by the cooler climate around it. Visitors, too, have engaged playfully with the misting feature, so much that a sign had to be put up asking people not to touch the structure.

How the Project Began��

Demaël and Zimmerer, both architectural designers, met while teaching at Syracuse two years ago and have been since. The structure at the botanic gardens, which will be on display until Oct. 5, is their third built project together and is a reconfiguration of a small greenhouse they were invited to build on campus by School of Architecture Dean Michael Speaks.

The pair took apart that greenhouse and redesigned its parts to create the New York Botanical Garden installation.

The project began as a result of a research grant they were awarded alongside research scientist by the Architecture League of New York and the New York Council on the Arts. The grant supports the dissemination of architectural projects to the general public in New York State.

Demaël says the intent of the installation in the botanic garden is multiple.

“A very first interest that we had is that a visitor that encounters this prototype notices the types of assemblies, the types of architectural systems and details that are at play and visible in our installation,” she says. “And that the visitor would then notice patterns and see how they are also existing all over the larger greenhouse. At the botanical garden, the architecture maybe seems secondary for the visitor, when in reality, there really is none of these beautiful plant sceneries without it.”

Demaël and Zimmerer say having the structure be etched with the drawing of a leaf’s architecture gets at the interdisciplinary goals of their work and how they hope to leverage their skills as architects to explore how to make the built environment a more livable place.

“We think a lot about how our tools as architects really train us very specifically to work with plants and to work with climate,” says Zimmerer. “They give us tools to think about assembly and detail and how materials come and fit together.”

Plants, like architectural structures, Demaël points out, are also trying to mediate environmental stress or increasing heat.

“They’ve created their own architectures per se, and we’re asking how we, as designers, can learn from the way they have adapted, how they have transformed,” she says.

What’s Next

Demaël and Zimmerer say the next iteration of their inquiry will center on continued collaboration with scientists and others outside architectural design.

The hope is the next project will be set in a new ecological context.

“We’ve been having all of these conversations with the scientists at the botanical garden about migration and migration lag, which is an effect where species migrate based on climate change,” Demaël says. “We want to think of our installation and its next iteration as being part of that migration lag and take seriously what we’ve learned and understand how our architecture might manifest in a different context, to help convey those narratives.”

The third iteration would continue the evolution of the project that began on the Syracuse campus, which they call “Greenhouse Prototype One;” they refer to the installation at the botanical garden as “Greenhouse Prototype Two.”

The first prototype built at Syracuse University was an airtight, lightweight greenhouse enclosure that had its own climate inside. The installation at the botanic garden, which they built using School of Architecture facilities, is focused on porosity and passive heating and cooling effects that produce climate, not through difference, but through gradients.

“That connected to this interest in migration and how species are moving and the idea that maybe greenhouses could be less like houses and more like hotels was something that we would say to each other as we were working,” Zimmerer says. “And so we imagine this object as being situated within flows and migrations of species over big geographic regions, as a comfortable environment where a plant or an animal species could stop for a minute and then carry on on its way.”

Sebastian Melendez ’24, G’26 arrived at Syracuse University from Grand Island, New York, with two passions that, at first glance, might not seem a natural pairing. He wanted to study interior design, and he also wanted to give back to his community, yet he wasn’t sure how—or whether—those two paths could coexist.

A minor in����from the School of Education, paired with his B.F.A. in Environmental and Interior Design from the , gave him room to explore both careers rather than choose between them. By the time he graduated in 2024, Melendez had found his answer: he enrolled in SOE’s����program, intent on carrying his design sensibility—including an eye for who belongs in a space, and who gets overlooked—into the work of supporting students.

Now completing his master’s degree program, Melendez has spent the past two years balancing internships at Syracuse City School District (SCSD) and nearby West Genesee High School with a full life outside the classroom, working as an interior design intern at Syracuse-based Dwyer Architectural and volunteering with Young Life Syracuse East, a Christian ministry where he leads worship and group fitness.

That range and depth of interest shows up in how he talks about his time at SOE, as a period of personal growth as much as professional preparation. We asked Melendez to reflect on his experience in the School Counseling program.

A student team from the was recently announced as a prize winner in the .

Administered by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the 26th annual Steel Design Student Competition challenged undergraduate and graduate students to explore a variety of design issues related to the use of steel in design and construction.

This year’s competition offered architecture students the opportunity to compete in two separate categories. In Category I, students were challenged to design a community dance center and address how it can contribute to the community as an integral part of the civic fabric. Category II presented students with the option to select a site and building program of their choice, using steel as the primary material.

The eleven winning projects were selected for their innovative designs using structural steel and their design responses to local contexts. For each category, the jurors chose first, second and third-place winners, along with additional honorable mentions.

Bruno Yeh�� ’27 and Yanwen (Gareth) Pang ’27 won second place in the Community Dance Center category for their project, , which stems from the idea that everyone is a participant in a performance; from staff to students and visitors.

As part of the fourth-year undergraduate integrated design studio (ARC 409), Yeh and Pang worked under the direction of their faculty sponsor Ryan Doyle, a part-time instructor at the School of Architecture, to develop a design that challenges the programmatic hierarchies commonly found in performance centers. Their proposal elevates the experience of support spaces while giving guests a glimpse into the processes integral to putting on a show.

The structure is streamlined to be achievable using local recycled steel. The building’s entire primary steel structure can be constructed using the equivalent of one block of the Syracuse I-81 Viaduct, transforming a historically divisive element of the city into a new local hub of connection and gathering.

“The Dance is recognized for the methodically developed design, demonstrating careful consideration of structure, sustainability, materiality and building performance,” noted the jurors. “The expressive steel system, featuring an extended fly-tower and spanning trusses, establishes a strong architectural framework that supports both the spatial experience and the project’s narrative of revealing the performance process. The clear sectional studies and detailed axonometric drawings effectively communicate the design’s technical execution.”

“I’m humbled to have been part of a winning project that bridged my learning between school and professional practice,” says Yeh. “It was especially meaningful to work alongside Gareth after we began our Syracuse Architecture journey together in the same ARC 107 studio during our first semester. Throughout the process, I learned a tremendous amount from both Gareth and Professor Doyle and grew as a designer and collaborator.”

“This recognition is an important milestone for Bruno and me as emerging architects,” said Pang. “The success of our project encourages us to continue challenging ourselves as designers and to deepen our contributions to the field of architecture.”

Winning students and their faculty advisors will each receive a cash prize along with the opportunity to have their projects exhibited at the 2027 ACSA Annual Meeting and the 2027 AIA National Convention, as well as published in a competition summary publication.

Each semester, upper-level architecture students participate in the visiting critic program that brings leading architects and scholars from around the world to the school. Four studios will be held on campus this fall.

Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow (Kwong Von Glinow)

and will lead “New Rooms: Re-building the Chicago Bungalow,” an investigation into one of Chicago’s most recognizable housing types and its potential role in the city’s future.

Built primarily between 1910 and the mid-1930s, Chicago bungalows comprise nearly one-third of the city’s single-family housing stock and remain a defining feature of many neighborhoods. Originally promoted as an affordable path to homeownership, the bungalow was designed for working- and middle-class families. Over generations, homeowners have adapted these houses to accommodate changing needs, demonstrating remarkable capacity for transformation while maintaining its recognizable identity.

The studio explores how this historic housing type might be reimagined for contemporary life. Responding to evolving household structures, accessibility requirements, environmental performance and changing relationships between public and private space, students will reconsider the bungalow from the inside out. Working across multiple scales, they will explore new ways of living together and speculate on the future of housing in Chicago. A field trip to Chicago will provide firsthand exposure to significant residential projects and housing precedents across the city.

Kwong and Von Glinow will also present a on Sept. 22 at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Michael Abel Deng and Nile Greenberg (Abel Nile New York)

and will lead “Programless Studios,” an exploration of how architecture can respond to an increasingly uncertain future.

The studio begins with a fundamental question: if program no longer

determines form, what does? Contemporary architects must contend with an expanding range of forces that shape buildings over time, including climate risks, changing regulations, energy requirements, insurance pressures, construction systems and evolving patterns of occupancy. While buildings are often designed around a specific program, that program may change dramatically over the course of a building’s lifespan.

Since the rise of modern functionalism, architecture has frequently treated program as the primary generator of organization and form. “Programless Studios” challenges that assumption. Today, many of the forces that strongly influence architecture are concentrated in the building envelope, where structure, climate control, regulation, construction, water management and economics intersect. The studio treats their conflicts as a productive source of architectural form.

Students will develop new design methods through a series of formal superimpositions, combining geometric systems and testing them against competing structural, material, environmental and construction logics. Program will be introduced only after the architecture has taken shape, serving as a test of occupation rather than a starting point for design.

Abel Deng and Greenberg present a on Oct. 1 at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Erin Cuevas and Zachary Matthews (CMLA), Alex Sheft and John Farrace (Sheft Farrace), Ali Chen (Ali Conchita Chen)

, , , and will co-teach “Window Shopping: Reframing the Seasonal Storefront,” which will reframe the storefront retail typology through the lens of a seasonal campaign for the re-release of a brand’s vintage footwear silhouette.

Students will investigate both the literal and conceptual framing of products, exploring how storefronts and other framing devices shape consumer interactions with brands. The work sits at the intersection of brand storytelling, architectural design and the retail experience.

Students will examine the visual language and marketing history of a specific brand as the foundation for developing an original footwear campaign. Through four successive modules led by industry professionals, they will create a holistic seasonal marketing package that connects brand graphics, imagery and storytelling with facade design, windows, spatial experience and theatrical visual merchandising. The studio will culminate in the design of a provocative storefront and product window for each student’s selected footwear silhouette.

This studio is among several collaborative programs currently being developed by Syracuse Architecture and Polimoda, including a post-professional master of science degree program, , launching this fall. Students will contribute to this larger body of research through related events and activities, including travel to New York City, Los Angeles and Italy.

Dan Wood (WORKac)

will lead “Solarpunk Fishing Collective,” which asks students to envision an optimistic architectural response to global instability.

Set in Galilee, Rhode Island, a major fishing port, the studio centers on the design of a new home for the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island. The project combines infrastructure, housing, education and public space to support the fishing community while exploring how architecture can strengthen collective power and civic life. By bringing together spaces for work, learning and living, students will investigate new models for community-centered development and resilience.

The studio also seeks to define a contemporary solarpunk aesthetic. Borrowing from steampunk’s blend of technology and imagination, solarpunk uses “radical optimism” to envision a more collective and forward-looking society, driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy and global electrification. Students will explore how active green infrastructure and contemporary architectural design can come together to create an expressive visual language for this vision.

Through research, drawing, modeling and design, students will develop architectural proposals that respond to current social, environmental and economic challenges while projecting a more sustainable and optimistic future. A field trip to Rhode Island will provide firsthand exposure to the site, local communities and the region’s maritime infrastructure.