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| Position | Associate Professor |
|---|---|
| Phone | 805.756.1444 |
| Fax | 805.756.1500 |
| rarens@calpoly.edu | |
| Office | 34-220E |
| Office Hours | MW 10:30 - 1:00 pm |
| Web Page | |
| Fall Courses | ARCH 241 Architectural Practice 2.1 ARCH 241 Architectural Practice 2.1 ARCH 251 Architectural Design 2.1 |
| Winter Courses | ARCH 242 Architectural Practice 2.2 ARCH 242 Architectural Practice 2.2 ARCH 252 Architectural Design 2.2 |
| Spring Courses | ARCH 400 Materiality and Translation |
Areas of Expertise
Architectural Design
Architectural Practice (Materials and Methods of Construction)
Profile
Robert Arens has a diverse background that blends architecture with landscape architecture, technology with design, and professional activity with teaching. This mix has resulted in a holistic and collaborative approach to design that balances both theoretical and practical considerations of each project. It has also left him with an interest in new materials and methods of fabrication and their impact on architecture.
Throughout Robert’s professional career his work has focused mainly on civic and cultural projects. Robert has worked as design coordinator and project architect with Studio Daniel Libeskind on the World Trade Center Redevelopment, the Fiero Milano Redevelopment project, and the Denver Art Museum Expansion and Museum Residences. Earlier in his career, he worked as a project designer with William Kessler and Associates on the US Air Force Museum Expansion, the State of Michigan Library and Historical Center, and the Orchestra Hall Expansion. He maintains a small architectural practice that is currently seeking opportunities in California while completing schematic design on the expansion of the St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center in Manhattan, KS.
As an educator, Robert has held professorships at the University of Detroit, the University of Colorado and Kansas State University; he joined the California Polytechnic State University faculty in 2005. At Cal Poly his teaching activity is currently focused on second-year studio and lecture courses that integrate design, building technology and digital tools.
Robert’s publications include works on architecture, urban design, technology and teaching; these may be found in numerous US and international publications, among them Shrinking Cities: Volume 1 and Stalking Detroit. He has given invited lectures at numerous universities, symposia and conferences and participated in exhibitions in New York, Detroit, and Ann Arbor. Among his numerous grants and awards are the Booth Traveling Fellowship from the University of Michigan (to study the built work of the Italian Rationalist Giuseppe Terragni) and an Honor Award from the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (for the lexICON project).
As an extension of his interest in new materials and methods of fabrication, Robert’s current focus is the development of a Materials Library in the CAED’s Media Resource Center. The library will consist of physical samples of materials from manufacturers, a searchable database for each material, and an exhibit space to highlight new developments.
Teaching Experience
Associate Professor of Architecture, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2005-present
ARCH 251, 252 and 253: Second-Year Undergraduate Design Studios
ARCH 241 and 242: Architectural Practice (materials and methods of construction)
UNIV x424: Design of Museum Displays on Science, Engineering and Technology
Assistant (1992-1999) and Associate (1999-2005) Professor of Architecture, Kansas State University, 1999-2005
Third, Fourth and Fifth-Year Undergraduate Studios
Summer Design Discovery Program
Building Science
Building Construction Systems in Architecture 1&2
The Shifting Terrain of the Public Realm
Film and the Observer
The Tall Building in the 21st Century
Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture, The University of Colorado, 1997
Second-Year Graduate Studios
Building Technology
Technology Topics in Modern Architecture
Thinking, Drawing, Building: The Language of Construction
Visiting Adjunct (1987) and Assistant (1988-1992) Professor of Architecture, The University of Detroit
Third, Fourth and Fifth-Year Undergraduate Studios
Visual Communication
Architectural History I
Registration
Registered Architect in Michigan, 1985
Affiliations
Member, the American Institute of Architects
Faculty Advisor, Student Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
Faculty Councilor, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Scholarship
"Making Materials Matter,"
Seeking the City: Visionaries on the Margin: Proceedings of the 2008 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting (Washington, DC: ACSA Press, 2008)
"Materials Labs as a Collaborative Teaching Tool for Architects and Engineers," Proceedings of the ConnectED 2007 International Conference on Design Education, (2007)
"A Hole in the Heart of the City: Framing Memory at the World Trade Center,"
Fresh Air: Proceedings of the 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting (Washington, DC: ACSA Press, 2007)
"Heidelberg Project Detroit,"
Shrinking Cities, Volume 1, (Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006)
“XYZ: Horizontal, Vertical and Progressive Integration in the Practice Curriculum,”
(w/ James Doerfler), Proceedings of the Building Technology Educators’ Symposium, edited by Deborah J. Oakley and Ryan E. Smith, (2006)
“The Heidelberg Project,”
Stalking Detroit, edited by Gia Daskalakis, Charles Waldheim and Jason Young, (Barcelona: ACTAR, 2001)
"Fields,"
Oz 21, (Manhattan: Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning and Design, 1999)
"Two Poetic Souls Adrift in Detroit: Conceptualizing the Shrinking American City,"
La Citta Nuova: Proceedings of Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture International Conference, (Washington, DC: ACSA Press, 1999)
"Re:Housing Denver,"
Searches In Architectural Reproduction: Proceedings of Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Southwest Regional Conference, (College Station: Texas A&M University Dept. of Architecture, 1998)
"Houses At Fifty Cents A Pound: Buckminster Fuller’s Conception of Domestic Space," Constructing New Worlds, Proceedings of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture International Conference, (Washington, DC, ACSA Press, 1998)
"Reinventing the Psyche of American Cities: Detroit As Paradigm?"
City, Space + Globalization: An International Perspective, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1998)
"Say Nice Things About Detroit: Private Visions and Public Debate,"
Architecture: Material and Imagined, Proceedings of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting, (Washington, DC: ACSA Press,1997)
"lexICON: HyperUrban Infill,"
Dichotomy, (Detroit: University of Detroit-Mercy School of Architecture, 1994)
"Detroit’s Tall Buildings."
Architext, (Southfield: Lawrence Institute of Technology, 1989)
Urbanology: Artists View the Urban Experience, (Detroit: The Dart Press, 1989)
"The Erstwhile and the Epiphanic: Detroit’s Parish Churches,"
Architext, (Southfield: Lawrence Institute of Technology, 1988)
"Realizione sul Terragni: Giuseppe Terragni and the Roots of Italian Rationalism,"
Architext, (Southfield: Lawrence Institute of Technology, 1987)
News
Robert will present the paper "Material Libraries: Promoting Materiality and Interdisciplinary Collaboration" and the poster "Integrating Material Culture into Foundation Design Studios" at the Oxford Conference 2008 being held July 22-23 at the University of Oxford, England. The conference has the theme "Fifty Years On: Resetting the Agenda for Architectural Education."
Robert, along with Jim Doerfler, received a $15,000 grant from Cal Poly’s Information Technology Services. The aim of the grant is to research the pedagogy of architectural technology, particularly in large-class formats, and make revisions to the Practice sequence of courses in the second and third-years of the curriculum.
Robert was selected to receive a 2008-09 Verla and Paul Neel Faculty Scholarship from the CAED. He also received the award in 2007-08.
Robert recently presented the paper "Making Materials Matter" at the 2008 ACSA National Meeting in Houston, TX. He was also a paper reviewer for one of the sessions at the conference.