Architecture faculty win AIA design research and scholarship awards
BLACKSBURG, Va., Nov. 4, 2015 – Joseph Wheeler, professor of architecture in the College of
Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech, has received the Virginia AIA Prize for Design
Research and Scholarship for Virginia Tech’s FutureHAUS. Professor Mehdi Setareh, also a
professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, received an honorable mention.
The prize is intended to encourage theoretical awareness, educational exchange, thought and
research in architecture, both within academic institutions and within the offices of practicing
architects who participate in theoretical pursuits. Wheeler and Setareh will receive their awards
during this week’s Architecture Exchange East conference in Richmond, Virginia. Wheeler will
also present on the FutureHAUS project during the conference.
Virginia Tech’s FutureHAUS is a fully functional working prototype of a next-generation
responsive home. Wheeler and Denis Gracanin, associate professor in the College of
Engineering’s Department of Computer Science, are leading a multidisciplinary research team
of faculty and students working on the FutureHAUS. The underlying concept of the project is
that kitchens, bathrooms, audio visual walls, mechanical rooms and closets can be
preassembled as ‘cartridges’ in manufacturing plants and shipped as pre-finished, pre-plumbed
and pre-wired assemblies.
“This concept could be used for a single-family home or it could be utilized for mass production
housing,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler is co-director of the School of Architecture and Design’s Center for Design Research.
He has been a primary faculty member on multiple interdisciplinary research projects, including
the 2005, 2009, and 2010 Solar Decathlon houses. The most recent of which, LumenHAUS, won
first place overall in the International Solar Decathlon in Madrid, Spain, and received a 2012 AIA
Honor Award for Architecture. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida A&M University,
and his master’s degree in architecture from Virginia Tech.
Mehdi Setareh, a professor in the School of Architecture + Design, was awarded an honorable
mention for his work on the Structure and Form Analysis System. The system is an educational
tool for architecture students, engineering students, architects, engineers, and anyone
interested in built environments designed to help individuals better understand the
relationships between structure and form through an interactive web-based system.
Setareh, co-director of the Center for Advanced Visual Media and director of the National
Science Foundation-funded Vibration Testing Lab, received a 2010 National Award for
Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel from the American
Institute of Steel Construction for his work on a dramatic cantilevered corporate headquarters
in Michigan.
He received his Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He is
a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Steel
Construction, the Society of Experimental Mechanics, and the American Society of Engineering
Education.
Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies is composed of four schools: the
School of Architecture + Design, including architecture, industrial design, interior design and
landscape architecture; the School of Public and International Affairs, including urban affairs
and planning, public administration and policy and government and international affairs; the
Myers-Lawson School of Construction, which includes building construction in the College of
Architecture and Urban Studies and construction engineering management in the College of
Engineering; and the School of the Visual Arts, including programs in studio art, visual
communication and art history.