Architecture Professor Wins National Teaching Award
February 13, 2008
Jodi La Coe, Penn State assistant professor of architecture, has been awarded an Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture/American Institute of Architecture Students (ACS/AIAS) New Faculty Teaching Award, which recognizes demonstrated excellence in teaching performance during the formative years of an architectural teaching career.
La Coe, who joined the Penn State faculty in 2003, primarily teaches the first-year design studio, in addition to seminars in surrealism/film theory and medieval timber-framing and summer studios in Rome. Within these courses, she incorporates her research interests in architectural representation, perspective theory and design using salvaged materials. This summer she will be conducting archival research in Florence, Italy, on the use of projection and perspective theory in the works of Galileo Galilee.
Her projects have included the construction of a 12-foot-tall version of Albrecht Dürer's perspective drawing device to explore various film projection screens, which continues to be used annually for perspective drawing demonstrations. Currently, the device is serving as a vertical site for twenty 'projection rooms' designed by first-semester architecture students.
La Coe’s students have been involved in a number of materials salvage and re-use projects. In 2006, one of those projects was awarded first prize in the national AIAS Design Review. La Coe strives to instill in her students, at the earliest stages of their careers, the importance of materials salvage and re-use.
A highlight of her professional career was being part of the team selected, through a juried competition, to design the Monument to Steelworkers in Pittsburgh. The monument, which La Coe designed with James O’Toole and Jesse Seppi, was published in Architectural Record. It was completed in 2001 after the team raised over $500,000 through donations of materials and labor from the local steel and construction industry.
La Coe holds a bachelor of architecture degree from Penn State (1994) and master of architecture degree from McGill University (2000). While a student at Penn State, she won the prestigious John Stewardson Memorial Competition and an American Institute of Architects Medal, among other awards for academic achievement. In 2006, she established the Penn State Department of Architecture’s first alumni group.
Contact: Amy Milgrub Marshall, alm157@psu.edu or 814.863.2104