Karle and Bacon Honored with ACSA Practice and Leadership Award

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has given Associate Professor and Program Director David Karle and BVH Design Principal and Lecturer Mark Bacon from the University of Nebraska’s College of Architecture an Honorable Mention for their 2022 AIA/ACSA Practice and Leadership Award.

Karle and Bacon’s project titled “Integrated Pedagogy” was one of only three projects to earn an award in the Practice and Leadership category. With the competition’s 16 percent acceptance rate, the pair join an elite cohort of educators honored this year by the ACSA.

Karle and Bacon’s proposal features the industry partnership they implemented with SGH Concepts, a division of SGH Redglaze Holdings Inc., and Dri-Design. The collaboration established a student scholarship competition in 2014 for the fourth-year, undergraduate, Arch 411 architectural design studio. The scholarship recognizes student projects exemplifying outstanding design investigation, resolution and significance and brings together aspiring architects and industry leaders to advance disciplinary knowledge of design, materiality and innovation.

“The program bridges both theory and practice creating a comprehensive approach to an academic, professional and industry-based learning environment to advance student knowledge on integrated building systems,” said Karle.

Since its inception, the program has awarded $70,000 in scholarship and jury expenditures and recognized a total of 50 finalists and awarded 32 scholarships.

“We are very proud of the work our faculty members do, continually looking for new ways to integrate our curriculum with the latest in technology and materiality used by the professions,” said Sharon Kuska, interim dean of the College of Architecture. “David and Mark have not just been champions of our students but program and curriculum change agents and innovators. I’m excited to see their efforts recognized by their peers at such a prestigious and national scale.”

The ACSA and AIA honors ‘best practice’ examples of highly effective teaching, scholarship and outreach in the areas of professional practice and leadership. Karle and Bacon will be recognized with their award at the ACSA 110th Annual Meeting in March during the opening ceremony.

The ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects and designers. Their members include all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together, ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty members educating more than 40,000 students.