Source: James Jones, 785532-5953, jsamuel@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Diane Potts, 785-532-1090, potts@k-state.edu
Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007
BOWMAN DESIGN FORUM DEC. 5 AT K-STATE
MANHATTAN -- The ninth annual Bowman Design Forum of the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning and Design will start at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5, in the Pierce Commons at Seaton Hall.
As a part of that event, a lecture will be presented by Joan Soranno and John Cook of Hammel Green and Abrahamson Inc. in Minneapolis, Minn. The lecture will be at 5 p.m. in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. Attendance can be documented for continuing education credit for design professionals by contacting Diane Potts at 785-532-1090 or potts@k-state.edu.
Soranno, a member of the American Institute of Architects, is an award-winning architect specializing in cultural and educational facilities. Among her highly regarded buildings is the award-winning Bigelow Chapel for the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton, Minn. The project received a 2006 American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture and a 2005 American Institute of Architects Religious Art and Architecture Design Award. Soranno is an architecture graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She won the 1993 American Institute of Architects Young Architects Award for design excellence. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Architectural Record.
Cook, also a member of the American Institute of Architects, has worked in collaboration with Soranno on a number of high-profile projects since joining Hammel Green and Abrahamson in 1997. As a project architect with considerable technical design skills, Cook directs the construction development of complex projects. He researched building systems, emerging technologies and materials for such architecturally expressive projects as the Museum of the North Addition at the University of Alaska and the Barbara Barker Center for Dance at the University of Minnesota. His research into new uses of wood resulted in a patented curving wall system of translucent wood panels for the Bigelow Chapel project. He also has collaborated with other leading architects, such as Frank Gehry on the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum and Herzog & de Meuron on the Walker Art Center Expansion. He is currently working on the new B’nai Israel Synagogue project in Rochester, Minn. Cook has a bachelor of architecture from the University of Minnesota, where he also has been an adjunct professor.
During their visit, Soranno and Cook will lead the jury for the Bowman Design Forum, a competition open to K-State architecture students in their third year of study. Brent Bowman, a 1972 K-State architecture graduate and principal of the Manhattan based architecture firm Bowman Bowman Novick, with offices in Manhattan and Kansas City, sponsors the forum.