December 17, 2009

Fowlow ends term as interim dean

Loraine Fowlow will be focused on writing during her sabbatical.

Nancy Pollock-Ellwand begins her term as dean on Jan. 1.

When Fowlow assumed the role of interim dean in 2007, she inherited a faculty that had just undergone a unit review, a process that raised concern over the faculty's move away from the interdisciplinary approach established at its creation in the early 1970s.

"The original faculty worked with students to explore environmental design across the scales without being siloed into disciplines," Fowlow says. "Collectively, in 2007, we decided to come back to something closer to the original model, which was interdisciplinary at its core while still providing architectural education and environmental design education that have interdisciplinary threads."

During Fowlow's term financial and sponsorship support increased for the faculty. EnCana has committed $1 million over five years to fund the EnCana Chair in Canadian Plains Mitigation and Reclamation. Also introduced was the Design Matters Lecture Series, sponsored by local firms, which brings leading design thinkers to Calgary for public lectures held downtown.

"I had 200 meetings out in the community where I kept bumping into old classmates, or students of mine," Fowlow says. "Everybody I have met with has been incredibly supportive of what we are doing here."

Fowlow will remain on faculty and is embarking on a sabbatical. She will continue to explore her passion—design's relationship with culture and society, specifically through themed environments—and intends to update several existing papers and assemble them in a volume.

That won't be the only book taking up her time—Wine by Design, a 2006 book Fowlow co-wrote with Sean Stanwick, MEDes'98, which analyses changes in winery design over the last 20 years, will have a second edition published in February by John Wiley. The first edition sold out, and it was subsequently published in Chinese. The new edition includes updates on two industry developments: the incorporation of the spa experience into the winery, and the introduction of celebrity wineries.