Assistant Professor Daniel Baerlecken, School of Architecture, and Associate Professor Perry Yang, School of City and Regional Planning, were both recently awarded Georgia Tech Global Fund for International Research and Education (Global FIRE) grants totaling $45,000 for projects in South Africa and China, respectively.

Baerlecken’s “Design Build Program South Africa” project, for which he was awarded $30,000 over two years will task students from Georgia Tech to design and build an extension to the Arts and Culture Centre Guga s’Thebe in Langa in collaboration with two German universities. The students will work on all phases of the project, from the first design sketches to scheduling to final design plans and cost controls.  As they move through the project, they will research appropriate uses of indigenous materials in an industrial application process

Yang’s $15,000 grant will help to fund a joint laboratory of ecological urban design in Shanghai, China. In collaboration with Tongji University, one of China’s major universities, the lab will work to develop high level research on urban design models for producing low energy, sustainable urban systems. Beginning in the spring of 2014, faculty and students from Georgia Tech and Tongji will work collaboratively to develop a series of seminars, urban design workshops and an international conference that will be the basis for the new lab.

“These projects are not only perfect representations of the mission of the Global FIRE program, but are central to the goal of pursuing international collaborative research that the College of Architecture has laid out,” said Steve French, dean of the College of Architecture. “These projects illustrate the breadth and depth of the research that goes on in the College. They will make a difference in the communities being studied.”   

The Office of the Vice-Provost for International Initiatives (VPII) administers the Global Fund for International Research and Education (Global-FIRE) program. It is funded through the support provided in the establishment of the Steven A. Denning Chair in Global Engagement, and is intended to support innovative, transformative international research and partnerships.