Coates Selected as Inaugural Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair

Professor Gary J. Coates has been selected as the Inaugural Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair at the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning and Design.

A member of the architecture faculty at K-State since 1977, Professor Coates is nationally and internationally recognized as a leading voice in the movement to create socially, technologically and ecologically sustainable buildings, cities and bioregions. He has received more than 40 research, demonstration and service grants and has been a keynote speaker, lecturer and workshop leader at more than 90 professional and scholarly conferences in this country and Europe.

Professor Coates’ publications include a half dozen research monographs, more than a dozen book chapters, and some 70 papers published in leading professional journals. He has edited and authored five books, including Resettling America: Energy, Ecology and Community (1981); Erik Asmussen, Architect (1997); and The Architecture of Carl Nyrén (forthcoming, September 2007). Professor Coates’ work as an educator has been recognized with a KSU Commerce Bank Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2000, an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Education Honor Award in 2002 and Special Recognition in 2006 by the AIA Committee on the Environment as part of an American Collegiate Schools of Architecture competition focused on “Teaching Ecological Literacy in Architectural Education.”

During his three-year term as Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair, Professor Coates will complete a study of Kronsberg, Germany, a model sustainable urban district designed and built as part of EXPO 2000, the World’s Fair hosted by the city of Hannover. Planned to include five pedestrian friendly neighborhoods for some 15,000 people, this compact mixed use development is characterized by integrated renewable energy production, climatically adapted architecture, multi-modal transportation linkages, organic urban agriculture and ecologically based landscape design. In addition to evaluating how well Kronsberg is meeting its ambitious architectural, social, ecological and technological objectives, Professor Coates will explore how this German demonstration project might be relevant to the creation of livable and sustainable communities in the United States.

Professor Coates was selected as the Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair based on the recommendations of a blind review committee from a distinguished peer institution. In their recommendation, the committee noted, “This research proposal represents a wonderful culmination of Professor Coates’ many years of study and advocacy of a more sane and sustainable manmade environment. With passion, evidence and insight, he argues-as he has done for 30 years-that the future of the environment and human society depends in large measure on a new set of social norms and principles, as well as ecological and sustainable practices. He not only argues persuasively in favor of these principles in his writing; he teaches them to his students, many of whom, we hope, will carry his convictions and thirst for understanding with them into their professional careers as design professionals and as citizens.”

The Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair was established through the extraordinary generosity of Victor A. Regnier, Robert D. Regnier and Catherine M. Regnier to honor their father, Victor L. Regnier. The purpose of the endowment, which is administered through the Victor and Helen Regnier Family Foundation of Mission, Kansas, is to recruit and retain the highest quality faculty. The Regnier family has also endowed the Regnier Visiting Chair, intended to enrich the educational experience of students by engaging architects with national and international reputations to teach annually in the Department of Architecture. Victor A. Regnier is a 1971 K-State graduate with degrees in architecture and architectural engineering.

For more information, contact:
Gary Coates, 785.532.1105
David Sachs, 785.532.5953
Diane Potts, 785.532.1090