Nils Gore, Associate Professor, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning

I am an Associate Professor in Architecture at the University of Kansas (KU) and a licensed architect in Mississippi and Kansas. My education includes a B.Arch degree from Kansas State University, and an M.Arch. degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to coming to KU in 2001, I taught at the Boston Architectural Center and at Mississippi State University (MSU).

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

e-mail: ngore@ku.edu

Design and Construction Technology Education
A primary teaching/research interest lies in understanding the pedagogy of construction education through hands-on design-build projects (Learning by Doing).

• Click to see work in New Orleans, since Hurricane Katrina.
• Click to see a project for a new jury room in Snow Hall on the KU campus, constructed by a fourth-year design studio in 2004. (4.8mb .pdf)
• Click for an article, Craft and Innovation: Serious Play and the Direct Experience of the Real. (6.5mb .pdf)
• Click to see solar lighting fixtures constructed at Ryan Gray Playground for all Children, during a third-year design studio in 2003.
• Click here for a 5-minute QuickTime video on the construction of Okolona Corner Park, a design-build project constructed by a third-year design studio I taught with Shannon Criss, at MSU, in 1999. (movie)
• Click here for an article on the Okolona Corner Park. (6 page .pdf)
• Click here for recent research on Stabilized Earth Blocks (Cinva Ram) , conducted in the Spring 2000 Materials Class at MSU, and continuing in Fall 2001 in the 3rd-year Design Studio at KU. (website)

Materials Research
I am P.I. on a project to develop materials made out of flyash, a coal combustion by-product. (1.7mb .pdf)

I am co-investigator for a project called Heartland Green Sheets, investigating building materials made of recycled content.

Community Design
At MSU, I was involved in the work of the Small Town Center, a community design center with an outreach mission in Mississippi's small towns.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
I am a strong advocate of "learning-by-doing," and of promoting natural learning based on cultivation of a student's own curiosity. I attempt to employ these ideas in both my subject areas: design studio and construction technology.

• Click here for a talk I gave at MIT in the Summer of 2000 regarding What I Believe about Teaching (Technical Subjects in) Architecture.

DESIGN STUDIO
I typically teach an undergraduate or graduate design studio each semester.

STUDY ABROAD
Emerging Technologies & Design in Europe. See Photos.

Arch205 Natural Forces

Arch627 The Culture of Building Technology

MATERIAL INVESTIGATIONS
A research methods course for the investigation of material properties.

I am a principal, with Shannon Criss, of Regenerative Architecture, a professional architectural practice.

For an article on my landscape photographs click Unexpected Gifts. (published in the Spring 2000 issue of Mississippi Folklife magazine.)(5 page .pdf)

To see a catalog of my photographs, click here. 3 of my photos are in the permanent collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

A personal project, consisting of a virtual museum of wacky packaging products and ephemera, can be found at MisterSmed's Cabinet of Curiosity