Author: jenny-taylor

 While UVA students have fled Grounds in favor of sandy beaches and the luxuries of summer vacation, construction crews are gearing up for the completion of five new University buildings by the end of August. According to UVA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Leonard Sandridge, the school currently has “as much construction as we’ve ever had going on.” Last year, the University spent over $300 million on capital projects, creating a building frenzy that will not let up until the fall of 2012. And, unfortunately, UVA’s construction fervor means less parking, more street closures, and traffic delays for those traveling through campus. Here’s a look at what to expect this summer, courtesy of UVA’s Office of the Architect.

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When the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors first created the Acquisition of Conservation Easements (ACE) program in 2000, a hearty economy ensured it an annual budget of $1 million. A decade later, Virginia’s once sunny financial forecast is now clouded by a severe recession that has threatened the livelihood of local programs for the past three years—and ACE is no exception.

As early as the 1990s, Albemarle identified the need to protect open space from urban growth through the purchase of developmental rights (PDRs). County organizers devised a program that would reward those residents who leave their land undeveloped with significant tax breaks. Not your typical PDR program, ACE is unique in that it specifically targets landowners of modest means—those earning an annual salary of $55,000 or less.
Albemarle County’s once thriving conservation measure saw its budget slashed by 65 percent to $350,000 in 2010. And with fewer dollars come fewer easements, leaving farmland across the county more vulnerable to future development.

During its first five years, the program protected 5,000 acres from development and, in 2006, boasted a $1.4 million budget. In the wake of an economic recession, however, dedicating a million dollars to land conservation is now out of the question for county budget makers, who have struggled to match even a third of ACE’s prior funding.
“We have obviously had to cut ACE’s funding way back,” says Albemarle County Supervisor Dennis Rooker. “It came down to schools versus ACE. We have to fund things like schools and the police department first.”

Debilitated by a diminishing budget, ACE has placed 2,500 acres under easement since 2007—a number that represents half of the acreage it protected between 2001 and 2006. The program’s most recent purchase was announced last week, when ACE bought the 96-acre Fairview Farm outside Crozet for $160,000. According to Rooker, funds from previous budgets helped pay for the newly acquired land.

“ACE was on a lag, so some money hadn’t been used. There was a time when we were doing six [properties] per year, but not anymore,” says Rooker.

Alarmed with the decrease in land conservation, ACE partnered with several county organizations in 2008 to place an additional 30,000 acres under easement by 2010. The programs, however, continued to feel the financial squeeze of the downturn.

“Though we didn’t reach our goal of 30,000 acres during this four-year period, we did protect approximately 17,000 acres at a time when real estate values were depressed and the economy was sliding into a recession,” says ACE coordinator Ches Goodall.

Despite recent struggles, ACE remains one of the county’s leading land conservationists. The program has placed five 300-plus-acre properties under easement, including the 600-acre Byrom Forest Preserve Park in Barboursville. Over the years, ACE has also protected historic properties like Donegal Farm, a southern Albemarle site that dates back to the 1700s.

The program initially strove to protect 1,000 acres per year—a figure that ACE is unlikely to meet anytime soon.

“The next few years are going to be rough,” says Rooker. And according to Goodall, the feeling is mutual.

“Though I am cautiously optimistic, current economic conditions have made it very difficult for Albemarle and other localities in the Commonwealth to achieve their goals,” says Goodall.

ACE will begin accepting new applications for the next fiscal year on June 1. As of last year, 37 out of 87 applicants were awarded easements.

For the past five years, UVA’s neurotrauma laboratory has gathered the school’s top doctors to study what has been called a “signature wound” in American military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Traumatic Brain Injuries—known as TBIs—have afflicted 200,000 soldiers since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. In an effort to develop TBI testing fit for the battlefield, the Department of Defense provided the UVA neurotrauma lab with $6 million to create portable ultrasound machines that can evaluate brain injuries during combat.

Dr. James Stone, an assistant professor of radiology and medical imaging at the University’s School of Medicine, is working with neurological surgeon Dr. Greg Helm to develop a hand-held ultrasound unit. However, before the technology can be built, Stone and Helm must validate the theory the entire project rests on—that ultrasound measurement of tissue stiffness can actually detect TBI.

According to Stone, the basis for the ultrasound research stems from a collaborative project with Temple University investigators, which “showed alteration in tissue stiffness in a measurable fashion following experimental brain injury.” If Stone can prove that tissue stiffness is correlated with TBI, brain injury diagnosis could become more reliable.

Current military tests fail to catch nearly 50 percent of brain trauma cases, according to a NPR report. “Although we have spent the better part of a century exploring how TBI occurs, we still have much to learn,” admits Stone.

The Center for Disease Control lists TBI as a contributing factor in one-third of all injury-related deaths, with 1.7 million Americans suffering from brain trauma each year. In military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of soldiers have experienced head injuries ranging from mild to life threatening, usually caused by mines and improvised explosive devices. Military helmets offer protection against bullets, but still face challenges from roadside bombs.

“In terms of resulting clinical symptoms, injuries can be mild and manifest as mood disturbances, difficulty sleeping, headaches, and memory loss,” explains Stone. Patients with more severe brain trauma have experienced lifelong debilitation, coma, and death. A study from Vanderbilt University reveals that 30 percent of TBI patients will develop clinical depression—three times greater than the national average.

In 2007, UVA recognized the urgent need to better detect and understand instances of TBI on the battlefield. For the past six years, says Stone, UVA’s neurotrauma lab “has been entirely focused upon exploring questions related to combat [inflicted] TBI.”

In addition to Stone and Helm, there are several other UVA doctors developing applications for the DOD. Dr. George Rodeheaver directs the University’s Wound Healing Lab, where his highly successful burn treatment gel caught the government’s attention. Last November, Rodeheaver’s company PluroGen signed an $8.6 million federal contract to fund the regulatory approval process and increase manufacturing of the gel.

Despite the death of al-Qaeda figurehead Osama bin Laden last week, the country remains enmeshed in the war on terror. President Obama’s 2012 budget devotes $80 million to Department of Defense research development, which may help programs like UVA’s neurotrauma laboratory further limit the deadly effects of a decade-long war. 

Cloaked in orange and blue robes, Teresa Sullivan was inaugurated Friday as the first female president in UVA’s nearly 200 year history. The ceremony, held outside Old Cabell Hall, drew an audience of faculty, students, and community members that spilled halfway up the Lawn. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, along with University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, spoke at Friday’s ceremony. McDonnell, the father of twin freshmen at UVA, recently surprised the University with $2.5 million in government aid to help restore the school’s ailing Rotunda.

Sullivan, the ceremony’s final speaker, addressed the challenges of leading a public university in an era of decreasing state funding. The $180,000 inauguration, which concluded with an “Inaugural Walk” sponsored by the Cavalier Volkssporting Club, occurred just days after the University announced a 9 percent increase in next year’s tuition. According to UVA spokesperson Carol Wood, the school’s faculty and staff have not received pay raises for the past three years due to the economic downturn and state salary freezes.

The inauguration brought several other notable figures to Grounds, including former UVA President Robert O’Neil, University of California President Mark G. Yudof, and former Wahoo football star Tiki Barber. 

Earlier this year, a UVA architecture program took top prize in an international housing competition sponsored by ARCHIVE (Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments). Contestants developed sustainable and affordable homes that could offer attainable relief to a portion of the estimated 1 million Haitians left homeless after a massive earthquake devastated the region in January 2010. The UVA program, Initiate reCOVER, beat out 146 teams and received a $60,000 budget to construct its “Breathe House” in St. Marc, Haiti.

ARCHIVE’s funding, however, has dropped sharply over the past few months, leaving UVA’s Initiate reCOVER with just $20,000 to produce its cutting-edge home.

ARCHIVE Executive Director Peter Williams tells C-VILLE via e-mail, “The budget was cut after careful consideration and discussion that the project, in order to be highly replicable, needed to be more affordable.” He suggests that even the new $20,000 cost remains out of reach for most Haitians.

“The intention for scaling up in the project is to build these homes at an even cheaper, lower cost—ideally below $10,000,” says Williams. ARCHIVE will use the “Breathe House” design, along with the contest’s other top four entries, as a model for future post-disaster housing in Haiti.

“The budget cut is not a great thing,” admits UVA assistant architecture professor and Initiative reCOVER Director Anselmo Canfora, “but we’re trying to focus on the fact that we still get to build sustainable housing in St Marc.”

Help could not come soon enough for St. Marc, a town just 90 minutes north of Port-au-Prince, where a severe cholera outbreak has claimed the lives of 1,000 Haitians since October. Initiative reCOVER’s “Breathe House” is designed to prevent the spread of such diseases. The home design incorporates natural breezes and low volume ceiling fans that clean air with ultraviolet lighting. A photovoltaic system attached to the roof provides electricity to the house, which powers lights and refrigeration units used to store medicine.

In order to cope with new budget restrictions, reCOVER has reduced the overall square footage of “Breathe House.” The design still allows between four and six occupants to inhabit the home, but space will be tighter. Fortunately, Canfora says, his team went into the contest with a frugal mindset, and designed a building envelope that promotes convective flow and, thus, keeps costs to a minimum.

“We’ve formed a good bond with the other teams,” adds Canfora. “We’re saving money by sharing resources, information, and sharing in the specifications and purchasing of more expensive technology.”

“Breathe House” is not just the product of UVA’s progressive architecture school, but also the result of a collaborative effort with the UVA engineering department. Associate engineering professor Dana Elzey, who also directs the Rodman Scholars program, has assigned his first-year Rodman students technical work for “Breathe House.” These engineering students present their ideas on the home’s water filtration system and ventilation techniques to a small group of architecture students, who use the input to help with “Breathe House” planning.

This hands-on approach to learning has given students the opportunity to engage in real world research that both goes beyond the traditional boundaries of the classroom and provides relief to regions devastated by natural disasters.

“I am amazed and inspired by my students, who have a clear desire and a volition to do this,” says Canfora. “We resist the notion that we’re helping them, because we’re learning as much from Haitians as they learn from us.”

ARCHIVE and reCOVER hope to have the "Breathe House” constructed as soon as possible. Crews are set to break ground on the home this September and residents could move in by the end of the year. Those dates are tentative, however, and may change depending on the duration of Haiti’s hurricane season