Assistant Professor of Architecture Rachel Dickey has received a 2021 Arnold W. Brunner Grant for Architectural Research from the AIA New York Center for Architecture. Established in the 1950s, the Arnold W. Brunner Grant is awarded to mid-career architects for advanced study in any area of architectural investigation that will contribute to the knowledge, teaching, or practice of the art and science of architecture. Four award winners were chosen from a national pool of applicants.
Dickey has received $15,000 in support of her project, “Architectural Acoustic Solutions for the Everyday.” The award will allow Dickey to build on a body of research into the architectural uses of gypsum, a material commonly layered in walls to blunt overall noise in a space and reduce the permeation of sound through walls. Dickey sees greater visual as well as acoustical design opportunities in the use of gypsum wallboard and hopes to encourage architects to think more creatively about its use.
“We need to develop a set of alternative design solutions for typical wall assemblies and their interior wallboard finishes in a way that not only reduces transmission of noise and harsh reflections of sound, but also provides additional options for improving the visual quality of everyday spaces,” she wrote in her grant application. “I propose to create an online catalogue of novel designs, video demonstrations, and Revit wall system families that will both enhance acoustical performance and improve design of contemporary architectural spaces through the innovative application of gypsum wallboard finishes.”
Dickey’s earlier explorations of gypsum include the experimental “Sound Pavilion,” an installation outside of Storrs building on the UNC Charlotte campus in 2019 (pictured below). “Sound Pavilion” was featured in the Architect magazine article “The Acoustic Challenge of the Post-COVID 19 Office” and was the Architect’s Newspaper editor’s pick for “Best of Design Award for Research” in 2019. See a process video of its fabrication and installation here.
That project involved fabricating Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum (GFRG) panels through a labor-intensive casting process in which CNC milled foam positives were used to produce molds with a two-part silicon and fiberglass support shell. With this next phase of research, Dickey instead will focus on surfaced based formal applications of gypsum wallboard that can easily be translated for everyday construction applications, with the intention of later working with an industry partner for industry production of novel wallboard products.
Dickey is the founder of Studio Dickey, a public art and design practice. Her research and work have been published in Architectural Review, MIT Press Arteca Journal, Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art, and Design, and in Paradigms in Computing. Dickey has exhibited at the Angels Gate Cultural Center, Office for the Arts at Harvard, Des Cours in New Orleans, and the Museum of Design in Atlanta. Most recently, her “Covid Confessionals” public art installation was part of the “I Heart Rail Trail: Lights 2021” festival in Charlotte’s SouthEnd.