Clemson architecture professor receives national teaching award

Published: December 18, 2012

Ulrike Heine image by: Clemson University

CLEMSON — Ulrike Heine, assistant professor of architecture at Clemson, has won the 2013 ACSA/AIAS New Faculty Teaching Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the American Institute of Architecture Students.

The award is given annually to recognize demonstrated excellence in teaching performance during the formative years of an architectural teaching career. 

Heine is one of only three so honored for 2013. She will be recognized for her accomplishments during the 101st ACSA Annual Meeting in San Francisco next March.

Clemson President James F. Barker praised Heine for “creating a collaborative multidisciplinary teaching, learning and research team, and leading the charge in making certain that all of our architecture students graduate with not only an ethos of sustainability, but also the knowledge to make a difference.”

Heine teaches classes in design and sustainability in Clemson’s School of Architecture. She has been recognized seven times throughout the past year as students in her design studio classes won national and international awards for their work in sustainable design.

Heine’s recent focus has been on her Creative Inquiry project with Clemson students to design and evaluate a zero-energy house that can be adapted to the climatic conditions of South Carolina using passive energy strategies and natural materials.

Heine is highly regarded by her students, collaborators and peers, said Kate Schwennsen, chairwoman of the School of Architecture, who commended Heine for her “knowledge, skill, creativity, drive and unique ability to help students find their best. She is a leading, young design teacher of our time.”

Heine earned her Dipl.Ing. Architekt (Master of Science in Architecture equivalent) from Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany. She joined the Clemson faculty in 2007.

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