May 15, 2020
Announcement of ARCC King Medal nominees and medalist
Each year, one graduating student from the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning & Design receives the ARCC King Medal. This year's recipient is Lindsey Bertrand Logan, graduate student in regional & community planning.
The Architectural Research Centers Consortium, or ARCC, offers this award in honor of the late Johnathan King, a co-founder and first president of the organization; each member college is privileged to give this award annually to a student in recognition of research excellence in architecture and environmental design.
Graduating students may be nominated by their major professors and each department follows its own process for selecting nominees. This year, three graduating students were nominated:
- Morgan Allen, Manhattan, graduate student in interior architecture and industrial design, for her work, "Transforming 21st Century Design in Higher Education."
- Yingyi Zhong, Shaoguan, China, graduate student in landscape architecture, for her work, "Exploring Landfill Surface Contouring for Enhanced Aesthetics."
- Lindsey Bertrand Logan, Manhattan, graduate student in regional & community planning, for her work, "The City of the Dead as a Place to Live: Unpacking the Narratives about Tomb Communities."
The nominees' research materials were evaluated by a jury of researchers from across the university.
In describing Logan's research on informal settlements in Cairo, Egypt, her major professor, Susmita Rishi notes, "Logan shows innovative use of primary interview data, and secondary textual, photographic and video data to interpret and categorize the various narratives about Cities of the Dead. Her efforts make contributions to the understandings of informal settlements, and tomb communities, while also demonstrating innovative use of narrative analysis of various forms of data."
From the many supportive comments made by the jury: "Lindsey impressively and brilliantly combines historical, planning, and sociological research into an overall thesis. Her attention to detail, nuanced thinking, and media-rich thesis is first-class."
Another juror noted, "…giving the often voiceless a voice is an innovative, applicable, valuable endeavor."
More information about the King Medal is available at arcc-arch.org/king-student-medal/.