you last feel generosity of time? Experience solitude? Celebrate simplicity? Give hope? Change a life? Realize an ideal? Hold a well-made thing? How can Umbau produce in 2 years in what most schools require 5? Umbau is working a new formula that will cut through the encumbered mediocrity of accreditation, degree granting, academic credibility. We will simply produce people of capacity. The structure is as follows: Year 1: THE TANK. An immersion into a series of 4-week studio intensives investigating SPACE, CITY, LAND, ENERGY, COMMUNITY, + CULTURE. Year 2: THE OVEN. We go into the world as our laboratory. Umbau-ians will apply the studio learning into housing, energy, community, diversity, peace, movement. We do this by building, questioning, making, experimenting, and BY EMPOWERING the people to challenge and improvise within their circumstances. The other aspect of Umbau is that of continual return. Umbau is not a place you 'leave', Umbau-ians will constantly come back as contributors to the ongoing work. Our nerve center will be the world-at-large and the experience we breed will be the knowledge we evolve. The Umbau-ian experiential is a vital asset. And vital in all our work, Umbau-ians will cultivate similar capacity with the people and communities they work with. Every place we work will be a learning laboratory, be they African villagers, Bosnian farmers, American suburbanites. It is time to manifest dreams, hope, and healing. This is Umbau.

Describe the current stage of your initiative and your implementation plan over the next three years

We opened as an apprenticeship program with aspirations to become a new graduate degree in architecture. However, we have constantly questioned the validity of normal accreditation-degree granting standards. We need rigour and new thinking, not standards. It is time to step out. Of course it is a total risk.

We are meeting the call of today's world.

If you say 'school', people immediately begin to fit. We are out of time for fitting. Our call is to unconventional risk. We offer no professional degree.
We will ask people to go into new arenas in physical space, process thinking, cultural speed, discovery, inventive justice. Our credibility will come from the work we do, which will encompass ongoing rotations in leadership, initiative, and daring.

The next three years will contain the following agendas, with invitations already upon us:

To recruit. Umbau welcomes the rare who heed the call. Undergraduates, post-graduates, professionals, non-design backgrounds. We can teach process and bring all together and make them effective.
In America: to address the psychic cost of how we live and use up the planet.
In Bosnia: to study urban/cultural identity.
In Liberia: to rebuild 2 rural schools as a beginning.
In Rwanda: to help organize a school for architecture and social entrepreneurship.
In Austria: continue the summer studio in Vienna.
In Alabama: to commemorate the 1965 struggle for voting rights.

And the project nets will spread.

Based in Virginia, we set up THE TANK, hire core faculty, procure travel monies, create bridges. The prize monies will help us activate on all these fronts. Umbau will grow to 40 'on site students' maximum; we will always be small, a community that is light, fluid, and supple.

Our task is homeopathy. An Umbau-ian creates small insertions, big ripples.

Describe how your strategy meets the entry criteria ("What We're Looking For")

EMAIL, ERIC IBAKWE OF RWANDA:
I am Rwandan and I want to know when you will begin teaching in your new school here in Rwanda. I have always wanted to become someone better in architecture. I ask you if you can help me realize the dream from my childhood. Thank you.

EMAIL, DAVID NKURUNZIZA OF RWANDA:
I'd like 2 ask u if do u hav a plan of coming back here. The other guys we met that time are supposed to start university next year and they came to see me at home asking if they can wait for u coz they're not sure if u're going to start next year. There are also other guys from Burundi who came to ask me about that coz they're informed by others that there is a architecture School which is coming in Rwanda Try do something. Waiting to hear from u.

Describe the qualifications and experience of you and/or your team and your ability to execute your implementation plan

The program will be headed by William Tate, Hector LaSala, and Robert Collins. Tate and LaSala have extensive academic and professional credentials. Collins is an architect and ecologist. All are committed to design process thinking, learning, and the ideals of Umbau.

External validation:
1997-present, summers:
Vienna Studio, 5-week summer studios, strong network of architects, designers, craftspeople. 8 studios now over 11 years, averaging 17 students per year.

2008, fall:
Umbau exhibition and lecture at Megawords, Philadelphia, PA.

2008, fall:
article in Batture [LSU], by William Tate, on Rwandan project

2008, spring:
Cultural identity project in Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina, supported by grant from Trust for Mutual Understanding.

2008, spring:
Rwandan scouting project, meeting with government officials, educators, NGO's, prospective students for new architecture school. Grant funding from Tremblay Foundation.

2007, spring:
meeting with Rwandan Minister of Education, endorsement of school project.

2007, spring:
meeting with LIMAP, group of Liberian expatriates in Philadelphia, for school re-building projects.

2006, fall:
Lecture by Lebbeus Woods, renowned American architect.

2006, spring:
Lecture by Peter Zumthor, renowned Swiss architect.

2005-present:
collaborative meetings with Kaospilots in USA + Denmark for joint projects, Rwanda, education.

2005-present:
Umbau lectures by William Tate at Lehigh University, WVU, UPenn, Temple, U. Louisiana.