Professor Corey Saft Honored with Eminent Faculty Award

On Thursday, March 23 2017, our very own Corey Saft recieved the honor of being recognized with a Distinguished Professor Award by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Foundation. Established in 1965, the award honors educators for their research, teaching effectiveness, and contributions to their professions and to campus life. A committee composed of faculty members from each academic discipline, and led by the director of the Office of Academic Planning and Faculty Development, selects the finalists, and the Foundation presents the awards based on the panel’s recommendations.

Corey Saft is a practicing architect and has been a professor in the School of Architecture and Design since 2003. His peers on and off campus consider him an expert in the field of sustainable design, construction and performance.

One of his most significant designs, the LeBois House and Courtyard, was the first certified Passive House in the South. Passive House is a construction concept that focuses on energy efficiency, internal air quality and comfort, but it had been applied only in colder environments until Saft designed LeBois House.

He is also engaged in environmental initiatives to shore up Louisiana’s fading coastline, projects to design classrooms that are responsive to the needs of students and teachers, and to develop apps that teach green energy concepts to elementary-age children.

Saft envisions “buildings as living experiments,” New Orleans architect Z Smith wrote in a letter of support for the award. “By instrumenting his projects, observing their performance, and making modifications as data comes in, he exemplifies the best in the emerging field of evidence-based architecture.”

Saft also runs the Sustainable Development Lab at the School of Architecture and Design.