Things Are Looking Up for 2009 ASID Design Tour - OC Weekly
06.02.09
Don't want to be caught dead in. And so we now have a charity tour of some bitchen high-rise abodes.
The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Orange County Chapter today announced that its 2009 Design Tour will trek through six living spaces at Astoria in Irvine's Central Park West, and that proceeds from "Urban Living @Astoria" benefit the Orange County Performing Arts Center . Besides this being ASID's first partnership with the Center, it's the first time the tour has ventured into an urban setting, previously focusing on luxurious single-family homes that scream suburbia--the walled, guard-gated suburbia, that is.
Astoria , a joint venture between Intergulf Development Group and Lennar Urban, is set in a planned community in a two-acre park setting. Among the units to be visited on the tour are four penthouse lofts and two flats on the Terrace and Garden Tier levels that have floor-to-ceiling windows. The residences will be decked out in the designs of 35 ASID Orange County members. We're talking stainless steel floors, indoor waterfalls, leather walls--things we shack dwellers can't even fathom.
Source: OC Weekly, CA
UCI chancellor describes the future of the Irvine campus
UCI Chancellor Michael Drake
UCI’s plan for future campus development got a thumbs-up from University of California regents Wednesday morning, after UCI Chancellor Michael Drake spent an hour describing how campus officials intend to move the campus forward in the coming years.
Irvine’s was the first in a series of presentations scheduled to take place at future regents meetings on each of the UC campuses.
Among the highlights of Drake’s presentation:
Approximately 39,000 people are on campus every day at UCI, including part-time and full-time students.
The new UCI law school has begun admitting its first class of students to start in the fall.
By 2010, up to 45 percent of students will be living on campus. This is part of a long-range plan to have half of all students living on campus by 2015. New residence halls, built with private money, are beautiful with many amenities. “For the first three months driving by, I thought they were luxury condos,” Drake told the regents, then added hurriedly that the “rooms are relatively Spartan, appropriate for dorm rooms.”
Half of the new student enrollment growth is in specific areas designated as “centers of excellence.” Drake pointed to stem cell research as one area where the university has achieved national prominence.
The first crop of UCI nursing students are about to graduate this spring. The entering class had 3.92 average grade point averages.
The university is expanding its 710-home “University Hills” faculty housing program, adding 190 houses for a total of 900 homes, plus 140 rental units. Drake told the regents that this enables the university to offer faculty housing in Irvine that “costs half of what they would...
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