Elizabeth Carter Brooks

african Descent b. 1867

Elizabeth Carter Brooks (1867-1951) was an American architect, social activist, and educator. She was passionate about helping other African Americans achieve personal success and was one of the first to recognize the importance of preserving historical buildings in the United States. African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary names Brooks as "one of the few Black women of the era who could be considered both architect and patron."

Brooks was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was an area of the country well-known at the time for providing refuge, resources, education and employment for former slaves. Her mother, Martha Webb, had been a former slave owned by President John Tyler. Webb was involved with the Underground Railroad and her daughter went on to develop a "passion for equality" that lasted her entire life.

Brooks went to New Bedford High School before she attended Swain Free School which provided students with a strong foundation in design and architecture skills. She went on to become the first African American graduate of the Harrington Normal School for Teachers. In 1918, she was recruited by the War Council of the National board of the YWCA to supervise and oversee the building of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C.

Sophia Hayden

chile born, b. 1868

Sophia Hayden was born October 17, 1868 in Santiago, Chile and died February 3, 1953 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, U.S. In 1893, she fought for the aesthetic integrity of her design for the Woman’s Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After a lifetime of designing, the Woman’s Building was Hayden’s only project to ever be built. 

Hayden was educated in Boston, where from age six she lived with her paternal grandparents. In 1886 she became the first woman admitted to the architecture program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated with honors in 1890 but was unable to find work as an architect and took a job teaching mechanical drawing. The following year, however, Hayden entered a design competition for the Woman’s Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her design for a building in the style of the Italian Renaissance won the competition.

Hayden began work in 1891, often fending off the demands of the Board of Lady Managers, who desired to incorporate the work of other women artists whether it complemented the structure’s overall design or not. Upon completion of the building, Hayden received a fee 3 to 10 times less than that of the male architects who designed Exposition buildings. Although she was awarded a gold medal from the Board of Lady Managers, male critics were rather patronizing, remarking that the structure had such “feminine” attributes as daintiness and grace.

Ethel Furman

african descent, b. 1893

Ethel Bailey Furman née Ethel Madison Bailey (July 6, 1893–February 24, 1976) is known to be the earliest documented African-American female architect in Virginia. She was born in Richmond, Virginia as the daughter of Margaret M. Jones Bailey and Madison J. Bailey.

After training in New York City, she returned to Richmond in 1921 and began designing houses for locals. Furman worked for her father and picked up other jobs to supplement income to raise her three children. As an African-American woman she experienced discrimination in the architecture community as local bureaucrats refused to accept her as the architect of record on her own projects. Consequently, she would often have to submit her job proposals through male contractors with whom she worked.

Over her career, Furman designed over 200 churches and residences in Virginia as well as two churches in Liberia. One of her most notable projects is the Fourth Baptist Church Educational Wing which still stands in the historic Church Hill district of Richmond, Virginia.

To recognize her contributions to the field of architecture, a park in Richmond was named after her in 1985.  In 2010 the Library of Virginia honored Furman as one of their  "Virginia Women in History"  for her civic work and architectural accomplishments.

Amaza Lee Meredith

african descenT, b. 1895

Amaza Lee Meredith (August 14, 1895 – 1984) was an American architect, artist, and educator. As an African-American woman, Meredith was unable to enter the profession as an architect because of "both her race and her sex"  and so she worked primarily as an art teacher at Virginia State College, where she founded the art department. She is best known for Azurest South, the residence where she and her partner, Edna Meade Colson, lived together.

Meredith was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. She started teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Indian Rock after she completed high school and later, she went back to Lynchburg and taught elementary school, before returning to college. In 1922, she attended Virginia State Normal and Industrial Institute, and afterwards taught at Dunbar High School for six years. In 1926, she moved to Brooklyn, New York where she attended the Teacher's College of Columbia University. She studied fine arts, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1930 and then her master's degree in 1934. She then returned to Virginia where she founded the Arts Department for Virginia State University in 1935.

In 1958, she retired from teaching but continued to design buildings and paint throughout the 1960s. In the 1970s, Meredith designed logos to be used for a proposed name change for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Meredith died in 1984 and is buried alongside Edna Meade Colson at Eastview Cemetery, Petersburg, Virginia.

Lin Huiyin

Chinese, b. 1904

Lin Huiyin, who is both an architect and a poet, participated in a lot of restoration work in post-imperial China. She was one of the founders of the architecture department of Northeastern University and is also the aunt of Maya Lin.

Helen Eugenia Parker

African descent, b.1909

Helen Eugenia Parker was both an architect and a technical consultant. Outside of being a draftswoman for a few firms in Detroit, Parker also focused her time as a drafting instructor for unemployed youth.

Maria Carlota Costallat de Macedo Soares

French-born Brazilian, b. 1910

Maria Carlota Costallat de Macedo Soares was a Brazilian landscape architect and designer. She designed Flamengo Park, which is the largest public park in Rio de Janeiro. Her partner was the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Lina Bo Bardi

Italian-born Brazilian, b. 1914

Italian-born Brazilian Lina Bo Bardi was a modernist architect in Brazil. Most famous for her buildings such as SESC Pompeia and the Sao Paulo Museum of Art, Bo Bardi focused her career on the social and cultural aspects of architecture.

Beverly Loraine Greene

African descent, b. 1915

Beverly Loraine Greene (1915-1957) is credited with being the first African American female licensed as an architect in the United States (Illinois, 1942). She worked for the Chicago Housing Authority and went on to study city planning at Columbia University. She continued to work in New York and was a member of the Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture in NYC.

Projects: UNESCO United Nations headquarters, Paris, France; buildings for NYU from 1956-61, University Heights

Georgia Louise Harris Brown

AFRICAN Descent, b. 1918

Georgia Louise Harris Brown (1918-1999) practiced in both United States and Brazil from the mid- to late-1900s. She is recognized as the second African American woman licensed as an architect in the US (1949 in Illinois), occasionally working with Mies van der Rohe. She emigrated to Brazil in hopes of escaping the racial prejudice she faced in America and he created an impressive career within Brazil focusing on industrial architecture.

Projects: The Promontory Apartments, Chicago, IL; National City Bank Building, São Paulo, Brazil; Ford Motors do Brasil

Minnette de Silva

Sri Lankan, b. 1918

Daughter of prominent Sinhalese politician, Minnette de Silva (1918-1998) was the first Asian woman to become an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and produced a prolific career in architecture and writing during the 1950s and 60s. She was a prominent pioneer of post-independence architecture in Sri Lanka and conducted a critical investigation of architecture’s complex engagement with gender, labor, regional identity, and modernism in South Asia.

Projects: Coomaraswamy Twin House, Seneviratne House

Urmila Euli Chowdhury

Indian, b. 1923

Urmila Euli Chodhury (1923-1995) worked during the mid-to-late 1900s in architecture, landscape architecture, teaching, and writing. She is credited as being the first woman architect in India although some argue she was the first licensed female architect in Asia. She helped plan designs and construction for teams lead by Le Corbusier during the 1950s and 60s, and later became the Chief State Architect of Haryana and of Punjab, India.

Projects: Government Home Science College; writings from Architectural Design

Pravina Mehta

Indian, b. 1925

Pravina Mehta  was a leading Indian architect, planner and political activist. During the Indian independence movement, she participated in the street protests against the British Raj before she started her study of architecture at the Sir J. J. College of Architecture. In 1964, she contributed to the conceptualization and proposal of the New Bombay plan. She was also actively involved in upliftment of people living in slums and in the rehabilitation of earthquake-affected people by developing low-cost housing, combined with environmental aspects and urban planning.

Norma Merrick Sklarek

African descent, b. 1926

Norma Merrick Sklarek (April 15, 1926 – February 6, 2012) was a revolutionary African-American architect. Following Georgia Louise Harris Brown and  Beverly Loraine Greene, she became the third black woman to be licensed as an architect in the United States. After attending Hunter College High School in New York, Sklarek attended Barnard College.In 1950, she received her architecture degree from Columbia University School of Architecture, graduating with just one other woman in her class. She was the first woman to become a licensed architect in the states of New York (1954) and later the first woman to be licensed in the state of California (1962) where she remained the only black female licensed architect until 1980.

As production architect at Gruen Associates in Los Angeles, Sklarek oversaw the completion of such landmark buildings as the City Hall in San Bernadino (1965), Fox Plaza in San Francisco (1966), the Commons and Courthouse Center in Columbus, Indiana (1975), and the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood (1975).  She also collaborated with Cesar Pelli while at   Gruen on a number of buildings, including the  US Embassy in Japan  (1978), the only one for which her contributions were acknowledged (from Women Design by Libby Sellers).

Alberta Jeannete Cassell Butler

African descent, b. 1926

Alberta Jeannete Cassell Butler (1928-2007) was one of the first two African American women to earn a Bachelor of Architecture Cornell University. The other was her sister, Martha Ann Cassell Thompson. After graduating, Butler moved into her father’s firm as he moved into real estate development. In 1951, Butler began working as an architectural engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. She continued to work in the Navy as an engineering draftsman in the Military Sea Lift command in 1961 and a navy architect with the US Naval Sea Systems command through 1971-1982.

Alma Fairfax Murray Carlisle

African descent, b. 1927

Alma Fairfax Murray Carlisle graduated cum laude from Howard University in 1950 with a Bachelor of Architecture. After leaving Howard she began to pursue historic preservation and development, an interest which remains central in her work. After starting a family wih two kids, she moved to Los Angeles and began a career which would extend across various departments, from the Environmental Management Division to the Department of Public works. In 2001, she joined to firm Myra L. Frank and Associated in Los Angeles as a senior architectural historian, where she still works.

Violeta Autumn

Peruvian-born, b.1930

Violeta Autumn’s (1930-2012) career was consistently centered in the Organic Architecture movement. This approach can be seen in the house which she built and planned for herself in Sausalito, California, as well as the Caletti Jungsten building in Mill Valley, California. In 1974 she was elected City Councilwoman for her district and during her term successfully redeveloped the San Francisco Bay. Throughout the 70s Autumn worked with Davis-Autumn & Associates and received extol for her work in designing wineries utilizing an Organic Architecture approach. She has also painted murals for the 1st National Bank in Nevada and has worked as an illustrator commercially.

Glenda Inés Kapstein

Chilean, b.1939

Glenda Ines Kapstein studied and worked centrally in Chile, and attended the University of Valparaíso in 1959 to study architecture. Her work is heavily influenced by a consideration of cultural heritage and an anthropological approach to the significance of architectural styles. After working on housing in Spain, she took up the position of Regional Director of Tourism in Antofagasta and began teaching at Catholic University of the North. Throughout her career, her designs centered on eco-friendly and sustainable designs. In 2003, she received the PLEA Lifetime Achievement Awards for urban design and sustainable architecture.

Itsuko Hasegawa

Japanese, b. 1941

Itsuko Hasegawa was born in 1941 in Yaizu City, Japan. She studied at the Department of Architecture at Kanto Gakuin University, graduating in 1964. Afterward, she worked with Kiyonori Kikutake and became a research student in the Department of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1979 she established Itsuko Hasegawa Atelier. Her projects include an assortment of houses and public buildings which have earned her many prizes and awards. To name a few, the Bizan Hall project earned the Design Prize from the Architectural Institute of Japan in 1986, her residential projects have earned the Japan Cultural Design Award,  and she won first prize in the open competition for the Shonandai Cultural Center. In 1997 she was elected as one of the Honorary Fellows of RIBA before completing her winning entry for the Niigata City Performing-Arts Center and Area Development. In 2000 she received the Japan Art Academy Award and the year following she received the Honorary Degree Award at University College London. In 2006 she was elected as one of the Honorary Fellows of AIA.

Sharon Egretta Sutton

African descent, b. 1941

Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA is an activist educator and public scholar who promotes inclusivity in the cultural makeup of the city-making professions and in the populations they serve, and also advocates for collaborative planning and design processes in disenfranchised communities.

Currently a distinguished visiting professor of architecture at Parsons School of Design, Dr. Sutton has also served on the faculties of Pratt Institute, Columbia University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington, where she is professor emerita. In addition to professional students in architecture, she has taught professional students in urban planning, landscape architecture, and interior design, and has supervised doctoral students in architecture, urban planning, social welfare, and education.

Dr. Sutton, who previously practiced architecture in New York City, was the twelfth African American woman to be licensed to practice architecture, the first to be promoted to full professor of architecture, the second to be elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the first to be president of the National Architectural Accrediting Board. She holds five academic degrees—in music, architecture, philosophy, and psychology—and has studied graphic art internationally.

Dr. Sutton’s scholarship explores America’s continuing struggle for racial justice. Her funding has come from the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and Hewlett Foundation, among others. Fordham University Press published her latest book, When Ivory Towers Were Black: A Story about Race in Americas Cities and Universities, and has contracted to publish Youth Activists Transforming Injustice, which characterizes youth-led placemaking in run-down communities as a new form of activism that offers hope in the face of today’s intensifying inequality and intolerance.

Dr. Sutton received the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award from the American Institute of Architects, the Medal of Honor from both the New York and Seattle chapters of that organization, and the Oculus Award from the Beverly Willis Foundation. She is a distinguished professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, an inductee into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, and a recipient of the Oculus Award from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.

Yasmeen Lari

Pakistani, b. 1941

Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan’s first woman architect and among the best known architects of the country. She graduated from Oxford School of Architecture. She has built several landmark buildings in Pakistan e.g. FTC, PSO House and ABN Amro Bank, Karachi. She is considered among pioneers of Brutalistic Architecture and her architectural work is included in Phaidon Books UK publication (2013) devoted to the best examples of 20th century architecture. 

Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan’s first woman architect and among the best known architects of the country. She graduated from Oxford School of Architecture. She has built several landmark buildings in Pakistan e.g. FTC, PSO House and ABN Amro Bank, Karachi. She is considered among pioneers of Brutalistic Architecture and her architectural work is included in Phaidon Books UK publication (2013) devoted to the best examples of Heritage Foundation of Pakistan20th century architecture. 

She retired from architectural practice in 2000 and is a UNESCO consultant who has been published among 60 Women who have contributed the most towards UNESCO’s objectives. She co-founded Heritage Foundation of Pakistan in 1980 with her husband. She has conserved several historic monuments in World Heritage Sites of Makli and Lahore Fort as well as important heritage sites in other parts of Pakistan. In 2016, with support from UNESCO/Republic of Korea Funds-in-Trust, ‘Revitalization of Ancient Glazed Tiles in Sindh’ project was taken up which helped to complete the 16th century tomb of Sultan Ibrahim along with imparting the ceramic making skills to poor communities, especially women, for income generation. Since the 2005 Earthquake, she has devised various programs based on women-centred zero carbon footprint structures and sustainable building techniques, resulting in 40,000 green shelters (using bamboo, lime and mud), placing Pakistan in the lead as World’s largest zero carbon shelter program, herself being acknowledged as the largest provider of shelter.

Sara Rosina Gramática

Argentinean, b. 1942

Sara Rosina Gramática was born in Argentina in 1942. Gramática studied architecture at the National University of Córdoba and graduated in 1965. Gramática began collaborating with fellow students Juan Carlos Guerrero, Jorge Morini, José Pisani and Eduardo Urtubey. In 1967 they founded the firm GGMPU architects in Córdoba, Argentina. They have collaborated for more than 40 years. Prominent completed projects of GGMPU include Casa en el Lago in Villa Carlos Paz (1995), Nazareth III (1991), Palacio de Justicia II (1998) and an extension of the Museo de Bellas Artes Emilio Caraffa (2008). In 2012, the Centro Civico, Córdoba was completed, in collaboration with her son, Lucio Morini. Today, Gramática is practicing with her husband and son at MGM y Asociados.  

Gramática has won many notable awards, including the Cyanamid Award for the 10 Best works of the decade (1973), the Buenos Aires Biennial Award for the best female architect in social housing (1985), the Konex Visual Arts Award (1992), awards for Casa en el Lago and Nuevocentro projects (1994), for the Palacio de Justicia in Córdoba (1998), among others. Since 1970, Gramática has published articles in magazines across Argentina, Sweden, the USA, and Italy. She served as the Vice President of the Society of Architects of Córdoba from 1990-1992.

Susana Torre

Argentinean, b. 1944

Susana Torre is an Argentine-born American architect, critic, and educator based in New York City (from 1968-2008) and in Carboneras, Spain (since 2009). Torre’s architectural career combines theory with building, and architectural and urban design with teaching and writing.

Torre received her Diploma of Architecture at the Schools of Architecture and Planning from the Universidad de La Plata and Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1968. During her studies, Torre was selected to represent Argentina at the 1967 International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado and designed a six-story apartment building in La Plata.  Torre won a Fellowship from the Edgar Kaufmann Jr. Foundation of which she was able to travel around the United States; upon her return she founded the Design Department at the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in La Plata. In 1968 she began her postgraduate work at Columbia University’s School of Architecture and Planning.

Torre co-founded the Archive of Women in Architecture of the Architectural League of New York. In 1977, Torre curated and coordinated the Brooklyn Museum’s Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective, which was the first exhibition to honor American women architects. She also edited and wrote three essays for the book of the same title. These works were groundbreaking in the architecture world and the exhibition went on to tour across the USA and The Netherlands. 

Susana Torre was an advocate for women’s rights in the architecture profession. She often wrote about women and gender issues and also had a passion for Latin American architecture, and the presence of collective memory in public spaces. Her writing is showcased in Heresies, A Feminist Journal on Art and Politics, which she co-founded. Her editing talents were used for the editorial collectives of Heresies 2: Patterns of Communication and Space; Heresies 11: Making Room: Women in Architecture, and Chrysalis between 1976-1978.

Torre is known for such projects as her park proposal for Ellis Island, New York Harbor; Fire Station No. 5 in Columbus, IN; the Clark and Garvey Houses in the Hamptons, and the residential community of seven seafront houses in Carboneras, Spain. Her drawings are collected in the Architectural Archives in the City of Columbus, IN, Columbia University, at the Davis Museum, and the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech. In addition, Torre has taught at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Parsons School of Architecture, Barnard College,  Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, the University of Sydney, the University of Buenos Aires, and Kassel University, among others.

Diana Agrest

ARGENTINean, B.1945

Diana Agrest is an internationally acclaimed architect praised for her groundbreaking approach to architecture and urbanism. Throughout her career, she has developed in both theory and practice and has designed and built projects of many types and scales. Her work varies from urban master plans to buildings to interiors. 

Agrest teaches full-time at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. She has taught at Princeton University, Columbia University and Yale, and has been a candidate for deanship at The Cooper Union and Pratt Institute. She was a fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City from 1972 to 1984.

As part of a series on "50 Great Teachers," the April 21, 2015 broadcast on "All Things Considered" focused on Prof. Agrest's sometimes surprising methods for approaching the study of architecture.Agrest has been a pioneer in developing a critical approach to urban theory that articulates film and the city. She created and directed “Framing the City: Film, Video, Urban Architecture,” which was shown at The Whitney Museum of American Art in 1993. She wrote, produced and directed the documentary "The Making of an Avant-Garde: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies 1967-1984" in 2013.Since 1989 Agrest has worked both in practice and theory on the subject of nature, developing projects at various scales, from large cities to parks in China, the United States and Europe.

Her publications include: The Sex of Architecture. Agrest, Conway, Weisman Eds., Abrams,1996;   Agrest & Gandelsonas: Works. Princeton Architectural Press, 1995; Architecture from Without: Theoretical Framings for a Critical Practice. MIT Press, 1991; A Romance With the City: The Works of Irwin S  Chanin. The Cooper Union with Rizzoli, 1984.

Brinda Somaya

Indian, B. 1949

Brinda Somaya is an architect and urban conservationist. She started her firm Somaya and Kalappa Consultants in 1978 in Mumbai, India after receiving her Bachelor of Architecture from Mumbai University and her Master of Arts from Smith College in Northampton, MA, USA. Smith College would later honor Somaya with an Honorary Doctorate in May of 2012. She would go on to be recognized for her work with a Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the Indian Institute of Architects in 2014. The Indian Education Society’s College of Architecture, Mumbai named her a Distinguished Professor in 2015 and she became the Chairperson of the Board of Governors, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada  in 2016. In 2017 she joined the Council of Architecture Committee to review India’s architecture profession and education and later also joined the Board of the Lafargeholcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. In 2017, Somaya was also elected as the A.D. White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University.

Over the course of her long career, Brinda Somaya has used her interests in architecture, conservation, and social equity to deliver projects that range in scope from reconstructing a village destroyed by an earthquake to the restoration of a gothic-style clock tower. She is a firm believer that “‘the Architect’s role is that of guardian - hers is the conscience of the built and un-built environment” and she uses this philosophy to guide her thoughtfully through each step of the design and building process. 

In addition to her contributions to the built environment, Brinda Somaya has also sat on the board of advisors for the International Archives of Women in Architecture and is a Founder Trustee of the HECAR Foundation which produced multiple publications on the topic of Heritage and Architecture. Somaya also chaired a conference, organized a seminal exhibition on the Work of Women Architects with a focus on South Asia in Mumbai and brought out several books and documents. She has given lectures in the U.S.A., U.K., Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & India and her work has been exhibited in the USA, UK, and Japan.

Billie Tsien

Chinese descent, b. 1949

Billie Tsien along with her partner, Tod Williams, founded their New York City based firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners in 1986.  Their practice is committed to reflecting the values of non-profit, cultural and academic institutions toward an architecture of permanence and enduring vision.  A sense of rootedness, light, texture, detail, and most of all, experience, are at the heart of what they design.

Some of their notable projects include the Asia Society Hong Kong, the Lefrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.  Their current work includes the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, the renovation of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, Chicago.

Over the past three decades, their dedication to this work has been recognized by numerous national and international citations including the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama, the 2013 Firm of the Year Award from the American Institute of Architects, and the 2019 Praemium Imperiale presented by the Japan Art Association.

In parallel with her practice, Billie is a devoted participant in the broader cultural community with longstanding associations with many arts organizations.  She currently serves as the President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Academy of Design, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. 

In addition to this she maintains an active academic career and lectures worldwide.  As an educator and practitioner she is deeply committed to creating a better world through architecture.

Zaha Hadid

Iraqi, b. 1950

Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect known for her radical deconstructivist designs. In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Hadid received her bachelor’s degrees  in mathematics from the American University in Beirut, Lebanon and in 1972 went on to study at the Architectural Association (AA) in London. While at the AA, she crossed paths with future collaborators such as Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas. In 1979, Hadid would establish her own practice in London. 

In 1983, Hadid won the competition for The Peak, a recreational center in Hong Kong. Though the project was never realized, it brought her international recognition that would kick-start her career. In 1993, Zaha Hadid completed her first project, the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Through her built projects in the 90s, Hadid explored her interests in using sculptural forms to create dynamic, interconnecting spaces. 

Hadid’s other notable milestones include the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio which became the first American museum to be designed by a woman. In 2010 and 2011, she was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize for her design of the MAXXI museum in Rome and London’s Evelyn Grace Academy. Hadid would go on to win many awards and competitions throughout her career and Zaha Hadid soon became a household name in the architecture world and beyond. In 2012 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

Outside of her architecture practice, Hadid taught architecture at many places, including the Architectural Association, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Yale University. She was also a highly skilled painter, furniture designer, and set designer.

Simone Kosremelli

Lebanese, b. 1950

Simone Kosremelli was born in Beirut in 1950. She received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Beirut (1974), graduating with distinction. Her Master's degree in urban planning from Columbia University in New York (1977) was supported by a Fulbright scholarship. In 1981, Kosremelli opened her own architecture practice in Beirut after briefly working as a freelance planner. In 1990 she opened a second branch in the United Arab Emirates. Kosremelli’s projects have been published in international and local books and journals, including Mimar (#41, Dec 1991) and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture (2002). Her designs can be found in Lebanon and the Gulf States and include house renovations, apartments, urban parks and various planning projects. 

Throughout her career, Simone Kosremelli’s projects have been praised for their character and outstanding quality. Volumetrically complex internally, and visually coherent externally, her work is rooted in the Lebanese vernacular but it is not constrained by the past. Instead, her designs celebrate traditional and local elements by incorporating them into her own modern arrangements. Kosremelli is able to preserve hints of the past and honors traditional building techniques while using more modern materials for a complex and contemporary result. In addition to her architecture practice, Kosremelli is also a part-time faculty member of the American University of Beirut.

Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu

Turkish, b. 1955

Zeynep Fadillioglu is a multifaceted designer who takes pride in combining modern western aesthetics with her traditional Ottoman roots. While growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, Fadillioglu was surrounded by the arts. Her grandparents worked in the textile industry while her father was an avid collector of fine art antiques. However, Fadillioglu chose to study computer science at the University of Sussex and Control Data Institute. She then returned to her childhood influences of the arts when she enrolled in the Inchbald School of Design in London to study art history and design. 

After marrying a restaurateur, she began designing the interiors of his restaurants. Later, in 1995, Fadillioglu opened her own interior design and architecture practice where she worked on a varied set of projects like nightclubs, hotels and private residences. Over time, she also began designing mosques. Notably, the Sarkin Mosque in Istanbul (completed 2009) which made her the first woman to design a mosque. 

At present, Fadillioglu works with a team of 25 other designers, architects, artists, craftsmen, and illustrators to masterfully design modern spaces that honor and celebrate their culture’s rich history and craft. In addition to being an accomplished spatial designer, Zeynep Fadillioglu also has a successful line of products which include couches, chairs, tables, and lights. 

Revathi Kamath

Indian, b. 1955

Revathi Kamath is an architect and planner based in Dehli, India. Born in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Kamath grew up in a Tamil Brahmin family with an engineer father and spent her childhood in Bangalore and tribal areas along the Mahanadi river. While her father worked on the Hira Kund dam, the nature, people, and rhythms found in the community left a deep impression on Kamath. 

With a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a postgraduate degree in urban and regional planning from the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi, Kamath went on to work with Stein, Doshi and Bhalla, Rassik International, The GRUP, and the National Institute of Urban Affairs. In 1981 she opened Revathi and Vasant Kamath which in 2005 became Kamath Design Studio- Architecture, Planning and Environment. cCredited with designing India’s tallest stainless steel structure, the studio has seen a wide range of projects over it’s long history. With clients ranging from many different social, economic, and geographical contexts, Revathi’s early lessons about connecting to nature and people translate into her built structures as she consults directly with the individuals her projects are built for. 

Revathi Kamath is also known for her contributions to exhibitions like “Traditional Architecture in India” for the festival of India in Paris in 1986, and "Craft: A Tool for Social Change" for VHAI (Voluntary Health Association of India) in 2003. She has also worked on the designs of museums like the Eternal Gandhi Multimedia Museum and more recently the Museum for Tribal Heritage, Bhopal, the Gnostic Center in Delhi.

Throughout her rich career in architecture and planning, Kamath has received many awards including the Aga Khan Award for the Akshay Pratishthan School in Delhi, the Community Center at Maheshwar, and Nalin Tomar House at Hauz Khas, Delhi. Kamath has also taught at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi from 1984-1991.

Kazuyo Sejima

Japanese, b. 1956

Kazuyo Sejima was born in 1956 in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. After graduating from Japan Women’s University in 1979 and completing her Master's of Architecture in 1981, she went on to work at Toyo Ito and Associates until 1987. That year she established Kazuyo Sejima & Associates and hired Ryue Nishizawa to work alongside her. In 1995, the pair founded SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates). Their projects include the Rolex Learning Center at EPFL in Switzerland, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC, the Glass Pavilion for the Toledo Museum of Art, the Theater and Arts Center in the Netherlands, amongst many other projects. Their work frequently uses glass walls to blur the boundary between interior and exterior, allowing visitors to reflect both outward and inward. Their unique projects create simple, calming atmospheres for gathering and contemplation.

In 2010, Sejima was appointed as the first woman director of the architecture sector for the Venice Biennale. That same year, she and Ryue Nishizawa were awarded the Pritzker Prize, and Sejima became the second woman to ever receive the award (following Zaha Hadid).

Nasrine Seraji

Iranian, b. 1957

Nasrine Seraji is an Iranian born British architect, born in Tehran, Iran. After Medical School, she graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1983. In 1989, she relocated to Paris and the following year founded the firm Atelier Seraji, Architects and Partners. 

Seraji has taught at many universities across the globe including Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York, the Architectural Association in London, Princeton University in New Jersey, and the University of Hong Kong. She served as a professor and chair of the Department of Architecture Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, was Dean of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Malaquais for 10 years, and served as a multi-disciplinary professor in the fields of ecology, sustainability and conservation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.She is currently a professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong.

Throughout her career in architecture education and practice, Nasrine Seraji has been recognized for her countless contributions to the field. In 2006, the Minister of Culture in France awarded Seraji with the medal for Chevalier des Arts et des Letters for her major devotion to art and humanities and as they relate to education in France. In 2008, she received both the Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Mérite and the Médaille d'Argent by the French Academy of Architecture and in 2011, she received the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur, one of the highest degrees of honor in France. 

Seraji was among the Jury members of the second 2A Continental Architectural Award held at Vienna, Austria in the year 2016. That same year, the President of the French Republic promoted Seraji to the rank of Officier de l’Ordre Nationale du Mérite.

Brigitte Shim

Jamaican- Canadian, b. 1958

Brigitte Shim, born December 8, 1958 in Kingston, Jamaica is a Canadian architect and a founding partner of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, a Toronto-based practice. Shim and Howard Sutcliffe have been working collaboratively since they met at the University of Waterloo where they both received degrees in environmental studies in 1981 and architecture in 1983.

Both Shim and Sutcliffe worked closely with some of Canada's most respected architectural figures such as Ron Thom, Arthur Erickson, Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg Architects. Their time with these mentors lead to the development of their own practice and their sensitive and sophisticated approach to architecture and design.

Shim is an invested officer of The Order of Canada "for her contributions as an architect, designing structures that enrich the public realm". Her projects include Toronto Laneway House (Toronto, 1993); Integral House (Toronto, 2009), which won an AIA Honor Award in 2012; Weathering Steel House (Toronto, 2001); House on the Ravine Edge (Toronto, 2011); Muskoka Boathouse (Lake Muskoka, 1999); and Garden Pavilion and Reflecting Pool (Don Mills, 1992). Brigitte Shim has won the Governor General's Medal in Architecture thirteen times over the course of her career: four times one her own, and nine times with her partner at Shim-Sutcliffe Architects.

She is a tenured professor at the University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, she lectures widely, and she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale University in 2014.

Gisue Hariri & Mojgan Hariri

Iranian American

gisue b. 1956, moJgan b. 1958

Sisters Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri completed their architecture education at Cornell before founding their multidisciplinary architecture firm, Hariri & Hariri Architecture, in New York City. Today they are celebrated as two of the most accomplished women in American architecture and design and are described by critics as one of the most progressive and out-of-the-box firms currently working in the United States.

Their projects include luxury residential developments and hotels to bathroom accessories to single-family houses to high-concept, high-tech experiments. For the Hariri’s, design is a holistic, boundaryless enterprise ranging from master-planning and architecture to interior design, furniture, lighting, product design and jewelry.

Their work also includes research-oriented prototypes such as the Museum of the 21st Century at the National Building Museum (2003-2007), Loft of the Future (1999-2000),  Cine Experimental Film Center (1999), and The Digital House, which was showcased in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1999.

In 2010, Hariri & Hariri’s architecture rendering was included in the “Contemplating the Void” exhibit at the Guggenheim for the 50th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum. In 2005, Gisue and Mojgan were recognized for their contributions to the architecture profession with both the Academy Award in Architecture at the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards and their induction into the Design Hall of Fame sponsored by Interior Design Magazine. Their firm won the American Architecture Award 2015 from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design for their housing development in Salzburg, Austria called Jewels of Salzburg. Hariri & Hariri were presented with the Career Achievement Award in October 2016 at the IA-100 retreat in Silicon Valley.

Maya Lin

Chinese descent, b. 1959

Maya Ying Lin, was born October 5, 1959 in Athens, Ohio. Her parents migrated to the United States from China, her father in 1948 and mother in 1949. Her father, Henry Huan Lin, was a ceramist and former dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts; her mother, Julia Chang Lin was a poet and taught literature at Ohio University. At age 21, Maya Lin was recognized for winning the competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. while still an undergraduate student at Yale University - even winning over her professor’s submission. Maya Lin’s win catapulted her into the national spotlight where she was the brunt of unwarranted attacks on her gender and race.

Maya is an American designer, architect, and artist who is known for her work in sculpture and land art. Lin has completed designs for other memorials, such as the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama; and the Women’s Table at Yale University. Her projects have also included numerous public and private buildings, landscape design, and sculpture. While Maya Lin demonstrates her ability to honor history through her memorials, she does the same for our depleting natural environment with her sustainable landscape projects. 

Maya Lin has won numerous awards and honorary degrees. In 1999 she received the Rome Prize. In 2005 she was elected to The National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 she received the National Medal of Arts and in 2016 the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Gabrielle Bullock

AFRICAN DECENT, b.1962

Gabrielle Bullock was born in New York City in 1962. Bullock wanted to be an architect after being encouraged by a teacher at a young age. Growing up in New York City, Bullock observed the unequal standards in public housing in the Bronx and other boroughs. “I saw how the black community was living. I wanted to change that.” Gabrielle studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated in 1984 as the second African-American woman to earn an architecture degree from that university. Gabrielle has been a key player in Perkins+Will’s success for nearly three decades. She’s worked in both the New York and Los Angeles offices, and became the first African-American and first woman to rise to the position of Managing Director of the Los Angeles office. Bullock has lead many impressive projects over the course of her career, including the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

At Perkins+Will, Gabrielle oversees the Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement program, which works to create an office-wide culture that “embraces and celebrates all people, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity, language, physical ability, race, religion, sexual orientation, size, or socioeconomic status.” Bullock’s roles as design principle and leader within Perkins+Will allow her to combine her passions for architecture and social justice to ignite change within the architecture profession. She is a key part of the movement towards equality in the workplace and her expertise and leadership are sought out around the world. 

In 2014, she was elected by her peers as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and now serves on the AIA’s Equity in Architecture Commission. She is a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), a past board member of the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, and a board member of the Center for Architecture and Urban Design Los Angeles and the International Interior Design Association.

Patricia Saldaña Natke

Mexican born, b. 1964

Patricia Saldaña Natke was born 1964 in Chicago, Illinois and is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Saldaña Natke is a founding partner of UrbanWorks, an award-winning architecture, planning, and interior design firm in Chicago. As president, she oversees design excellence and the firm’s vision. Her commitment to public service imbues the firm with a strong civic ethic. She has completed over 5,000 units of housing, six mixed-income developments, office and university projects, and over 65 public school renovations and additions.

Prior to founding UrbanWorks, Saldaña Natke worked in design positions for several Chicago architectural firms. She chaired the National AIA Diversity Committee for the American Institute of Architects and was a past president of Chicago Women in Architecture and the Illinois São Paulo, Brazil Partners of the Americas Chapter. She is currently on the board of the American Institute of Architects Chicago Chapter and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, Arquitectos – the Society of Hispanic Architects, HACIA (Hispanic American Construction Industry Association), and the Concordia Place Advisory Council.

Saldaña Natke has served as adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a facilitator at Archeworks, and a part-time Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.Saldaña Natke was listed in the “2014: 50 Chicago Designers” by Newcity, one of the five "Chicago's Emerging Grand Designers" by Crain’s Chicago Business, and was elevated to Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2018.

Farshid Moussavi

Iranian, b. 1965

Farshid Moussavi was born in Iran and immigrated to London in 1979. She trained in architecture at the Dundee School of Architecture, The Bartlett School of Architecture, and graduated with a Masters in Architecture (MArch II) from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Moussavi worked at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and OMA before moving back to London to teach at the Architectural Association and start her practice with Foreign Office Architects (FOA) in 1995.

At FOA, Moussavi was a lead designer for many impressive projects, including the award-winning Yokohama International Ferry Terminal in Japan. Other prominent projects include the Edificio Bambú in Madrid, the Southeast Coastal Park in Barcelona, the John Lewis complex in Leicester, England and the Meydan retail complex in Istanbul, Turkey. Moussavi was also part of the United Architects team who were finalists in the Ground Zero competition. In 2011, Moussavi opened her firm Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA) in London. In October 2012, FMA's first museum and first building in America, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, opened to the public. In August 2012, FMA exhibited their 'Architecture and Affects' installation at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2014, FMA designed Victoria Beckham's flagship store in London.

Moussavi has published a series of books which she in turn used to teach a course at Harvard. The books, The Function of Ornament, The Function of Form, and The Function of Style,   disclaim architecture’s traditional binary oppositions – form vs.function, structure vs. form, ornament vs. function, style vs. function – and suggests that “architecture’s creative potential lies, rather, in finding ways to relate them to one other”. Moussavi has won countless awards, including the RIBA International Award in 2004, 2005, and 2006; the RIBA European Award in 2008;  the RIBA Award in 2009, and the RIBA Award for Ravensbourne in 2011.

Lu Wenyu

Chinese, b. 1966

Lu Wenyu studied architecture at Nanjing Institute of Technology, where she met Wang Shu. Together, they founded Amateur Architecture Studio in 1997 in Hangzhou, China. Their practice, as suggested by it’s name, rejects what they saw as China’s growing professional, soulless architecture scene. Instead the firm uses natural materials and traditional practices to draw in the surrounding culture and landscape.

Their most notable project is the Ningbo History Museum whose facade is made up of thousands of recycled bricks and tiles from surrounding provinces. In 2006, Wenyu worked on the Tiled Garden installation at the 2006 Venice Biennale, where “a sea of tens of thousands of recycled tiles from the local area were carefully laid in rows and accessed by pedestrian bamboo bridges.” In 2012, Amateur Architecture Studio began transforming the entire village of Wencun to serve as a prototype for restoring other villages. In just two years, 14 new homes were built.

Lu Wenyu and Wang Shu have received international acclaim for their projects and philosophies. In 2010, the couple was awarded the German Schelling Architecture Prize. Wang Shu won the Pritzker Prize in 2012, expressing that Lu Wenyu deserved to share the Pritzker Prize with him for their work at Amateur Architecture Studio. Wenyu equated winning the prize with losing her anonymity in China and chose to not accept the award with Shu, thereby maintaining her relatively simple life. In 2016, they were invited to give the annual architecture lecture at the Royal Academy and the following year, their work was exhibited at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark through photographs, models, and material samples.

Anupama Kundoo

Indian, b. 1967

Dr. Anupama Kundoo was born in Pune, India in 1967. In 1989, she graduated with her architecture degree from Sir J. J. College of Architecture, University of Bombay. A decade later she was awarded the Vastu Shilpa Foundation Fellowship for her thesis on "Urban Eco-Community: Design and Analysis for Sustainability". In 2008, she received her doctoral degree from Technical University of Berlin.

From 1990, Kundoo worked as an architect in Auroville, an experimental township contained mostly within Tamil Nadu, India. There she focused on using local labor, materials, and community resources to develop economically innovative buildings with sustainable energy and water infrastructure. Built within Auroville, Kundoo’s own residence “Wall House” is the culmination of her research and experimentation. Made up of local materials, the home perfectly balances hi and low-tech to adjust to the climate and occasion. 

Kundoo’s research and experience has led her to publish many books and papers. In 2009, she authored ‘Roger Anger: Research on Beauty/Recherche sur la Beauté, Architecture 1958-2008’ and in 2014 was one of five architects to be included in the exhibition and book titled "The Architect is Present". In 2015 she wrote a chapter titled ‘Rethinking affordability in economic and environmental terms’ in the Routledge book ‘Inclusive Urbanisation: Rethinking Policy, Practice and Research in the Age of Climate Change’. Anupama has taught at many schools across the globe including TU Berlin, AA School of Architecture London, Parsons New School of Design New York, University of Queensland Brisbane, IUAV Venice and ETSAB Barcelona. She is currently Professor at UCJC Madrid where she is Chair of ‘Affordable Habitat’. She is also the Strauch Visiting Critic at Cornell University.

Sonali Rastogi

Indian, b.1967

Sonali Rasogi was born and raised in New Delhi, India and comes from a family of architects. She graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture of New Delhi in 1991. At the Architectural Association, School of Architecture, London, she studied Housing and Urbanism with George Fiori and at ‘The Design Research Lab’ with Jeff Kipnis, emerging with two Graduate Diplomas in 1995. After recognizing the lack of discourse on contemporary Indian architecture, she returned to India in 1996 to start Morphogenesis with her partner, Manit Rastogi. 

Sonali’s work at Morphogenesis has been recognized with awards and accolades from around the globe. In 2014, she was recognized as Co-Laureate of the SIA Getz Award For Emergent Architecture in Asia. She has also won the Young Ficci Ladies Organisation Woman Achiever of the Year Award and was named one of ten leading women architects in India by A+D. 

Sonali’s talents and achievements have led her to lecture across the globe and participate in various academic and design juries including The New York Design Summit (2014), The GRIHA Conference (2014) and India Design ID 2013 Symposium. She has spoken at various events such as Women Leaders in India Conference & Awards, and Pecha Kucha in New Delhi. Sonali is also a founder member of manthan, a platform she started to promote the exchange of interdisciplinary ideas across the world of art, architecture, design and urbanism

Patama Roonrakwit

Thai, b.1968

Patama Roonrakwit is a Thai architect best known for working on underprivileged housing development projects in Thailand. Growing up, her father was a technical college teacher and two of her uncles were architects. She picked up drawing and handicraft from her mother, who was a school teacher. Roonrakwit studied architecture at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, and at the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University in 1994 and 1995.

Roonrakwit is currently the Managing Director of Community Architects for Shelter and Environment (CASE), which she co-founded in 1997. Roonrakwit “uses the discipline of architecture as a tool to communicate with people.” The group uses a humanitarian and anthropological approach to create appropriate housing for the urban poor in informal settlements. CASE projects involve community members as participants in the process of improving their shelter and environment - a process including surveying and mapping communities, group meetings and workshops, and the completion of new homes. In one project, Roonrakwit was asked to design housing with homeless populations that were to be relocated from under the 78 bridges in Bangkok by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR). She also was also pivotal in providing temporary housing and relief for those affected by the 2004 tsunami in Phang Nga. Over her career, Roonrakwit has worked to develop forty housing development projects for underprivileged communities and damaged villages in Thailand. She is a firm believer that architects should use their talents to build adequate housing for the poor- “To improve the physical you have to improve all your life. Life is a valuable but transient thing, after all. Once we can change our minds, we can see things in new ways.”

She was the only Thai woman to be selected for the final round of the ArcVision Prize “Women and Architecture”, an international award for women architects organized by the Italcementi Group and Asia Cement.

yui tezuka

japanese, b. 1969

Yui Tezuka is an internationally recognized architect for her firm’s human-centered designs. Born in Kanagawa in 1969, she grew up with an architect father who surrounded her with architecture books and encouraged her to play with his architecture models. After studying architecture at Musashi Institute of Technology and the Bartlett School of architecture, she and her husband Takaharu Tezuka spent time working for Richard Rogers before opening their own architectural practice in Tokyo in 1994. Yui’s award winning architectural practice is centered around putting peoples’ needs first as is evident in her firm’s thoughtful designs for spaces for living, nurturing, praying, healing, and producing. One of her firm’s most well-known projects is the Fuji Kindergarten whose groundbreaking design won Tezuka Architects many awards and named them experts in the field of designing spaces for children to learn and grow. Since then, Yui has worked with the National Institute of Education Policy Research to establish design criteria for future kindergartens. She is a visiting professor at TOKYO University and TOKAI University and has also spent time teaching at Salzburg Summer Academy and University of California, Berkeley.

Roberta Washington

african Descent, licensed in 1975

Roberta Washington became interested in studying architecture after she was required to write about three professions she was interested in for an 8th grade project. Missing a third person to interview, her mother suggested the next door neighbor, an architect, whose description of architecture inspired her. Washington received her bachelor's degree in architecture from Howard University and then  went on to earn her master's degree in architecture from Columbia. Upon graduating, she spent four years in Maputo Province in Mozambique designing healthcare, educational and cultural projects.

During her education, she was active in the Women’s Caucus at the AIA and Alliance of Women in Architecture which led to relationships that inspired her to ensure that Black and female legacies are not lost. She has been researching and writing about women such as Beverly Loraine Green and Georgia Louise Harris Brown since 1997 and continues to lecture about the history of Black architects. In 1983, she founded Roberta Washington Architects, one of the only architecture firms in the United States led by an African-American woman. Roberta Washington has designed and led teams for dozens of new and renovated housing housing projects, schools, and health facilities.

Roberta Washington has served as president of the National Organization of Minority Architects and as a chairperson of the New York State Board of Architecture. She also spent six years as the Housing Committee chairperson and co-chair of the Land-Use Committee for Central Harlem's Community Planning Board. She is currently on the board of the Center for Architecture Foundation and was their president for 2009. In 2006 she became a member of the American Institute of Architects' College of Fellows.

Ivenue Love-Stanley

african Descent, licensed in 1983

Ivenue Love-Stanley was raised in Meridian, Mississippi. In 1972, she received her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Millsaps College before earning a Master of Architecture from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1977. The next year, she and her husband William J. "Bill" Stanley III started Stanley, Love-Stanley, P.C. which became the South’s second largest African-American architectural practice. Their projects range from the Aquatic Center for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games to the the Southwest YMCA and St. Paul's Episcopal Church  which won awards from the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). During her time at NOMA, Ivenue Love-Stanley helped create a formal connection with the American Institute of Architects. 

Love-Stanley has also been recognized for her installations and exhibits. At the 1996 Summer Olympics she designed and oversaw the installation of a "Celebrate Africa" exhibit and performance. Later she worked with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta on their Youth Art Connection gallery/art hub. An active member of her community, Ivenue served on several historic preservation boards as well as on the City of Atlanta’s Zoning Review Board. She is credited with stopping the demolition of several landmark buildings and for the restoration of the Herndon Home Museum (once owned by Alonzo Herndon, one of the wealthiest African-Americans in the U.S.). She has donated many hours of work and wisdom for various important projects in Atlanta and served on the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Midtown Improvement District for 8 years. 

Her efforts have been widely recognized as she works to advocate for minority inclusion in the architectural profession and community decision-making. Her work has been included in Judith Dupre's book, Monuments: America's History in Art and Memory and her firm has been awarded many honors over the years. In 2014 Ivenue Love-Stanley received the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award from the American Institute of Architects.

Yolande Daniels

African descent

Yolande Daniels received her BS in Architecture from the City College, CUNY, of New York in 1987 and graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Architecture in 1990. Daniels is a founding partner of studio SUMO alongside Sunil Bald. Studio SUMO is an academic/architecture partnership focused on innovative design involving research, formal exploration, and material invention in Long Island City, NY. Davis and Bald began collaborating on competitions when they were both teaching on the East coast (she at Columbia and he at Parsons and Yale). Together they won the MTA Arts for Transit in 1995, and were asked to design the Architectural League’s New New York exhibition in 2000. In 2000, Bernard Tschumi invited them to help with his winning competition entry for the Museum for African Art (MfAA) temporary home in Queens. Several years later, they were invited to design the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Art in Brooklyn, completed in 2006. SUMO was honored by Architect Magazine as one of the top ten design firms in the country in 2013. 

Yolande’s research aims to connect our world’s social systems and the spaces they are enacted in. These interests have pushed her to experiment with how non-linear and informal systems can lead to formal design strategies and has resulted in further interest in pattern-making logic, rule-sets and games. Her research on the spatial politics of race and gender has been included in publications like Crime and Ornament (YYZ Press, 2002), White Papers, Black Marks (Athlone Press, 2000), and Grey Areas (Chalkham Hill Press, 1999). 

She received fellowships from the American Academy in Rome (2003-04) and the MacDowell Colony (2005-6). From 1996-98, she was a Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies Fellow at the Whitney American Museum of Art and a participant in the Independent Studio Program in New York. She received a research grant from the NY chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1996 for a project documenting slave spaces in Brazil. Her work will also be featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s Reconstruction: Architecture and Blackness In America in the Summer/Fall of 2020.

Yolande has taught as a visiting professor at The City University of New York, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Howard University, Josai International University, the University of Michigan, and Pratt Institute and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

Felecia Davis

african descent

Felecia Davis is a designer and researcher interested in computation in relation to bodies, space, and social constructions. She received her Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Tufts University before earning her Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a PhD in the Design and Computation Group in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. Her time in academia led to projects which focussed on computational textiles programmed to respond to their environments. She founded her own design firm FELECIA DAVIS STUDIO where she works on projects ranging from textile installations to award winning competition entries. 

Felecia has shared her talents and insights through lectures, workshops, published materials and installations at the Swedish School of Textiles, Microsoft Research, and MIT’s Media Lab. Her work is also set to be featured at MoMA’s Reconstruction: Architecture and Blackness In America in the Summer/Fall of 2020. Felecia taught architectural design at Cornell University for 10 years, Princeton University and The Cooper Union in New York. She is currently an assistant professor at Penn State University’s Stuckeman Center for Design and Computation where she is the director of SOFTLAB.

NICOLE HOLLANT-DENIS

AFRICAN DESCENT

Nicole Hollant-Denis, AIA, NOMA is an award winning architect recognized for her wide range of projects and thoughtful design solutions. With a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University (1989) and a Master in Design Studies from Harvard University (2000), Hollant -Denis founded Aaris Design Studios, PLLC in New York City where she is still a principal architect today. Her firm has worked on many important projects in the New York Metro and beyond, including the Port Authority Beautification project, Met Life’s Fifth Avenue renovation, and the preservation of the existing Long Island Railroad Building. She and her team also won a competition funded by the Haitian Government and the Clinton Foundation to design a Haiti House for Life. 

Nicole’s early interests in Afrocentric forms in architecture came to life when she won the commission for the Aftrican Burial Ground Memorial in Lower Manhattan. Her thoughtful design was praised by many, including Maya Angelou,Sidney Poitier, and Wyclef Jean. 

Aaris Design Studios, PLLC is currently focussing a lot of attention on their work in Harlem, including projects at Columbia University, Harlem’s Shiloh Church of Christ, and La Marqueta Plaza, an open-air marketplace with food, shops and events. 

V. Mitch McEwen

african descent

V. Mitch McEwen earned her M.Arch. at Columbia University and B.A. at Harvard College cum laude in Social Studies with a focus in economics. McEwen’s work in urban design and architecture began at Bernard Tschumi Architects and the New York City Department of City Planning.

McEwen is a principal at Atelier Office which is the merger of her former practice, A(n) Office, and Amina Blacksher’s Atelier Amina. A(n) Office was founded in 2014 with Marcelo López-Dinard as a collaborative design studio in Detroit and New York City that explored the intersection of architecture, exhibition, and publication. Before A(n) Office, McEwen founded SUPERFRONT, an experimental design non-profit that she started in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn in 2008. Atelier Office was founded in 2020 to challenge the typical architecture office model and participate in public projects which prioritize shared space. Mitch is also Director of Black Box Research Group at Princeton.

McEwen has been commissioned to work on projects for a wide range of clients including the Venice Architecture Biennial, The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Museum of Modern Art. She has been awarded grants from Graham Foundation, Knight Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts. She has lectured at Sci-Arc, School of Visual Arts, and been featured on many podcasts to talk about her expertise in “mixed-used, mixed-income zoning and media zones.”

After teaching at University of Michigan and Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), V. Mitch McEwn became Assistant Professor at Princeton School of Architecture in 2017. Her courses and research focus on “urbanism and computational methods of design and construction”. Also in 2017, she became a Board Member of the Van Alen Institute in New York City. McEwen is the 2018–19 curator of the New Museum’s urban reconstruction initiative, IdeasCity. As curator, McEwen, will oversee this cycle’s programming and then lay the groundwork for the forthcoming 2020–21 cycle.

Kathy Denise Dixon

african descent

Kathy Denis Dixon earned her bachelor's degree from Howard University's School of Architecture before continuing on to UCLA to earn a Masters in Urban Planning with a focus on Housing and Community Development. In 2003, she founded K. Dixon Architecture PLLC with the philosophy that form follows function. The firm offers a wide range of services across many scales and building types including healthcare, retail, and education. 

With nearly three decades of experience, Kathy Dixon has worked on many different projects over the years. She designed educational facilities in Washington D.C., Air Traffic Control facilities for Federal Aviation Administration, and child-oriented play areas for McDonald's Corporation. She has designed fire stations, churches, family life centers, and housing for faith-based institutions. 

In 2010, Kathy became an assistant professor at University of the District of Columbia’s Department of Architecture and Community Planning Kathy. She was the President of the National Organization of Minority architects from 2012-2014 and is an executive board member for the Harambee Community Development Corporation.

June Grant

african descent

June Grant, born in Jamaica, received a master's degree in Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture and her undergraduate degree from Baruch College, CUNY with a focus on International Economics and Finance and a minor in Studio Art. June’s other interests include sculpture, economics and investment analysis, all three of which have made their way into her architecture practice. 

With 15 years of experience at Steinberg Architects and AECOM, June founded her research-based architecture and design practice, blink!LAB, in Oakland, California, 2014. A truly multidisciplinary practice, blink!LAB combines interests in economics, architecture, urban design, industrial design, furniture, and fabrication to transform spaces and places and explore new forms of occupancy. June Grant has worked on projects for clients that range from NASA to local non-profit organizations. 

Blink!Lab makes use of emerging technologies, such as Arduinos and 3-D printers, as well as building prototypes and analyzing public data to better understand how to conserve energy and waste in design. Grant has spoken of her concerns about rising sea level in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked on a project for the city of San Mateo, California that changed the recycling technology of a wastewater treatment center so that plants in the landscape could be used to treat the water, generate energy, and be used as an educational opportunity.

June Grant is a visiting professor at the University of San Francisco.

Nina Cooke John

african descent

Nina Cooke John earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University.

Nina began her career designing houses with the architecture firm Voorsanger and Associates before working on larger projects like the New York Botanical Gardens master plans and the Clinton Library. She collaborated with Reddymade Design for seven years, working on projects ranging from retail shops to corporate offices. 

In 2012, Nina founded Frame Design Lab which later evolved to become Studio Cooke John.  Nina’s work focuses on the connection between environment and people which is evident in her work for residential clients and cultural institutions. Built and speculative projects range from furniture installations in private and urban settings; residential and commercial construction to extensive strategic urban interventions. Her research includes the investigation of the everyday space-making strategies of sub-cultures in urban environments. She is in her eleventh year as an educator teaching architecture and design strategy at Syracuse University and currently teaches at Parsons the New School for Design. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Dwell, and in the Center for Architecture’s Close to the Edge, The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture.

Michaele Pride

african descent

Michaele Pride is an architect and urban designer with a Bachelor of Architecture from Arizona State University (1980)  and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard (2000). Over the course of her career, Machaele has held many notable roles including 13 years as principal designer at re: architecture, founder of the Design Professionals’ Coalition, and professor at multiple universities. Her work celebrates collaboration and public engagement as crucial parts of the research and design process and her most current work focuses on the intersection of design and public health.

Since joining the faculty of the University of New Mexico as a professor in 2001, Michaele has taken on many roles across campus. She has conducted projects through the school’s Design and Planning Assistance Center, including The Stories of Route 66: the International District, and several for NM Mainstreet Communities. She is also Associate Dean for Public Outreach and Engagement, an active member of the HIVE Collective, and heads the MS Architecture track in Public Health and the Built Environment. Prior to her roles at UNM, she spent 7 years as Associate professor at the University of Cincinnati where she was the Director of the School of Architecture and Interior Design from 2003-2009, and was awarded one of the “25 Most Admired Design Educators” in 2010 by Design Intelligence. 

Michaele becomes an active member of her community wherever she is. Beyond her outstanding roles at the Universities where she teaches, she has also extended her talents to the city and state in which she resides. In Cincinnati, she served on their City Planning Commission and on the Board Of Trustees for the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center. In New Mexico, she has served on the Design Review Committee for the Sawmill Community Land Trust and on the Healthy Places, Healthy People steering committee for the Con Alma Health Foundation. Outside of her community, she has been invited to serve as juror for many design awards and competitions across the globe.

Amanda Williams

african descent

Amanda Williams is a visual artist and designer based in Chicago, IL. Growing up in the city, she was inspired by the city’s architecture and knowledge that Chicago’s first non-Native American Settler was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who was of African descent. After receiving her Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1997, she went on to spend 6 years working in commercial architecture in San Francisco before transitioning to being a full time artist in Chicago. 

With a background in architecture, Amanda’s work investigates color, race, and space in the city, blurring the lines between art and architecture. Her piece, “Color(ed) Theory” used abandoned homes and a culturally-coded paint selection to explore the relationship between color, Black culture, and urban blight. The images were on display during the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial and the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2020, the project was on display at the Museum of Modern Art as a part of it’s 216: Building Citizens exhibition. Amanda spoke about the project in length during her 2018 TED Talk. 

Amanda Williams has taught at the California College of the Arts, Sam Fox School at Washington University, St. Louis, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Cornell University. She has given many lectures across the United States including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New Museum. Amanda uses her voice and talents to call out systemic racism within the architecture profession and highlight the consequences of our planning and zoning laws.

Liz Ogbu

african descent

Liz Ogbu is a self-described designer, urbanist, and social innovator. With a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Wellesley College, a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in sub-Saharan Africa, and Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Liz has turned the “normal” architectural practice on its head. She founded Studio O to focus on sustainable designs and designing opportunities for impact. Her practice focuses on involving the clients and users in the design process to ensure a more thoughtful and effective end user experience. 

Projects at Studio O range from a Day Labor Station for laborers waiting for work, to Clean Team Ghana in which she worked with Unilever, IDEO, and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor to address the issue of safe and convenient sanitation. Studio O recently designed NOW Hunters Point in San Francisco to address the expanse of concrete left behind by PG&E’s coal-based power plant. The restoration left the neighborhood with a space for recreation, art installations, and community services. Liz uses her talents to advocate for social and spatial justice and beautifully “blends empathy and human-centered research methodologies, creative engagement practices, architecture and equitable development principles, cross-disciplinary design thinking framework, and social and spatial justice agendas”

In addition to founding her own practice, Liz Ogbu has also had a hand in starting two public interest design non-profits. She served as Design Director at Public Architecture to help designers improve communities. In 2011, she joined IDEO’s non-profit, Innovators-In-Residence, to use her skills as designer and innovator to fight global poverty. She has also taught at the California College of the Arts and in 2012, became the first Scholar in Residence at the CCA’s Center for Art and Public Life. She has also taught at UC Berkeley, Stanford’s d. School, and was the Visiting Porter Chair in Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture in 2017. She lectures about social and spatial justice at institutions around the globe.

Allison Williams 

african descent

Allison Williams was a design leader for 40 years at SOM, Perkins +Will and AECOM. She is most known for her creative instincts and leadership that have created award winning buildings that bridge concepts of culture, technology, and the environment. She is well recognized for her projects, The August Wilson Center Pittsburgh PA, The Health and Sciences Campus for Princess Abdulrahman University for women Saudi Arabia, and CREATE in Singapore. Her US Port of Entry at Calexico, CA and two research laboratories for NASA are currently under construction. In 2017 Williams founded AGWms_studio. Through this practice, she works with corporations, institutions, and other design professionals during critical phases of their design processes to define issues, prioritize choices, and filter ideas. Her expertise as a leader and mission-driven problem solver make her talents widely sought-after.

Allison is a frequent lecturer and keynote speaker. She is an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University and two-term Visiting Committee chair at Harvard GSD. She has received international recognition for her contributions to the architecture field. She is an AIA Fellow, a Branner Fellow, a Skidmore Owings & Merrill Graduate Fellow, and a recipient of The Howard A. Friedman, FAIA Distinguished Visiting Professor of Architecture honor. In 2018, she was awarded The Norma Sklarek Award in Architecture.

Kimberly Dowdell

african descent 

Kimberly Dowdell is a licensed architect, of African descent, and a real estate developer in Detroit. She is currently a Principal in Chicago studio of HOK, and a national president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) 2019-2020 . She earned her Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University. She is also a lecturer at the University of Michigan Tubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Because of her upbringing in Detroit Kimberly aspires to use architecture as a tool to revitalize cities.

Samantha Josaphat 

african descent

Samantha Josaphat is an architect and founder of STUDIO 297 Architecture PPLC. She is a registered Architect in New York and New Jersey. Samantha is committed to raising the percentage of black women in the STEM field as a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects. She also lead the Project Pipeline, which is an architectural day camp for elementary students. Samantha is currently an adjunct associate professor, at the City College of New York. 

Zena Howard

african descent

Zena Howard is a Principal and Managing Director of the Perkins + Will’s North Carolina office. Having earned her undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia, Zena is an award winning architect, strategist, mentor and team builder. She is well known for spearheading culturally significant projects, including the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Afrian American History and Culture (NMAAHC) on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In her role as a Senior Project Manager, Zena led a multi-firm and multi-stakeholder team for eight-years from its underfunded concept phase to final occupancy and celebrated public success. Other projects include The International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, N.C, the District of Columbia Anacostia and Tenley friendship Neighborhood Libraries in Washington, D.C, and urban remembrance project for Horgans Alley in Vancouver, B.C., Greenville Town Common in Greenville, N.C., and Brooklyn Village in Charlotte, N.C.

Jennifer Newsom

african DESCENT

Jennifer Newsom is an architect using large scale installations to straddle the worlds of art and architecture. While receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (2001) and Master of Architecture (2005) degrees at Yale University, Jennifer spent time working for architects like Robert A. M. Stern, HGA, Adjaye Associates, Cooper Robertson, and Deborah Berke. During her time at Yale, Newsom organized a two- day symposium titled, Black Boxes: Enigmas of Space and Race held at Yale School of Architecture. As a student, she received both the Fermin Ennis Memorial Fellowship and the Anne C.K. Garland awards

In 2013, upon moving to Minneapolis, MN, Jennifer and her husband Tom Carruthers founded Dream the Combine. The duo describes their work as “site-specific installations exploring metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our known understanding of the world”. Their installations can be found in many cities across North America including Seattle, WA, Minneapolis, MN, Vancouver, BC, and New York City. In 2018, they were winners of the Young Architects Program at MoMA PS1 for their installation “Hide & Seek”. 

Jennifer is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and has been an educator and advocate for Juxtaposition Arts, a youth empowerment and apprenticeship program in North Minneapolis. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Second Shift Studio Space in St. Paul, MN.

Georgina Huljich

Argentinean born

Georgina Huljich received a professional degree from the National University of Rosario, Argentina before continuing onto UCLA to earn her Master of Architecture. As a student she received multiple awards for her academic achievements, including the 2005-2006 Maybeck Fellow. Upon graduating she worked at the Guggenheim Museum, Dan/Wolf Architects in New York City, and at Morphosis Architects in Los Angeles. 

In 2006, Huljich joined P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S in Los Angeles as a partner where she is Principal and Managing Director. Her projects span many scales, programs, and cultures with work all across the globe. Her work has also been included in exhibitions around the world including at the Venice Biennale, the Chicago Biennial, the The San Francisco MoMA, and the Vienna MAK Museum. 

Georgina Huljich has taught at Yale School of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, UC Berkeley, USC, and TIT in Tokyo. She joined the faculty at the Department of Architecture at UCLA as Professor in 2006. In 2013 she received the US Artists Fellowship.

Mariana Ibañez

Argentinean born

Mariana Ibañez earned her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Buenos Aires before  continuing on to receive a Master of Architecture and Urbanism from the Architecture Association in London After graduating, she worked at the Advanced Geometry Unit at ARUP and Zaha Hadid Architects where she was Project Architect for the London Aquatic Center for the 2012 Olympic Games. Today, she is co-founder of Ibañez Kim, a genre-defying office that she started with Simon Kim. Together, they create architecture, objects, and grow cities using sound, atmosphere, material, and media. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. 

Mariana has taught at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design for 11 years before becoming Assistant Professor of Architecture at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Her research focuses on the disciplinary core of architecture and the relationships between the profession, technology, culture, and the environment. Her work has been published widely, most recently in Paradigms in Computing by ACTAR D, and Organization or Design, published by a + t. Mariana is an external examiner for the Architectural Association and has sat on the awards jury for Boston Society of Architects, the MacDowell Colony, and the Rotch foundation.

Florencia Pita

Argentinean born

Florencia Pita is an architect recognized widely for her use of color and her success across many scales of design. After graduating from the National University of Rosario with a licensure degree in 1998, Florencia was awarded the 2000 Fulbright-Fondo Nacional de las Artes Scholarship to pursue studies at Columbia University. In 2001, she earned her Master's Degree from the MSAAD Program at Columbia University. Upon graduating, she worked for Greg Lynn FORM, Eisenman Architects, and Asymptote before founding her own practices Pita & Bloom, FPmod, and Florencia Pita & Co. 

In 2010, Florencia Pita founded Pita & Bloom with Jackilin Hah Bloom. In 2014, they were named “female visionaries” by Architecture Magazine’s Next Progressives. Today, Florencia Pita & Co. uses color and form to create meaningful designs across many scales. Pita’s jewelry and furniture take on amorphic shapes which steadily transform into residential plans, spatial installations, and urban interventions as they increase in size. Her innovative projects have been featured across the globe at the Museum of Modern Art, MAK Vienna, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Florencia is the Graduate Thesis Coordinator at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where she also teaches Design Studio and Visual Studies. She won a Graham Foundation grant with the University of Michigan Museum of Art where her UMMA Table was installed in 2013.

Galia Solomonoff

Argentinean born

Galia Solomonhoff is an architect working with artists across the globe to design installations, exhibitions, and interiors to showcase art collections. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from City College CUNY, and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, Galia worked for Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Bernard Tschumi, and Rafael Vinoly before opening her own practices; Open Office in 1999 with Linda Talman, Alan Cook, and Lynn Rice, and Solomonoff Architecture Studio (SAS) on her own in 2004. At SAS, Galia pays close attention to details and 

At Open Office Galia was the architect for Dia:Beacon where she worked with each individual artist to design a space to accompany their artwork. At SAS she has designed exhibitions for The Jewish Museum and the Institute for the Study of Ancient History. Beyond her commercial work, Galia has transformed homes and restaurants to highlight their art collections. In all of her projects, she works closely with the artists and curators to create immersive, contextual experiences.

In 1995, Galia Solomonhoff began her teaching career at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has since taught at the Cooper Union, Princeton, Yale and now at Columbia GSAPP. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and has worked on many award winning proposals for architectural and urban design competitions.

Ana de Brea

Argentinean born

Ana is an associate professor, practitioner, artist, and critical observer of architecture and design. She was among the founders of Paralelo 35 in Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art and Grupo R in Rosario, both well-known groups of discussion in the South American territory.

Ana worked for more than fifteen years as columnist and chief editor of the Architecture & Design insert in two of the most important international newspapers in the Spanish language, Clarin and El Cronista until 2001. Ana taught at several universities in Argentina for fifteen years, and joined Ball State University first as visiting scholar (2001-2002) and a year later she became a faculty member, and granted tenure in 2007, basing her teaching on architecture and the allied arts.

She has been awarded as Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry Center fellow 2005-2006 through the seminar "America, the North and the South." Ana‘s teaching, artwork, and research are focused on the meaning of body [volumetric reasoning] in the contemporary, modern architecture, particularly in Latin America but contrasted with the global architectural discussion. She has lectured, led exhibitions, and published articles in these fields nationally and internationally.

Ana is the director of the Ball State College of Architecture and Planning Americano Sur a study abroad program on art and architecture in the Latin American culture that is led every summer since 2004. She collaborates with practitioners, scholars, and alumni from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay among other countries invigorating the link between the north and the south of the Americas.

As an author Ana has published several books including Señores Arquitectos / Diálogos con Mario Roberto Alvarez y Clorindo Testa (together with T. Dagnino - Spanish language, Ediciones Ubroc,1999) and 10x50: Terreno de Arquitectura (Spanish, Ediciones Ubroc, 2000), and "otal Latin American Architecture _ Libretto of Modern Reflections & Contemporary Works (English, ACTAR Publishers, 2015, currently in process of getting the second edition published in the Spanish language).

Rocio Romero

Chilean born

Chilean-American architectural designer Rocio Romero is celebrated for her work across many scales. From her well crafted, minimalist homes to her sustainable and affordable products, Rocio is committed to clean lines, quality construction, and efficient production and delivery strategies. 

In 2002 Rocio founded LV Homes, a modern prefab design company, and quickly became a pioneer in the field. Praised for “[taking] on the problem of pre fabricating a simple, attractive, low-cost modern house and [solving] it”, her work has been written about in The New Yorker and Dwell, and full size models have been installed in exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Triennale di Milano. LV Homes have been built all over the world including The USA, France, Chile, and Canada. While LV homes are no longer being sold as a kit of parts, the same design sensibilities will be used to design and build homes in select areas.

Romero holds architecture degrees from University of California at Berkeley and SCI-Arc. She and her work have been featured at the Walker Art Center, NPR, The New York Times, Dwell, and other highly reputable institutions and media outlets. At the TEDxGatewayArchSalon, Rocio gave a lecture on The Process of Refinement. She has also served on many juries for competitions including the 99k House, Living Box, and Architecture Magazine’s Home of the Year Award.

Jing Liu

Chinese born

Architect, educator, and co-founder of SO-IL, Jing Liu has touched many projects which range in scale, program, and permanence. From artistic collaborations with contemporary choreographers and visual artists to master plan and major public realm design in cities like Melbourne and Indianapolis, her talents reach far and wide and incorporate community engagement and collaboration across disciplines as a central part of the design process. She co-founded SO-IL with Florian Idenburg in 2008 after receiving her education in China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Globally aware and locally sensitive, Jing Liu has led SO–IL to engage with the socio-political issues of contemporary cities. This awareness combined with her interests in digital technologies and traditional crafts have resulted in projects like the Kukje Gallery where contextual design and new fabrication strategies merge. At SO-IL, Jing has also had curatorial partnerships with the London Design Museum, the Guggenheim, and Canadian Center for Architecture and published the book Solid Objectives: Order, Edge, Aura through Lars Müller.

Outside of her multidisciplinary architecture practice, Jing Liu is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and is a frequent lecturer at institutions across the globe. She is also an active board member of the Van Alen Institute, a New York City nonprofit that applies design research to the most pressing social, cultural, and ecological challenges of tomorrow.

Elizabeth Chu Richter

Chinese Born 1949

Elizabeth Chu Richter is a celebrated architect, public servant, and radio show creator. Born in Nanjing, China, she grew up in Hong Kong before moving to Dallas as a child. With a B. Arch from the University of Texas, she joined Kipp Winston in practice in 1989 before founding Richter Architects with her husband, David. As an active community member, Richter has served as Chairman of the South Texas Public Broadcasting System and on the Board of Directors of the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. She was also a board member of CHRISTUS Spohn Health Systems and the Board of Directors of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation. Clearly a woman of many interests and talents, Richter also created and co-produced a radio show “The Shape Of Texas” to increase public awareness about regional and urban issues throughout Texas. The show broadcast for 13 years on NPR affiliates across the state. In 2011, Richter won an AIA Young Architects Award for the project.

At Richter Architects, Elizabeth works on a wide range of projects, from travel centers to private residences. The firm has received many prestigious awards, including numerous Awards of Excellence and People’s Choice awards from the AIA Corpus Christi Triennial Design Awards and the 2020 COTE Top Ten Awards for their US Land Port of Entry in Columbus, New Mexico for sustainable design excellency. 

In 2005 the AIA welcomed Elizabeth to its College of Fellows in recognition of her significant contributions to the field and society. In 2007, Elizabeth served as President of the Texas Society of Architects and later as a regional director on the national board of the AIA. In 2014, she was inaugurated as the 91st President of the AIA.

Joyce Hwang

Chinese descent

Joyce Hwang is an architect, educator, and researcher. With a M. Arch. from Princeton University and a B. Arch. from Cornell University, Joyce has practiced all over the globe including San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and Barcelona. Today she is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Buffalo, SUNY and researches creative approaches to confronting the earth’s ecology through her practice, Ants of the Prairie. 

Through Ants of the Prairie, Joyce Hwang collaborates with individuals to research and design for installations, publications, and exhibitions which focus on the future of architecture and the built environment on this planet. In her current projects, Hwang is incorporating wildlife habitats into constructed environments. 

In recognition of her groundbreaking work, Hwang has been awarded the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices Award, the New York FOundation for the Arts Fellowship, the New York State Council of the Arts Independent Project Grant, and the MacDowell Colony Fellowship.

Paola Moya

Colombian born

Paola Moya earned an MA in Architecture with a Real Estate Development concentration, and a BS in Architecture from The Catholic University of America. For six years, she worked at Georgetown Design Group in Washington, D.C. before working for Michael Marshall Architecture for three years. In 2010, she joined a partnership with Michael Marshall and founded Marshall Moya Design where they were included on Washington Business Journal's "Power 100" Playmakers list. In 2017 Moya opened her own practice, Moya Design Partners, in Washington, D.C. She places diversity, design excellence, and philanthropy at the heart of her firm. 

Moya is a graduate of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Leadership Class (2014) and the Leadership Montgomery Core Program (2015). She is also a part of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Emerging Leaders program (2015). She earned a Finance certification from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s Executive Education program. Her work has been recognized locally and internationally through design excellence awards. In 2013, the DC Chamber of Commerce awarded her “Young Entrepreneur of the Year”, the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named her as a “Rising Star”, and MEA Magazine listed her under “25 Influential Women in Business.” In 2014, Moya was named a “Minority Business Leader” and a year later, Moya was named a "40 Under 40" honoree by the Washington Business Journal.

J. Meejin Yoon

Korean descent b.1972

Architect, designer and educator J. Meejin Yoon is widely recognized for her innovative, interdisciplinary work both in the classroom and in her practice. She earned a B. Arch. from Cornell University before receiving an Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University. After graduating, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Korea in 1998. With interests in the intersection between architecture, public space, and technology, Yoon co-founded Höweler + Yoon Architecture LLP and MY Studio.

As exhibited in their book, Expanded Practice, Höweler + Yoon Architecture expands the scope of design beyond disciplinary boundaries. Yoon leads and coordinates across disciplines to ensure her projects are well-researched and address larger questions of the climate, equity, and rapid urbanization. Her work has been widely recognized, earning her awards for her teaching, leadership, and design projects. Additionally, Yoon’s work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Vitra Design Museum, and the National Art Center in Japan. She is co-author of Public Works: Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig and creator of Absence, a memorial to the fallen Twin Towers. 

J. Meejin Yoon is the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University and previously taught at MIT for 17 years where she also served as the head of the Department of Architecture from 2014–18.

Jennifer Lee

Korean descent

Jennifer Lee is a Korean-American architect, principal and co-founder of award-winning architectural design firm Obra Architects in New York City, Beijing, and Seoul. Jennifer Lee received her Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (1997) after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in English and American Literature from Harvard College (1990).

In 2000 Lee founded Obra Architects with partner Pablo Castro after first working together at the office of Steven Holl Architects. In 2005, the two were selected as Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York, and in 2006 the firm won the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program with their project Beatfuse!. Lee was named the 2007 Cooper Union Urban Visionary Emerging Talent, a member of the Cooper Union Alumni Hall of Fame, and is a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Architecture/Environmental Structures. She is a designated City of Seoul Public Architect by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, South Korea, since 2015.

Obra Architects has been selected in 2016 for inclusion in the New York City Department of Design and Construction (NYCDDC) Design Excellence Program to design public buildings and other capital construction projects. In 2014, Lee and her firm Obra were recognized for the Sanhe Kindergarten project by the Kim Swoo Geun Foundation Preview Prize. Her firm has designed private residences in New York, Argentina, and Costa Rica, an emergency shelter exhibited at the National Art Museum of China, an award-winning prefabricated interior construction system called URBIA Furniture System for Small Apartments in Big Cities, and has been included in the 2010 International Building Exhibition, Internationale Bauausstellung IBA Hamburg, the 2011-2012 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale for Architecture\Urbanism, and the International Architecture Biennale in Venice (2014, 2016). The work of her firm has garnered six American Institute of Architects awards and three Chicago Athenaeum awards.

Lee has taught at The Cooper Union, Pratt Institute Graduate School of Architecture, and Korea National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea.

Jinhee Park

Korean born

Jinhee Park received her Master in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from Seoul National University. The year before she graduated, Jinhee opened her own practice, SsD architecture + urbanism,  where she is a principal designer. Her practice is interdisciplinary by nature and her designs both practical and whimsical. Paying special attention to atmosphere and environment, her designs are intentional and well researched. In 2015, her firm was awarded AIANY’s Best Competition Award and she has also been named an Architecture Vanguard form Architectural Record and is the recipient of an AIA Young Architects Award. 

Park is also active in the academic community and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Columbia GSAPP. She previously served as a design critic at the Harvard GSD, was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture CCNY, was the Morgenstern Chair Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critic at the Boston Architectural College

Linna Choi

Korean descent

Linna Choi earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Yale and a Master in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was mentored by Denise Scott Brown and Robery Venturi. In 2001, she co-founded OUALALOU + CHOI with Tarik Oualalou where they employ design strategies which resonate across cultures, methods, and contexts to meaningfully contribute to the built environment. With studios in Paris and Casablanca, their work is recognized across the globe. Notable projects include a high school in the African desert, a cultural center in he Latin Quarter of Paris, and the design of a new city near Casablanca. Linna recently co-authored “Territories of Disobedience”, a book showcasing the work of her firm.

Linna’s talents have earned her many awards including the Rice Design Alliance Spotlight Prize, the In/Arch Award, AR’s Emerging Architecture Award, and a WA Award. The Korean Institute of Architects also named her one of the “100 Architects of the Year”. Linna also plays an important role the academic world of architecture where she has been a visiting studio professor at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, The Rhode Island School of Design, Rice University, and the Università Iuav di Venezia School of Architecture.

Amale Andraos

Lebanese B.1973

Born in Beirut, Amale Andraos received a Bachelor of Architecture from McGill University and a Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has lived in France, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands, where she worked for OMA before moving to New York City in 2002. In New York, she co-founded WORKac where she and her colleagues worked to reimagine the relationship between urban and natural environments. WORKac has been widely recognized for its wide range of projects. Amale is currently the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. 

Before her role as Dean, Amale taught at other prestigious universities, including Princeton, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and the American University in Beirut. In 2014, her seminar focussing on the Arab City was the subject of Studio-X Amman’s symposium entitled “Architecture and Representation”. In 2016, Columbia published a book on the subject titled, The Arab City: Architecture and Representation. Andraos’ other publications include WORKac: We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge (Monacelli Press, 2017); 49 Cities, a re-reading of 49 visionary plans through an ecological lens; Above the Pavement, the Farm!(Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). Andraos actively serves on the Advisory Board of the Arab Center for Architecture in Beirut, the board of the Architectural League of New York, the and is a member of the faculty steering committee for the Columbia Global Centers | Middle East.

Sandra Vivanco

Peru-Colombian born

Sandra Vivanco bagan her architecture studies in Lima and finished her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley before earning her masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. In 2003, Sandra received a Fulbright Scholarship to explore the role of gender in Peruvian modernity. While in Lima, she also taught in the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria. As a Latin American cultural expert, her research focuses on Latin American modern architecture, specifically the postwar condition in Brazil.

Vivanco has since practiced in Japan, Portugal, Italy, and Brazil and today owns her own firm, A+D, in San Francisco. Her public work is recognized for including the community in the design process. In 2010, she was named Architect of Community as one of 10 Architects to Watch featured in California Home & Design magazine.

In 2013, Sandra Vivanco became a Full Professor of Architecture and Diversity Studies at the California College of the Arts. At CCA, Vivanco co-directs the CCA BuildLab with Lorena del Rio and Peter Anderso. Together, they research, design, and construct structures which explore the relationship between organisms, society, buildings, and their environments.

Antonieta Angulo

Peruvian born

Anronieta Angulo holds a professional degree from Ricardo Palma University in Lima, a Doctoral Degree (PhD) from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, and also attended post-graduate studies in the University of Darmstadt, Germany. In 2007, she joined  Las Americas Virtual Design Studio, a collaboration between IDIA, the College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State University, the Las Americas Network, and the professional firm of BSA LifeStructures. With LAVDS, she has served as coordinator as well as architect of record, associate architect, and design consultant in built work. After serving as faculty at Texas A&M, she began working at Ball State University in 2014.

Lesley Lokko

Ghanaian-sCOTTISH, b. 1964

Leslie Lokko is a successful novelist, architect, and academic. She began her journey at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 1989 before continuing on to earn a Doctorate in Architecture from the University of London in 2007. Since then she has taught and practiced across the globe. With an interest in the relationship between race, cultural identity, and the speculative nature of African architecture, she founded the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg in 2015. As director, she saw the school grow from 11 postgraduate students to 100 students, becoming Aftrica’s largest postgraduate school of architecture. In 2019, Lokko became the head of the architecture school at the City college of New York but left the position after just one year citing a “crippling workload and lack of respect and empathy for black women”. 

In addition to writing novels, Lokko is also the editor of “White Papers, Black Marks: Race Culture Architecture”, a book which examines the ways that racial ideology is expressed in the built environment. She is editor in chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture” and is on the editorial board of Cambridge University Press’s ARQ.

Martha Kohen

Uruguayan born

Martha Kohen earned her architecture and urban design degrees from the University of Cambridge and UDELAR Uruguay. She went on to start MKRO, an architecture and urban design office in Montevideo. From 2003 to 2008, she was the Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Florida. Her academic career includes teaching graduate and undergraduate studios, directing thesis projects, and conducting research focussed on experiential learning and community development. In 2016, Kohen became the Director of the CHU, the Center for Hydro-generated Urbanism at the College of Design Construction and Planning that acted as an International Consortium spanning four continents since 2012.

Kohen’s work has been recognized with multiple professional awards including the First Prize of the Sao Paulo Architecture Biennale 2004. Martha is a member of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Urban Quality and Culture, Steering and Scientific Committees (Rome) and a Visiting Professor at La Sapienza Rome University.

Mónica Ponce de León

Venezuelan born

Raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Mónica Ponce de León earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Miami before receiving a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Upon graduating, she taught at Harvard, SCI-Arc, RISD, University of Houston, and Northeastern University while she established her practice, Office dA. From 1996- 2008, she was the program director at Harvard and developed the first robotic fabrication lab in an architecture school in the United States. From 2008-2015, she was the dean of Taubman College at the University of Michigan. In 2018 Ponce de Leon was awarded ACADIA’s distinguished teaching award. Today, she is a professor and the dean at Princeton University School of Architecture. 

In addition to her outstanding academic career, Mónica Ponce de León is also the founding principal of MPdL Studio. Her work has received recognition with the National Design Award in Architecture form the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum, the Academic Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the USA Target Fellow in Architecture and Design from United States Artists; and the Young Architects and Emerging Voices awards from the Architectural League of New York. In 2016, she was inducted into the National Academy of Design.

ELADIA SMOKE

Lac Seul First Nation

KaaSheGaaBaaWeak

Eladia Smoke is Anishinaabekwe from Obishikokaang | Lac Seul First Nation, with family roots in Alderville First Nation, Winnipeg, and Toronto. With a Bachelor of Environmental Design and a Master of Architecture from University of Manitoba, she founded Smoke Architecture in 2014 where she and her team work on a wide range of projects including community centers, offices, and multi-family residential projects. Her most notable projects include the Aboriginal People’s Television Network studios, Migiizi Agamik Aboriginal Student Centre at University of Manitoba, and Makoonsag Intergenerational Learning Centre. She recently consulted on Centennial College’s new Indigenous faculty building where she advised on how to embed Indigenous design principles into the project. 

Smoke is a Master Lecturer at Laurentian’s McEwen School of Architecture and has served on RAIC’s Indigenous Task Force since its inception in 2015. She was on the Unceded international team of Indigenous designers and architects which represented Canada at the 2018 Venice Biennale. An active member of her community, she Eladia served as a committee and council member with Manitoba Association of Architects from 2011-2014, as a board member of Urban Shaman Gallery of Contemporary Aboriginal Art from 2010-2014, and participated in the first all-Aboriginal showcase of architecture there in 2014: Maandaw ‘Igaan Mazinibii’igan.

Tamarah Begay

Navajo Nation

Tamarah Begay received her Bachelor and Master of Architecture from the University of New Mexico in 2002 and 2004 before becoming the first female Navajo architect. With 10 years of experience working with Native American Tribes, Tamarah founded IDS+A (Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture) where she incorporates sustainable practices into her design and planning work. One of her most notable projects is the Monument Valley Visitor Center on the border of Arizona and Utah. Her more recent work for the Navajo Nation focuses on Feasibility Studies and Master Planning. She is a founding member of the American IndianCouncil of Architects and Engineers and mentors junior Native American office staff and students. Tamarah is high-level LEED certified and is a member of the United States Green Building Council.

Harriet Burdett-Moulton

Inuit

Born in Cartwright, Labrador, Harriet Burdett-Moulton is Métis with Inuit roots. She spent her childhood living a traditional nomadic life, changing homes with the seasons. After years spent teachings, she studied architecture at the Technical University of Nova Scotia. Upon graduating she worked for the NWT government in Iqaluit while at the same time establishing her own firm. She later studied International Development at St. Mary’s University before moving to Nunavut to work with FSC Architects and Engineers, which later merged with Stantec. Today she works from her home with her husband in Nova Scotia. In 2017, Burdett-Moulton received an honorary degree from OCAD University in Toronto and was made a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. 

Burdett-Moulten feels a deep connection to her nomadic childhood and to the North. She has worked to see that native communities have a voice in the built environment. While working for the NWT Government, she developed a program which hired Inuit community members to participate in construction projects in their communities, giving them pride of place. Listening to the needs of the community is an important step in her process and she often involves elders and the clients early on in the process. 

Wanda Dalla Costa

Saddle Lake First Nation

Wanda Dalla Costa is a member of the Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta. She was the first First Nations woman to become an architect in Canada. She studied Architecture at the University of Calgary and received her Master’s in Urban Planning from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 2011. She has spent nearly two decades working with indigenous communities in North America. Her firm Redquill Architecture was founded in 2010, based in Phoenix, Arizona and Calgary, Alberta. In 2018 she joined the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University as its fifth Institute Professor, bringing pathways for the next Indigenous architects. 

Her specialization is co-designing with community and placekeeping. Recent projects include the Fort McMurray First Nation Community Recreation Centre and the Niitsitapi Learning Centre. Costa was part of a team of 18 indigenous architects from Turtle Island (Canada and the USA) to represent at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2018.

Tammy Eagle Bull

Oglala Lakota Nation

Tammy Eagle Bull is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. In 1987, she studied architecture at Arizona State University before continuing on to receive her Master’s of Architecture from the University of Minnesota in 1993. With nearly 30 years of experience in design and project management, she has led multidisciplinary design teams through all phases of the design and building process. Her interests in the relationship between the environment and human behavior have led her to design environments where users thrive. Tammy Eagle Bull is the first female Native American architect in the United States. In 2002, she co-founded Encompass Architects with Todd Hesson. One of their most notable projects in The Porcupine Day School built on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This was South Dakota’s first LEED Silver Certified building.

Jan Tifrea

Ojibwa, Potawatomie and Mohawk

Jan Tifrea received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s of Architecture degrees from Lawrence Technological University. She now has over two decades of experience working on commercial, medical, and educational projects across the globe. She is a project architect at Tamarah Begay’s IDS+A, Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture. Jan has worked on projects of many scales and settings, from urban to rural, from renovations to new facilities. She led a design and planning project in the Middle East which was guided by cultural differences. 

Jan is an active community member, serving on the Detroit American Indian Center Board of Directors and the American Indian Health & Family Service Center in Detroit on the Advisory Board. She was an ACE (Architect Construction Engineers) mentor while she lived in Dallas, TX and is a member of the Board of the Directors for the American Indian Council of Architects and Engineers.

Samia Henni

Algerian born

Samia Henni received her Ph.D. in the history and theory of architecture (with distinction) from ETH Zurich. Her teaching and research interests include the history and theory of the built environments in relation to colonialism, displacements, gender, race, religions, and wars from the first European colonization to the present. She is the author of Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag, 2017) and the curator of Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (2017-2018), Zurich, Rotterdam, Berlin, Johannesburg, Paris, and Prague.

Currently, Henni is editing the gta Papers 2, titled "War Zones," and working on a book project provisionally titled Architecture of Toxicity: France, Southern Algeria and the Saharan Regions. Henni taught at Princeton University, Geneva University of Art and Design, and ETH Zurich. She studied at the École polytechnique d'architecture et d'urbanisme in Algiers; Accademia di Architettura, Università della Svizzera Italiana in Mendrisio; The Berlage Institute in Rotterdam; and at Goldsmiths, University of London. Henni is an assistant professor of history of architecture and urban development at Cornell University.

Amber N. Wiley

AfricaN DESCENT

With a Ph. D. in American Studies from George Washington University, and a Master’s in Architectural History and a B. A. in Architecture from Yale University, Amber N. Wiley is a highly acclaimed academic interested in the social aspects of design and more specifically how architecture acts as a structure of power. She is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Rutgers University where she specializes in architecture, urbanism, and African American cultural studies. In her classes and research, she focuses on how local and national bodies claim the dominating narrative/collective memory of cities through design. She explores how architecture and preservation contribute to the identity and sense of place of a city.

In 2016, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine named her a Emerging Scholar. She was also awarded the first H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Historians which allowed her to travel to Mexico, Ghana, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and India for the 2014-2015 academic year. Amber is also a member of the National Park System Advisory Board Landmarks Committee and formerly served on the boards of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Yale Black Alumni Association.

Mabel Wilson

African DESCENT B.1963

Mabel Wilson received her B.S. in Architecture from University of Virginia, Masters of Architecture from Columbia GSAPP in 1991 and a Ph.D in American Studies from New York University. She teaches architectural design and history/theory courses at Columbia GSAPP where she explores a wide range of topics including space, politics, and cultural memory in Black America; race and modern architecture; visual culture in contemporary art, film, and new mediums; and new technologies and the social production of space. She is also the director of the graduate program in Advanced Architectural Research, the co-director of GSAPP’s Global Africa Lab and the Project on Spatial Politics.

Wilson is the founder of Studio &, a transdisciplinary firm which explores different facets of art, architecture, and cultural history. The group aims to shine a light on the ways that anti-black racism shapes the built environment and how blackness creates spaces of imagination, refusal and desire. Her work has been featured at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial, the Storefront for Art and Architecture and SF Cameraworks. She is also a founding member of Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?)—an advocacy project which educates the architectural profession about the problems of globalization and labor. She became a United States Ford Fellow in Architecture and Design in 2011. 

In addition to her roles as architect and teacher, Mabel Wilson uses historical study and analysis to write essays which reframe popular conceptions of the architectural discipline. Her work has appeared in journals and books on critical geography, memory studies, art and architecture. Notable written works include Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museumsand Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Wilson also develpoped the manuscript Building Race and Nation: How Slavery Influenced Antebellum American Civic Architecture.

Itohan Osayimwese

West African born

Itohan Osayimwese is an architectural and urban historian whose expertise is sought widely across the globe. Ito earned a BA in The Growth and Structure of Cities (with a concentration in architectural studies) from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Architecture from Rice University. Upon graduating she worked in Houston and Ann Arbor where she ultimately pursued a PhD in architectural history and theory at the University of Michigan. She is currently teaching architectural history at Brown University where she is also an affiliate member of Africana Studies and has served as faculty fellow at the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology, the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, and the Haffenreffer Museum. Her research encompasses her many areas of expertise- using theories of modernity, postcoloniality, and globalization as a lens to analyze urban design, modern architecture, and visual culture in 19th and 20th century Germany, East and West Africa, and the Carribean. Her book, Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany (Pittsburgh, 2017), received a 2016 Society of Architectural Historians/Mellon Foundation award.

Previous research projects include tropical modernism and transnational networks of scientific expertise in post-independence Nigeria, the literary archive and translation in African architecture, the effects of migration on the built environment of Barbados from emancipation to the twentieth century, gender and the postcolonial modernist artistic avant-garde in Nigeria, as well as projects surrounding the urban lives of religious cults. She teaches a women in architecture course at Brown University where she and her students developed Telling (Her)Story: Women Designers in Rhode Island- a walking tour of Rhode Island highlighting women architects and designers. 

Outside of her research, Itohan sits on the board of the Society of Architectural Historians and is a member of the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative. She is a mentor to students pursuing research on colonial and postcolonial architecture and urbanism and global modernism with regional foci including Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, and South and Southeast Asia.