Unspoken Borders 2009 - Speakers and Panelists

Speakers and Panelists

	*Teddy Cruz*

Founder estudio teddy cruz; Associate Professor in public culture and urbanism in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD

Teddy Cruz’s work dwells at the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico, where he has been developing a practice and pedagogy that emerge out of the particularities of this bicultural territory and the integration of theoretical research and design production. Teddy Cruz has been recognized internationally in collaboration with community-based nonprofit organizations such as Casa Familiar for its work on housing and its relationship to an urban policy more inclusive of social and cultural programs for the city. He obtained a Masters in Design Studies from Harvard University and the Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome. He has recently received the 2004-05 James Stirling Memorial Lecture On The City Prize and is currently an Associate Professor in public culture and urbanism in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD in San Diego.






	*Stephanie Bailey*

MLA candidate in Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene; Olmsted Scholar

Now seeking a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon, Stephanie is interested in the intersection of environmental equity and sustainability. In her master’s project titled “19 miles - Shifting the paradigm: an examination of river revitalization and environmental equity through an analysis of the Los Angeles River Master Plan and the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan”, she is analyzing the Los Angeles River revitalization effort and investigating how it could be expanded to serve underserved areas of Los Angeles County. After graduation she wishes to work in a multidisciplinary firm that specializes in sustainable and low-impact urban design. Her particular focus is urban natural systems, specifically, urban rivers and stormwater management. She feels fortunate to have found a career path that will allow her to make a difference in the world by designing socially and environmentally responsible landscapes where people can thrive. She is currently the University of Oregon’s Olmsted Scholar and the 2008 National Olmsted Scholar Runner-up.






	*Nisha Botchwey, PhD*

Professor in Department of Urban & Environmental Planning, University of Virginia

Dr. Botchwey specializes in community development and neighborhood planning with emphasis on local religious and secular institutions and the promotion of public health. She joined the faculty of the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning in the fall of 2003, and teaches undergraduate and graduate neighborhood planning workshops. She also developed Healthy Communities, a graduate seminar exploring the connections between the built environment and health. Dr. Botchwey also co-organized the Department’s 2004 Spring Symposium, “Healthy Communities, Healthy People: Exploring the Relationship between Public Health and the Built Environment.” Her work on religious and secular nonprofits provides empirical documentation of the characteristics and community revitalization contributions of these neighborhood-based organizations. It also identifies health promoting opportunities that exist through these venues for people with type-2 diabetes.

Among Dr. Botchwey's published work include "A Model Curriculum for a Course on the Built Environment and Public Health: Training for an Interdisciplinary Workforce" (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2009), "Intentionality and Integration in Undergraduate Global Public Health Education" (Peer Review, 2008), "The Religious Sector's Presence in Local Community Development" (Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2007), and "Using Culturally Competent Strategies to Improve Traffic Safety in the Black Community" (Annals of Emergency Medicine, 2004. She is also a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Urban History (2007) with two entries, "Public Health" and "Social Welfare."

Dr. Botchwey's primary research focus is on developing methodologies for religious institutions to revitalize unhealthy communities, places where the physical and social environments do not enable people to maximize their lives. She discusses this emphasis as faculty for the Centers for Disease Control May 2007 National Broadcast of Public Health Grand Round entitled "Healthy Places Leading to Healthy People: Community Engagement Improves Health for All" (http://www.publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/places/index.htm).

Dr. Botchwey earned her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007.






	*Lindsay Bremner*

Professor of Architecture and Department Chair, Temple University; ex-chair of architecture at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand

Lindsay has published and lectured widely on the transformation of the South African city since the end of apartheid, after serving in public office in metropolitan government in Johannesburg the 1990’s. Her publications include Thabo Mbeki : The Geography of Exile (Domus 874) , Reframing Township Space (Public Culture 16), Border/Skin (in Against the Wall, ed. Michael Sorkin) and a book, Johannesburg: One City Colliding Worlds. Her work has been key to the shaping of the exhibit on Johannesburg, curated by Ricky Burdett, for the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Lindsay was a Visiting Professor at MIT in 2005, where she taught a graduate level 3 design studio. Her teaching focus is architectural and urban theory and design.






	*Felipe Correa*

Assistant Professor in Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University; Principal, Somatic Collaborative

Felipe is an architect and urbanist based in Cambridge (USA) and Quito (Ecuador). His most recent work focuses on mapping the animate nature of physical-material geographies within the contemporary constructed environment.

Correa is currently an Assistant Professor of Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In addition, he has lectured and exhibited at many universities and conferences, including Columbia University, Tulane University, University of Pennsylvania, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador, The National Arts Club, and the Pan-American Architecture Biennale, among others. His work, research, and writings have been published in journals, including Architectural Design, Architectural Record, and Topos. Correa received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tulane University, and his Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the GSD.






	*Maurice Cox*

Director of Design, National Endowment for the Arts; Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Virginia; recipient of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design

Maurice Cox was appointed Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts in October 2007. Cox supervises the NEA grantmaking process in design, oversees the Mayors' Institute on City Design, Governors' Institute on Community Design, and Your Town: The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design, and provides professional leadership in architecture and design to the nation.

On leave from the University of Virginia, School of Architecture where he is an Associate Professor of Architecture, Cox most recently led graduate students in the development of award-winning proposals for the rebuilding of affordable housing in New Orleans following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

Cox served as Mayor of Charlottesville from 2002-2004. As mayor, architect, and urbanist he was widely recognized as the principal urban designer of his city.

A recipient of the 2004-05 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the 2006 John Hejduk Award for Architecture, Cox has lectured widely on the topics of democratic design, civic engagement, and the designer's role as leader.






		*Kian Goh*

Architect, super-interesting!* architecture.design.strategies (New York); Adjunct Faculty, Parsons The New School of Design*

Kian Goh, AIA, is an architect, teacher, writer, and community activist. She is a partner at super-interesting! – a multidisciplinary architecture, design, and sustainability consulting practice. Previously, she worked with Weiss/Manfredi Architects in New York City, and with MVRDV in Rotterdam. She teaches design and sustainability at Parsons The New School for Design, and serves on the board of directors of the Audre Lorde Project, an organizing center for LGBT people of color. Kian received a Master of Architecture from Yale University, where she was the recipient of the HI Feldman and James Gamble Rogers prizes.






	*Jeff Hou, PhD*

Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle

Jeff Hou is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle where he teaches community design and urban ecological design. His research/practice focuses on design activism with an emphasis on engaging marginalized communities in the process of design and planning. He is the co-author of Greening Cities, Growing Communities: Urban Community Gardens the Seattle Way (University of Washington Press 2009) and a contributor to Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (Bell and Wakeford, eds. 2008). He is a co-founder of the Pacific Rim Community Design Network, SAVE International (a project of Earth Island Institute), and Taiwan Environmental Action Network. More recently, he co-chairs the ID2030 Design and Resource Center in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. He received his PhD in environmental planning and M Arch from University of California, Berkeley, MLA from University of Pennsylvania, and B Arch from Cooper Union.






	*Malo André Hutson, PhD*

Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California at Berkeley

Malo André Hutson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on community and economic development, regional planning, workforce development, and community health. In addition, Professor Hutson focuses on urban policy and politics and the role of public/private institutions in influencing urban development.

Professor Hutson's current research includes an analysis of metropolitan fragmentation and racial residential segregation and its relationship to health. Specifically he is investigating how multiple political jurisdictions within a metropolitan region affect the distribution of resources across racial and class lines. Professor Hutson is also working on a national research project that examines the relationship between the built environment and health disparities. Finally, Dr. Hutson is writing a book that analyzes the role of hospitals and medical facilities as economic generators within central cities. In this book he discuses how challenges often arise between large medical complexes and adjacent communities around jobs, economic development, and access to health.






	*Laura Kurgan*

Director of Visual Studies and Spatial Information Design Lab, Columbia University; Principal, Laura Kurgan Design

Laura Kurgan teaches architecture at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is Director of Visual Studies and the Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab (SIDL). SIDL is currently collaborating with the Justice Mapping Center on a project called "Graphical Innovations in Justice Mapping" in selected states -- Arizona, Kansas, Los Angeles County, Louisiana, New York, and Rhode Island. She has followed the declassification of satellite imagery and GPS technology in a series of research projects across the significant political events of the last decade. This work, which has been exhibited internationally, is collected in You Are Here: Post-Military Technology and the New Landscape of Satellite Images, forthcoming from Zone Books.

Laura Kurgan also runs an interdisciplinary design practice in New York City, blending academic research with design, information, communication, advocacy and architecture.






	*Julia Murphy and Andy Burne*

Architect, SOM (New York); Adjunct Assistant Faculty in School of Architecture & Design, New York Institute of Technology

Julia Murphy works at SOM in the New York office on a super tall mixed-use tower in Busan Korea. Julia has expertise in Building Information Management and has extensive experience with project management and numerous construction practices. She has a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University.

Andy Burne teaches architectural design at the New York Institute of Technology. Current research includes sustainable systems including: natural ventilation façades, grey water recycling, and Photovoltaic energy distribution. Andy has worked for SHoP Architects and graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Architecture degree and the University of Colorado, Boulder with a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree. He has experience with project management, construction administration, and low-cost building technologies.






	*Robert Neuwirth*

Journalist and author of SHADOW CITIES: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World

Robert is a writer who spent two years living in squatter communities across four continents. These neighborhoods--which dominate most of the cities of the developing world--are vibrant and energetic, but horribly misunderstood. His book, Shadow Cities, is an attempt to humanize these maligned settlements. He is currently at work on a new book--again involving intensive reporting in the developing world--on the global reach of the informal economy. Before becoming a reporter, Neuwirth worked as a community organizer and studied philosophy. He lives in New York City.






	*Dk Osseo-Asare*

MARCH Candidate in Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

Dk Osseo-Asare is a designer-activist and principal of Low Design Office. His research recouples form-making with the social dimensions of global environment, siting sustainability between technology and geopolitics. He is currently a MArch candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he has received CSFP and Penny White fellowships. As co-chair of the student group Social Change and Activism (SoCA) at GSD, he helped launch two programs to teach design to Boston-area youth (Design Initiative for Youth and Project Link); organized a team of students to design and build a community center in a township of Capetown, South Africa; and organized the FuturePresent and Systems for Inclusion conferences on design and social action at Harvard in 2008. Most recently he has presented his work with SoCA at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, and his research on modern earth construction at the African Materials Research Society in Marrakesh, Morocco.






	*Dahlia Roberts*

MARCH Candidate in Department of Architecture, Columbia University

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Architecture and Visual Studies, Dahlia Roberts’ previous research interests have included a study of the relationship between Caribbean Architecture and cultural perceptions of space and color. Dahlia is currently a 2009 Master of Architecture candidate at Columbia University’s, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.






	*Matthew Soule*

MLA Candidate in Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania

Matthew received a BA in Pre-Architecture and Theater Design from Middlebury College in 2000, and worked for a while as a scenic designer for small theaters in the Washington, DC area. Needing a masters to advance his career, he felt that theater was a good medium for criticizing American society, but not for changing it. He decided to expand his skills, and is currently finishing an MLA at the University of Pennsylvania. He focuses on landscape's interaction with and influence on social structures. He believes there is an opportunity for collaboration between landscape architects and performance artists for the purpose of educating the general public on the social implications of the built environment. His goal is to effect a change in social patterns that can be sustained by new landscapes.





	*Craig L. Wilkins, PhD, AIA, NOMA*

Director, Detroit Community Design Center; Instructor in Department of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning, University of Michigan

Dr. Craig L. Wilkins received his doctorate at the University of Minnesota, his masters at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and his bachelors from the University of Detroit School of Architecture.

He's worked as a designer, project architect and urban designer in Washington, DC, New York, Houston and Minneapolis as well as served as a research fellow at the University of Minnesota, University of Illinois Chicago and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. He currently serves as the director of the Detroit Community Design Center at the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he also teaching in both the architecture and urban planning departments. Under his direction, the Center recently won a 2008 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award for their design for Trix Elementary/Middle School in Detroit.

Dr. Wilkins has written and lectured widely on a variety of topics, from hip hop architecture at the University of Michigan to the prospects of globalization on African spaces at the University of Witswatersrand. In addition, he has taught at several institutions including the University of Minnesota and the Southern University School of Architecture as well as served as a guest critic at City College in New York, Washington University in St. Louis, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the University of Porto in Portugal and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Dr. Wilkins' work in the areas of space, race and music culminated in his most recent publication The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on race, space, architecture and music (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) winner of the prestigious 2008 Montaigne Medal for Best New Writing. His forthcoming book, Activist Architecture: A Field Guide to Community-Based Practice (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009) will focus on the philosophy and practice of community design centers in the US.