2013 ARCC Conference at UNCC – Keynote Speakers

The Visibility of Research, ARCC 2013 Architectural Research Conference

School of Architecture, College of Arts + Architecture
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Schedule of Keynote Speakers

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Marc Simmons
Thursday, March 28, 2013 Rima Al Ajlouni
Carlo Ratti
Friday, March 29, 2013 Lisa Heschong
Heather Woofter

Speaker Bios

Marc Simmons

Marc Simmons is Founding Partner of Front, Inc., an international design and façade consulting practice based in New York, with offices in San Francisco and Hong Kong. A leading advocate for innovative building design research, Simmons has produced pivotal works in contemporary architecture including most recently the China Central Television Headquarters with OMA, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center with Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater with REX, the Yas Hotel with Asymptote, and the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art with Sejima Nishizawa Associates. Front, Inc.’s cross-disciplinary methodology embraces architectural, engineering and cultural challenges with a first-principles approach toward innovative design. Prior to establishing Front, Inc. in 2002, Simmons worked for Foster and Partners, and the international façade engineering practices Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners and for Meinhardt Façade Technology. He holds both a Bachelor of Environmental Studies and Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo Canada. From 2005-2012, he served as a faculty member in the School of Architecture at Princeton University, conducting graduate seminars on the subject of façade technology and practice, and teaching collaborative design studios. He currently holds the Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Rima Al Ajlouni

Dr. Rima Al Ajlouni is an assistant professor in the College of Architecture at Texas Tech University. Her research investigates the use of computation and pattern recognition in Architecture and Heritage Preservation. She is the author of numerous papers published in scientific and technical journals outside her field. Her book “Digital Pattern Recognition in Heritage Recording” presents an experimental approach to design, test and evaluate specialized software for identifying pattern geometry and producing accurate reconstructed metric models. In 2010, she was elected by the U.S. Department of State to lead the effort in establishing the first comprehensive Historic Preservation program in Iraq. Her unique experience and knowledge of Islamic Art and Architecture has enabled her to play a major role in resolving the mathematical mystery of quasi-crystalline geometry. Her latest discovery, published in Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundation for Crystallography, has been recognized as major contribution to the understanding of quasi-crystalline formations, providing a unique example of how ancient Islamic Architecture can inform the understanding of some basic theories in modern science. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Architectural Engineering from the University of Jordan and a Ph.D. in Architecture from Texas A&M University. Dr. Rima Al Ajlouni is the recipient of ARCC’s New Researcher Award.

Carlo Ratti

Carlo Ratti is an Italian architect and engineer who practices in Italy and teaches in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also Director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, which studies the built environment in “real time” using sensors and hand-held electronics. He holds several patents and has co-authored over 200 publications. His work has been exhibited worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum of Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Time Magazine considered the Digital Water Pavilion at the 2008 World Expo in Zaragozawas one of the “Best Inventions of the Year.” He is a member of the Italian Design Council and Innovator in Residence in Queensland, Australia, a government initiative that invites world-renowned thinkers to bring their own unique perspective to issues currently affecting Queenslanders. In 2010, Blueprint Magazine selected him as one of “25 People Who Will Change the World of Design.” He is a graduate of the Politecnico di Torino and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees in Paris. He subsequently earned a Master of Philosophy and PhD degree in Architecture from the University of Cambridge, UK. He currently serves as a member of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Urban Management, and Program Director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow.

Lisa Heschong

Lisa Heschong is Managing Principal of the Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. based in California. She has published scholarly papers, written for trade magazines, and conducted numerous lectures and workshops on daylighting, high performance design, energy efficiency, and human comfort. She has led numerous research teams employing extensive field data collection and sophisticated analyses of massive databases. This includes leading the research team that found a correlation between the presence of daylight in classrooms and improved student performance. She has worked with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories to synthesize their research into Residential Windows: A Guide to New Technologies and Energy Performance (WW Norton). She is author of Thermal Delight in Architecture (MIT Press) and a co-author of the Advanced Lighting Guidelines, the CHPS Best Practices Manual, and the Skylighting Guidelines, three web-based publications. She has also developed web-based distance learning courses for the U.S. Department of Energy called FEMP Lights and the California utilities, called EDR Lights. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of California Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of IESNA, and Chairs the IESNA Subcommittee on Daylight Metrics. Lisa Heschong is the recipient of ARCC’s James Haecker Award for Distinguished Leadership in Architectural Research.

Heather Woofter

Heather Woofter is a design principal and partner with Sung Ho Kim ofAxi:Ome, an emerging design-research based practice in St. Louis that embraces a multidisciplinary process ranging from graphics and engineering to computational, spatial and experimental architectural techniques. She is also an Associate Professor and Chair of Graduate Architecture in the Sam Fox School at Washington University in St. Louis. She has lectured in Schools of Architecture across the U.S. and abroad, including MIT, RISD, The Bartlett, and Yonsei University. Two monographs have been written about her firms work: “Spatial Practice” (Oro Editions) and “Specular: Between Practice and Education” (DAMDI Architecture Publishing). She holds a Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She has previously worked in the offices of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Marks Barfield in London, UK, and Luchetti & Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Axi:Ome has received numerous design awards, most recently from I.D. Magazine and AIA/St. Louis. They recently completed UMSL in Grand Center, a new building at the University of Missouri-St. Louis housing university classrooms, faculty offices and St. Louis Public Radio.