Matthew Blesso

Matthew Blesso is the president and founder of Blesso Properties, a design-focused real estate investment and development firm. The firm focused primarily on residential and hotel investments in New York and Panama and has garnered numerous awards for their innovative designs.

Winka Dubbeldam

Winka Dubbeldam is the principal of Archi-Tectonics, NYC and NL, founded in 1994, and the Director of the Post-Professional Program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a Professor at Harvard University. Archi-Tectonics’ work has been recently exhibited in MOMA, NY, the Venice Biennale, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In 2001, Dubbeldam was named an Emerging Voice by the Architectural League and in 2004 was nominated Best and Brightest by Esquire Magazine, and won the IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Award in 2006.

Ann Ferebee

With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, founding director Ann Ferebee launched the Institute’s first program at the University of Pennsylvania. She later added programs at Harvard, University of Toronto, and Pompidou Center, Paris. Ferebee is a design journalist whose book History of Modern Design was recognized as among the best 100 illustrated texts of 1970. She is currently working on a second edition of the book.

Toni Griffin

Toni L. Griffin runs a private consulting practice and is also an adjunct associate professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, teaching urban planning and seminars on neighborhood development. Most recently, Griffin was the Director of Community Development for the City of Newark, New Jersey. Prior to her time in Newark, Griffin served in executive roles at the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation in Washington, D.C., the D.C. Office of Planning, and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation in New York City.

Maxine Griffith

Maxine Griffith is executive vice president for Government and Community Affairs at Columbia University and sits on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, and the Regional Plan Association. Previously Griffith served in Philadelphia as the executive director of the City Planning Commission and Secretary (Deputy Mayor) for Strategic Planning.

Tami Hausman

President of Hausman LLC, Tami Hausman provides communications services to top firms in the design industry. Before founding her company, she worked in marketing and public relations for major architecture firms. She has also been active in diverse non-profit organizations and writes frequently about architecture and urban planning. A winner of the Arnold W. Brunner Grant from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Hausman earned a Ph.D. in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Craig Kaplan

A lawyer of counsel at Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, PC, Craig Kaplan has taught at New York University and Queens College and holds a master’s in political science from the Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research.

Cathy Lang Ho

A New York–based writer and editor, Cathy Lang Ho is the founder and former editor-in-chief of The Architect’s Newspaper. She served as editor and editor-at-large at Architecture magazine and, with Richard Ingersoll, she edited Berkeley–based journal Design Book Review. She is the coauthor of American Contemporary Furniture (Universe/Rizzoli, 1999) and House: American Houses for the New Century (Universe/Rizzoli, 2001). Her work has appeared in Architectural Record, Arquitectura Viva, Blueprint, Domus, ID, Frame, Mark, Metropolis, and the New York Times. She is the recipient of the Rome Prize in Design.

Brenda Levin

Bio coming soon.

Thom Mayne

Thom Mayne founded Morphosis in 1972. The Los Angeles-based firm expanded its operations in 2007 and currently maintains a permanent office in New York City as well as site offices in Paris and Shanghai. Mayne’s honors include the Pritzker Prize in 2005, the Edward McDowell Medal in 2008, and the 2006 National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt. In the last ten years, his firm has completed many buildings, including the Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in Los Angeles (2004), the San Francisco Federal Building (2007), the New Academic Building for the Cooper Union in NYC (2009), and the Phare Tower, currently in development in Paris. He was a co-founder of the influential Southern California Institute of Architecture and currently holds a tenured professorship at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

Enrique Norten

Enrique Norten founded TEN Arquitectos Mexico City in 1986. The award-winning firm has since expanded considerably and, in 2001, opened an office in New York. He was the first Mies van der Rohe Award recipient for Latin American Architecture in 1998, and in 2005 received the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts by the World Cultural Council. Most recently, in September 2007, Norten was presented with the “Legacy Award” by the Smithsonian Institution.

Saskia Sassen

An urban sociologist internationally recognized as one of the leading authors and academics in her field, Saskia Sassen is presently the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and a member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Her books are translated into 19 languages and include, most recently, A Sociology of Globalization (2007) and Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (2006), and most notably The Global City (1991).

Michael Sorkin

Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the City College of New York, Michael Sorkin is principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio, an award-winning architecture and urban design practice in New York. In addition to writing innumerable articles on architecture and the built environment, he has authored Variations on a Theme Park (1992) and Indefensible Space: The Architecture of the National Insecurity State (2007). Sorkin is the founder and president of the non-profit Terreform and chairs the board of directors of the Institute for Urban Design.

Byron Stigge

Byron Stigge has focused his design career on the study and practice of sustainable engineering solutions for the built environment. He has had the opportunity to work at all scales of design from single family homes to large commercial buildings to city-scale infrastructure planning. Byron has worked extensively across the US on projects such as the orange county great park in Irvine, CA, MGM CityCenter in Las Vegas, Genzyme HQ in Boston, and NorthSide regeneration plan in St. Louis. Recently, he is focused on large scale master planning sustainable infrastructure work internationally. Projects in 17 countries include Khed SEZ, a 10,000 acre city plan outside of Pune, India, Tellapur New Township in Hyderabad, India, Pole masterplan in Moscow, Jiangwan masterplan in Shanghai, Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, and Soweto East slum upgrading plan in Nairobi, amongst others.

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Staff

Anne Guiney

Anne Guiney was the editor of the New York edition of The Architect’s Newspaper, and was part of the original team that launched the newspaper in 2003. Prior, she was an editor at Architecture magazine and Metropolis, and has written widely on architecture and design for other publications, including Architect, MARK, ID, and Details. She has also worked as a consultant organizing high-profile architecture competitions (working with Jones | Kroloff), including the commissions for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Parrish Art Museum, and the Portland Aerial Tramway.