Professor of Architecture + Design
Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Academic Work
Over the last two decades, my teaching and practice can be defined as an intellectual pursuit and curation of both creative range and specificity in craft.
A master’s degree in advanced architectural design was just the beginning of a professional and academic exploration of the diversity of ways in which design communicates and engages with the world. My work spans a dozen distinct disciplines including animation, architecture, exhibition design, graphic design, environmental design, industrial design, web design and interactive arts. Each practice offers a unique perspective on the role and manner in which designed objects and elements form genuine connections with humanity. As well, through interdisciplinary practice and teaching, my work examines the overlaps and connections between these areas of design as well as revealing the strengths of each practice area. This focus on rigorous transdisciplinary study and practice is a central focus in my research, teaching and advising.
At the same time, I have developed a long-standing practice with a primary focus on graphic design. Despite my degrees in architecture, my undergraduate and graduate studies were littered with courses in the graphic arts and typography at the onset of the digital revolution in creative practices. My graphic design career began in 1999 as a freelancer, and quickly evolved into positions as an art director and creative director in multiple studios from Boston to New York’s Madison Avenue to my current location in Western Massachusetts. Over these years I have curated a knowledge base of highly specific professional processes and practices that I bring to campus in the classroom and through advising.
My pedagogical approach creates reciprocity between experimental transdisciplinary range (or agility) and the development of finely honed creative skills and practices.
I have created a collection of courses that reflect these distinct approaches (range and specificity), as well as higher-level courses that blend these methodologies. Examples of these courses are highlighted below.Academic, entrepreneurial, and creative-minded leader with a wide-ranging history of interdisciplinary program development, faculty leadership, and institutional strategy. Serves as the Dean of the School of Arts & Media and a member of the senior leadership team at Hampshire College, and has long and well-tested experience in overseeing academic programs, faculty and staff, student experience, budgets, resources, facilities, and strategic initiatives. Recognized for a human-centered and collaborative approach, innovative strategic planning, and resourceful strategies for fostering support student and organizational success. Draws on experience and perspective as an established professional creative and a seasoned multi-disciplinary professor, advisor and mentor.
Academic Leadership
As Dean of the School of Arts & Media at Hampshire College and a member of its senior leadership team, he has demonstrated the full range of competencies that define transformative academic leadership: faculty governance and mentorship, interdisciplinary curriculum development, budget management, strategic planning, accreditation, enrollment, advancement, and community engagement.
001
Dean of the School of Arts & Media, Senior Leadership Team
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
+ Academic Leadership
+ Faculty & Staff Hiring & Oversight
+ Curriculm Development
+ Operations, Buildings & Budget Management
Comprehensive strategy/visioning, course and curriculum planning, coordination and oversight of School of Arts & Media academic programs: Studio Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film/Photography/Animation, Design (Game Design, Applied Design, Industrial Design, Architecture, Graphic Design), Literature, Creative Writing/Writing Program, Media Studies
002
Chair/Co-Chair, Five College Architectural Studies Program
Five Colleges, Inc.
Amherst, MA
+ Academic Leadership
+ Curriculum Development
+ Programming and Budget Managment
Comprehensive cross-college strategy/visioning; branding and promotion; faculty appointments, course, and curriculum planning; events and programming management and coordination; budget management, grant writing, and fundraising.
003
Strategic Planning Working Group: Senior Leadership Budget Committee
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
+ Budget & Resource Allocation
+ Strategic Planning & Implementation
+ Community Engagement
+ Accountability & Implementation
Faculty Representative with Senior Leadership Team and the President, developing a community-focused budget process and functional outcomes.
004
Co-Chair, Strategic Curriculum Development Committee
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
+ Academic Leadership
+ Curriculum Development
+ Community Engagement
+ Collaborative, Inclusive Facilitation
Comprehensive curriculum assessment; strategy/visioning; collaborative, participatory curriculum planning.
005
Chair, Faculty/Staff Search Committees
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
Assistant Professor of Photography
Assistant Professor of Studio Art
Assistant Professor of Sculpture
Assistant Professor of Game Design
Assistant Prof. of Contemporary Dance
Assistant Professor of Photography
Assistant Professor of FilmVisiting
Assistant Professor of Theatre Design
Media Arts & Photography Technical Coordinator
Center for Design, Fabrication Director/Manager
Associate Professor of Sustainable Architecture
Assistant Professor of Architectural Studies
Programs + Centers
As an academic and creative leader, I have developed led a collection of creative, community-based programs that had positive impacts on the practice of art and the broader community.
The Creativity Center
Faculty Director, Grant Writer Secured and directed a $600,000 grant; created and led an institutional innovation center focused on curriculum development and creative experimentation, overseeing two staff co-directors and an alumni director.
Riverscaping, Alles am Fluss
Riverscaping / Alles am Fluss: Rethinking Art, Environment, and Community Western Massachusetts, USA & Hamburg, Germany Principle Investigator / Grant Writer-Recipient, Secured and led a $175,000 EU-funded international arts and planning exchange between Western Massachusetts and Hamburg, Germany.
Five College Architectural Studies Major
Five Colleges, Inc, Amherst, MA Cross-institutional academic program across Hampshire, Amherst, and Mount Holyoke Colleges included strategy, brand, curriculum, faculty appointments, collaborative events and programming, budget management and distribution, grants and fundraising. I co-developed a collaborative curricular model for undergraduate Liberal Arts students in the Five College Architectural Studies program to achieve advanced placement in the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Architecture and School of + Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning graduate programs. Term of study (4+1 or 4+2) is dependent on the individual student’s curricular path.
DART: Design, Art + Technology
Grant: Sherman Fairchild Art, Design + Technology Co-Director, Grant Co-Writer Co-led a $300,000 grant-funded platform for technological innovation, cross-disciplinary co-teaching, and classroom-technology integration.
Courses
A selection of courses that speak to the interdisciplinary nature and creative range of my coursework in academia.
Brand Building: A Graphic Design Studio
This course is structured to introduce students to the practice of graphic design. It provides both in-depth, hands-on technical skill building and a creative, critical studio-based understanding of design concepts. The course uses topics such as image, icon, color, typography and layout to outline design principles as well as introduce industry standard practices with design tools such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. A final project allows students to test their skills as they conceptualize a brand and roll it out in multiple print formats. This course typically draws interest (and is populated by) students from all five campuses (especially UMass) upwards of 75-100 students competing for 16 slots.
Crafting Respect: Education, Design and Social Justice
In a unique partnership, Kristen Luschen and I dared ask, can design impact social change? If, so, can we teach design to challenged and under-represented youth to empower them to make change in their community? Working through established connections within the district, we created a new course at the school that could accommodate 16 Peck students, 8 Hampshire students, 2 professors and one advisor/representative from the Peck. Our objective was two-fold. First, educate Hampshire students on the social justice issues that exist within low income, urban, post-industrial, racially diverse communities through hands-on experiential learning. Second, utilize design as a strategy to empower the youth create change within the school and the community. We taught both our Hampshire and Peck students to look at and investigate their world with a critical eye and identify challenges of power, race and gender that surround them daily.
Design, Art + Technology: The Empathetic Space
This course demonstrated how experimentation brings both rigor and innovation into an academic environment. We laid out a set of controlled conditions and terms for 12 students to develop an interactive architectural experience. The twelve students in the course represented four of the five colleges, and came from disciplines ranging from computer science to theater. In just 17 days, these students imagined, designed, fabricated, coded and installed a large-scale interactive installation, nicknamed TES, on the ceiling of the Harold F. Johnson Library lobby at Hampshire College.
Digital Constructions: Intermediate Design Studio
This course is a paperless architecture studio that combines theoretical/critical design investigations with the development of technical digital modeling and representation skills. For each iteration of this course the topic and technical skills vary but the overarching principle of using creative projects to teach technical skills is critical. This course has used used both Rhinoceros and Maya as a modeling/rendering tool as well as laser cutting and 3D printing technologies. This style of course could be as easily applied to product design or industrial design courses.
Object Obsessed: An Experiment in Design Knowing
This course was recently developed to overlap with my research and manuscript. The course was solely focused on design theory as it pertains to human experience. It was literal experiment to better understand and unpack the statement, all design is an engineered interaction between a body (subject) and an object. In this, students were challenged to look not at objects but subjects. The course compiled a body of readings from many different disciplines with a common theme or statement. It sought to educate students in ways of knowing, a principle found in the Bauhaus, but more broadly realize here. The course focuses on three areas of inquiry that exist at the intersection of the object and body—sensation, time and language. By better understanding how humans learn and use these fundamental elements, they can be better applied in their own design work. Students performed a large body of reading and prepared for discussion, as well as produced exploratory projects (like Moholy-Nagy’s tactile board) to explore and communicate their new ways of knowing.
Surface, Object, Space. Introduction to Interdisciplinary Design
This course focused on design principles and processes. Over the course of the semester, students were introduced to varying different design principles, from graphic design (surface) to industrial design (object) to architecture (space). Texts, films, writing assignments and projects were used to introduce students to the key overlapping aspects of design in theory and practice. As students worked through concepts from 2D to 3D to 4D, they also began to recognize the key distinguishing characteristics that each form of design holds and how these practices can be differentiated. A variation of this course, known as Mutation in Expression, also explored these key themes but was primarily focused on artistic expression in 2D, 3D and 4D.
Student Work
Collaborative Interactive Arts
Honors & Publications
Highlights of achievements and professional recognition from industry awards to selective publications--moments from my creative journey.
Kenneth Frampton
Magazine
Magazine
Magazine
Memorial Competition Finalist
Design Award
Identity Award
LSLM Award
Exhibition
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Biennale, Warsaw