EUGENE, Ore. -- (September 8, 2009) -- The University of Oregon’s architecture program has announced new and returning leadership for the 2009-10 year.  

Christine Theodoropoulos, associate professor, will continue as head of the department until June 2012.  She was appointed by Frances Bronet, dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, to a third three-year term.  Theodoropoulos is a registered architect and civil engineer in California.  She is president of the Building Technology Educators Society and has served on the National Architectural Accrediting Board as well as the boards of the Association of the Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architecture students.  Theodoropoulos has assembled a leadership team for the department to advance its curriculum, graduate studies, and Portland program.

Howard Davis, professor, will serve as graduate studies director.  He is the co-author of The Production of Houses (Oxford University Press, 1985), and author of The Culture of Building (Oxford University Press, 1999), and Living Over the Store: Architecture and Local Urban Life, to be published next year by Princeton Architectural Press. Davis is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Architectural Education, Urban Morphology and Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum (for which he served for three years as co-editor).  This year he received the Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

Nancy Cheng, associate professor, will direct the department’s Portland program at the White Stag Block. She researches how digital tools shape design thinking. Cheng will be the President of the Association of Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) in 2010.  She chaired the national American Institute of Architects' Technology in Architectural Practice group in 2004, co-chaired a Fabrication conference in Toronto and has edited issues of the International Journal of Architectural Computing. Cheng is a licensed architect in Massachusetts.

Brook Muller, associate professor, has been appointed associate head for curriculum and curricular innovation. He is the director of the UO ecological design certificate program and is an active lead consultant with Portland METRO’s Nature in Neighborhoods Program.  He was awarded the 2009 Oregon Campus Compact Faculty Award for Civic Engagement in Sustainability.

Alison Snyder, associate professor and architect, has been appointed to a second term as director of the Interior Architecture Program. She works from an interdisciplinary view weaving architecture with archaeological and anthropological investigations to reveal how places, buildings, and interiors transform over time. She writes for academic and architectural design journals and recently published a book chapter, “Flexibility and Hybridity: Learning from the Contemporary Village in Anatolian Turkey, “ in the book On Global Grounds: Urban Change and Globalization.  Snyder is a licensed architect in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Other faculty members who continue on the administrative team include Glenda Fravel Utsey, associate professor and associate head for student affairs, and Alison Kwok, director of the technical teaching certificate program.  Kwok is a registered architect in California. The department’s affiliated research units are directed by architect and professor G.Z. “Charlie” Brown, Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory in Eugene and in Portland; professor Don Corner, Center for Housing Innovation, and associate professor Hajo Neis, Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab.

This fall term, the department of architecture will have 686 students studying in the undergraduate and graduate programs in Eugene and Portland.   There are approximately ninety faculty and design professionals who teach in the program each year.  The UO’s teaching and research strengths are in green building technologies, sustainable cities, housing, urban design, interior design, and vernacular architecture.

As reported in this year’s DesignIntelligence journal, the UO’s architecture program ranked as number one in the nation for sustainable design education.  Overall the UO’s undergraduate architecture program was ranked as 18th and the journal recognized the department as a “program of high distinction.”

The department’s interior architecture program was voted in the top two graduate programs in the nation by other deans. It was cited for its strong applied design with theory and its variety of approaches to graduate students not offered at other institutions. The undergraduate program was ranked ninth in the nation.  

DesignIntelligence is a monthly journal produced by the Design Futures Council, a Washington D.C.-based think tank exploring trends, changes, and innovations in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.

About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 62 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.

Contact: Karen Johnson, AAA communications, karenjj@uoregon.edu, 541-346-3603

Source:  Christine Theodoropoulos, head, architecture, ctheodor@uoregon.edu, 541-743-6024

Links: http://architecture.uoregon.edu

Photos:  Faculty photos are available upon request by contacting karenjj@uoregon.edu