News New faculty appointments and promotions at TSA
Tiffany Lin, Assistant Professor
Originally from Taipei, Taiwan, Tiffany Lin joins the School of Architecture faculty in the Fall of 2009. Having taught at the Boston Architectural College, the Harvard Design School summer program and the Cornell University Rome Program, Lin most recently served as coordinator of the undergraduate Urban Housing Studios and Graduate Thesis Studios at Northeastern University, where she has been an Assistant Professor since 2007. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she was the recipient of the Faculty Design Award and the Clifford Wong Prize for Housing Design. Lin and partner Mark Oldham established LinOldhamOffice in 2003, an emerging design collaborative engaged in professional and speculative projects. Their first project, the 8 Container Farmhouse, was awarded a 2005 Progressive Architecture Citation, and selected by the Architectural League of New York for inclusion in the 2005 Young Architects Forum. Prior to founding LinOldhamOffice, Lin worked for the offices of Michael Graves Associates, Machado and Silvetti Associates and Leers Weinzapfel Associates. She is a fellow of the National Association of University Women and the National Alliance for Excellence.
Scott Ruff, Associate Professor
Scott Ruff joins the School of Architecture faculty in the Fall of 2009 from Syracuse University, where he was an Assistant Professor. He has previously taught at Hampton University, State University of New York at Buffalo and Cornell University. Ruff received his Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture from Cornell University, where he was the recipient of the Alpha Chi Rho Medal for leadership and service. Ruff formed Ruff Works Studio in 2003, specializing in research and design, having previously worked with the architectural firm of Foit-Albert and Associates in Buffalo, New York. One main focus of Ruff Works Studio is the research and cultivation of African-American aesthetics in spatial design. Ruff’s publications include articles in Thresholds, “Signifiyin’: An African-American language to landscape,” “Spatial ‘wRapping’: A Speculation on Men’s Hip-Hop Fashion,” and a book review in the Journal of Architectural Education, “White Papers, Black Marks.” Ruff has lectured throughout the United States; selected presentations include: The Dresser Trunk Project, “Secrets of the Cloth,” “Education of an Architect: Through African-American Constructs,” “Diversity in Architecture,” and “Working Neighborhoods: Working the Spirit”.
Kentaro Tsubaki, Assistant Professor
Kentaro Tsubaki, RA, joins the School of Architecture faculty in the Fall of 2009 from Texas Tech University, where he was an Assistant Professor. Tsubaki holds a B.S. in Physics from Kyoto University, a First Professional Master of Architecture from University of Colorado in Denver, and a Post-Professional Master of Architecture from Cranbook Academy of Art. Tsubaki’s background in experimental physics and phenomenology-based education at Cranbrook laid the groundwork for his empirical approach to architectural education, the subject of his numerous papers and presentations. Prior to pursuing his academic career, Tsubaki honed his architectural practice as an Associate at Pasanella + Klein, Stolzman + Berg Architects, P.C. Tsubaki’s primary area of interest is the subject of materiality and logic of construction. He is currently developing a notational drawing system specifically invented to document the complex folded surfaces of formwork unpractical to represent with traditional pictorial drawings or computer modeling. As a design educator, his primary concern is to raise the spatial and material awareness of students in the early stages of design education. His research explores theories and methods to encourage hands-on, trial and error experience through phenomenological explorations and to consciously integrate them into the decision-making process.
2009-2010 Newly Promoted Professors of Practice
Coleman Coker, RA
Coleman Coker is the founder of buildingstudio, a collaborative firm he established in 1999 after a thirteen-year partnership with Samuel Mockabee as Mockabee/Coker Architects. He holds a Master of Fine Arts and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Memphis College of Art. A former director of the Memphis Center for Architecture, he has been the visiting Favrot Chair at Tulane and has held the E.Fay Jones Chair in Architecture at the University of Arkansas. buildingstudio is a collaborative firm focusing on inventive and imaginative work, regularly acknowledged for its design excellence. The firm has earned numerous honors, including a P/A Design Award for low-cost housing, “Breaking the Cycle of Poverty,” Emerging Voices from the Architectural League of New York, numerous Architectural Record “Record Houses” awards and National AIA Honor awards. buildingstudio’s work has been highlighted at MoMA, SF MoMA, Wexner Center for the Arts, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Coker is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Cordula Roser Gray, RA
Cordula Roser Gray is an established architect and the owner of crgarchitecture. Gray received a Diplom-Ingenieur Architekt from Technische Fachhohschule Berlin. She has been practicing architecture in the United States since she moved from her native Germany to New York, where she worked as a designer and project architect for various large and small scale firms with experience in a range of nationally- and internationally-recognized commercial and residential projects. Since relocating to New Orleans Gray’s practice, often in collaboration with other local practitioners, has been investigating responses to immediate contextual conditions merging explorations or prototypical design concepts with the implementation of local and extended cultural and social realities. As an Adjunct faculty member of the Tulane School of Architecture, one of Gray’s primary interests lies in connecting academic research with practical knowledge strongly influenced by her background, whether as an instructor of design studios and design-build courses or as a co-coordinator of the central Europe semester abroad program.
Irene Keil
Irene Keil is a practicing architect working in New Orleans and Berlin. She received a Diplom-Ingenieur Architekt from Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen and a Master of Architecture from the University of California at Los Angeles. Keil initially worked in both countries on a range of civic and commercial projects with firms such as O.M. Ungers, JuergenSawade and Studio Works. In 1989 she opened her own firm in Berlin and New Orleans where she has worked on projects ranging from urban design proposals and competitions to large-scale building projects and small-scale interiors. For her work she was awarded the German Rome Prize in 1993. At Tulane School of Architecture Keil co-coordinated the MAKING Exhibition Projection, a model-building workshop for 2nd-year students with Michael Gruber, an architect with Richard Meier and Partners.
07.24.09
