Spring 2026 Final Review Guest Critics

Each semester, The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture invites critics from around the country to join us for final reviews, as our students and faculty present the culmination of their hard work over the past several months. We are excited to welcome these accomplished professionals and fellow academics this spring.

Thank you for joining us: Can Atlay, Julie Bauer, Ed Baum, Jennifer Bonner, Mona El Khafif, Benjamin Ennemoser, Sagi Golan, Andrew Kudless, Christopher Livingston, Zannah Matson, Marjan Miri, Zahra Safaverdi, Doris Sung. 

CAN ATLAY

Can Altay is an Associate Professor of Interior Architecture and Graduate Program Director of MDes Adaptive Reuse at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design). Prior to this role he was a professor and the Head of Departments of Interior Design (2019-21) and Industrial Design (2012- 19) at Istanbul Bilgi University. His practice addresses cohabitation and the built environment through his investigations and propositions on everyday life, public spaces, urban ecologies, useful objects, and artistic action. Altay often sets settings that open themselves to common use and act as sites of collective production. His works have been exhibited at institutions such as PS1 MoMA, ZKM, MAXXI, Artists Space, Walker Art Center, Van Abbe Museum, and SALT; along with public space projects and solo shows in London, New York, Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Bolzano, Utrecht, Bristol. 

JULIE BAUER 

Julie E. Bauer is a German and British-licensed architect recognized for designing and leading major projects, often in collaboration with complex public and private institutions. She began her career at Barkow Leibinger Architects in Berlin, later joining David Chipperfield Architects in London, where she rose to Associate Director. Amongst working on award-winning museums, and high-end residential and hospitality projects in the UK, Russia, and the Middle East, Bauer led the design and expansion of the Saint Louis Art Museum. She oversaw the project from master planning to construction administration, including two years of on-site supervision. After completing the Saint Louis Art Museum project in 2012, Bauer worked with renowned firms like Peter Marino and REX Architecture in New York. She then rejoined David Chipperfield Architects as their New York representative for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern and Contemporary wing. Bauer currently teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, where she coordinates and teaches the comprehensive degree project studio, the preparatory seminar, and the international housing studio. She has also taught at Berlin International University of Applied Sciences. In addition to her academic work, Bauer continues her professional practice. Currently, she is working on her own projects in her hometown Berlin and locally in St. Louis. She holds a degree in Architecture from the Technical University of Berlin and studied at the Illin. 

ED BAUM

With degrees from Harvard, where he elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude, Edward M. Baum followed parallel professional and academic careers. He began practice with the office of pioneer modern architect José Luis Sert. His own practice over many years has been recognized by numerous regional, national, international design and competition awards. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and a co-founder of the Dallas Architecture Forum. 

Baum’s academic career began with ten years teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he taught and coordinated the First Year Core Architecture Program. From 1988 until 2013 he was on the faculty of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, for the first twelve years as dean, helping bring its architecture program to national recognition in design. Later he continued his teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Navarra in Spain. Current activities include designing prototype affordable housing incorporating extensive solar production. 

JENNIFER BONNER

Jennifer Bonner (b. 1979, Alabama) founded MALL in 2009, a creative practice that stands for Mass Architectural Loopty Loops or Maximum Arches with Limited Liability—an acronym with built-in flexibility. Jennifer is known for her work around sustainability driven by material innovations. This includes mass timber, her signature material, as well as panelized and precast tilt-up concrete systems. Jennifer is a recipient of the 2021 United States Artist Fellowship, the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, and Progressive Architecture (P/A) Award. Her creative work has been published in architectural trade publications including Architectural Review, Metropolis Magazine, Domus, Gray, Azure and Wallpaper*. She is the co- editor of Blank: Speculations on CLT, author of A Guide to the Dirty South: Atlanta, editor of Platform: Still Life, and guest editor for the contemporary art magazine ART PAPERS. 

MONA EL KHAFIF

Mona El Khafif is an architect, urban designer, and educator, currently serving as Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Urban Design at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Her work spans urban design, architecture, and public art, with a focus on typological, temporal, and collaborative design strategies. El Khafif has taught and researched internationally, including at the TU Vienna, Tulane University, California College of the Arts, and the University of Waterloo, where she co-founded the school’s DATAlab. In 2024, she was a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, School of Cities, where she conducted research for her current book project, On Urban Prototyping. She holds a professional degree in architecture from the RWTH Aachen and a doctorate in Urban Design from the TU Vienna. El Khafif is co- author of URBANbuild: Local/Global (2009), author of Staged Urbanism (2009), and co-editor of Next New York (2022), and is currently working on a book titled On Urban Prototyping. Her design work includes installations like 10x10 Cities, OPspace, The 10 Mile Garden, and iLOUNGE, which activate public and underutilized urban spaces. Through her firm SCALESHIFT, she collaborates with Ila Berman on urban interventions and installations such as Urban Syncopation, which was exhibited at the Biennale in 2017. 

BENJAMIN ENNEMOSER 

Benjamin Ennemoser joined Texas A&M University’s Department of Architecture in 2022 as an Assistant Professor and is the endowed Harold L. Adams ’61 Interdisciplinary Studies in Architecture Professor. He has previously taught and lectured at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Innsbruck, among others. 

His research focuses on computational design and artificial intelligence (AI) in architecture, with internationally published work, notably in Automation in Construction, Cities, IJAC, AD, ACADIA, and ACSA, and keynote invitations from academic institutions and professional organizations. He has received multiple fellowships and grants, including those from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts and Culture, the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA), the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS), the Texas A&M Center for Teaching Excellence(CTE), the CRS center, and OpenAI’s NextGenAI consortium for teaching & research. 

His research and teaching have been recognized with awards such as the Architizer Vision Award, the Texas Society of Architects Studio Award, and the AIA Dallas Studio Award. 

SAGI GOLAN

Sagi Golan, an architect and urban designer, currently serves as the Deputy Director of Urban Design at the New York City Department of City Planning, where he leads the design vision and public realm frameworks for major neighborhood plans shaping housing growth, waterfront districts, and mixed-use urban development across New York City. Golan’s operates at the intersection of architecture, city form, and public policy. His work focuses on translating core urban design principles into urban form, zoning regulations, and design guidelines that influence how buildings meet streets, how public space performs, and how large-scale development contributes to the city’s fabric. Alongside his public-sector practice, Golan teaches graduate urban design at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where he coordinates studios examining urban systems, environmental justice, climate resiliency and storytelling techniques within New York’s metropolitan region. Through teaching, research, and public engagement, his work explores how design can operate as both a regulatory and creative tool for shaping new and accessible environments. 

ANDREW KUDLESS

Andrew Kudless is a designer based in Houston, Texas where he is the Kendall Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Houston’s Hines College of Architecture & Design. At UH, he is also the Director of the Construction Robotics and Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) Lab. His practice, Matsys, is the recipient of the 2019 AIA Honor Award for Architecture and an AIA Top Ten COTE Award in 2023, both for Confluence Park in collaboration with Lake Flato Architects. Kudless is the co-author of two books: Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape with Ila Berman and Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation with Adam Marcus. 

CHRISTOPHER LIVINGSTON 

Christopher Livingston is a professor at Montana State University where he teaches design studio and building systems courses. Prior to teaching he worked as an architect for over 15 years on a broad range of commercial and residential projects in the US. His research interests are in the areas of visualization and representation and include research and writing on topics including Building Information Modeling, and more recently, field sketching and its ties to film theory, narrative and the temporal and perceptual limits of drawing. His work has received awards from the AIA Dallas Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition, the American Society of Architectural Illustrators, the Design Communication Association, and the American Institute of Architects. 

ZANNAH MATSON  

Zannah is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Environmental Design at University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on the intertwined processes colonization, extraction, and infrastructure development, both within Colombia’s eastern piedmont as well as Canada’s extensive mining sector. 

She is an active member of Beyond Extraction, which is a collective of researchers, writers, artists, and activists who come together to critically investigate and resist extraction in its various forms. 

She has a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and in professional practice worked with OPSYS Landscape Infrastructure Lab as Project Manager and Lead Exhibition Designer for the Canada Pavilion EXTRACTION at the Venice 2016 Architecture Biennale. Matson is the co-editor of recent special issues on extraction and architecture in the Journal of Architectural Education and the Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada.

MARJAN MIRI

Marjan Miri joined Drexel University in September 2024 as an assistant professor of interior design, specializing in emerging technologies and evidence-based design. Previously an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, she holds a Master of Interior Design from the University of Texas at Austin and degrees in urban design and architecture from Iran. Her research explores how VR, AI, and EEG can transform design education and better support neurodiverse users. In her teaching, she uses immersive, participatory, and innovative methods that help students critically examine the spatial, social, and experiential impact of their designs. 

ZAHRA SAFAVERDI

Zahra Safaverdi is the founder of St. Sa., director of the MASKS initiative, faculty scholar at the Center for the Environment, and assistant professor of architecture at WashU. Her disciplinary work explores utilizing design techniques to bring different geographical and geological points to more tangible proximities. She has been a Dean's Merit Scholar at Harvard University, has held the Irving Innovation and Teaching fellowship at Harvard GSD, the Schidlowski fellowship, an architecture residency at Art Omi, a residency at the Ragdale Foundation, a residency and the Wilder Green Fellowship in Architecture at MacDowell, and a residency at the Boghossian Foundation’s Villa Empain. Her work and design contributions have been featured globally in Austin, Berlin, Boston, Cambridge, Chicago, Houston, Kent, Knoxville, Locarno, Los Angeles, London, Lubbock, Madrid, Manchester, Mexico City, New Orleans, New York, Saint Louis, San Louis Obispo, Vancouver, and Venice. 

DORIS SUNG

Doris Sung brings passive-active systems to sustainable design far beyond the simple "greening" of a building. Through grant-funded research, she is utilizing smart materials, such as thermobimetals, to self-ventilate, self-shade, self-structure, self-assemble, and self-propel in response to changes in climatic temperatures—all with zero-energy and no controls. More recently, she is rethinking the liminal surface of the façade as a part of a city’s infrastructure and designing innovative building products that will improve public health for pedestrians outside while retaining “comfort” for interior occupants using a full range of biomaterials. 

As Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs at the USC School of Architecture, sole principal of DOSU Studio Architecture, and co-founder of TBM Designs, Doris publishes, lectures and exhibits, internationally while managing to bring her patented inventions to the market. With two TED talks under her belt, Doris’ long list of awards includes the AIA Latrobe Prize, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, a ‘Time Magazine’ Best Invention, and the [next idea] award from ARS Electronica. She has been named a fellow of Google’s R+D for the Built Environment, the U.S. Artist, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Headlands Center for the Arts.