How I Got Here

I grew up with 600 acres of woods out my back door. My family didn’t own it, but I was free to wander it to my heart’s content. In high school, I also hiked through the mountains of Canada and was shocked by forests clearcut and devoid of life. While still in high school, I worked for the CIA (in the cafeteria,) and following graduation, I did a stint at a Zen Buddhist monastery.

Then I took up building trades including carpentry, cabinetry, painting and plastering. I also got to know Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, the first giant pandas in the US, by leading a team of volunteers to build them playground furniture at the National Zoo. I also started my own design-build firm, creating everything from mansion additions in McLean to mannequins for boutiques like Hugo Boss in Georgetown.

But I found it difficult to reflect on my work while running my own company. So, I chose reflection over production and went off to college, which culminated in a PhD in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley. I landed a professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, then took a fellowship at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

Currently, I am an Associate Professor of Architecture at North Carolina State University, where I explore Architecture for Extreme Environments. I’ve been to the world’s hottest, windiest, stormiest, rainiest, and snowiest places. In my art, I want to share the vitality of nature and create drawings that connect people with its extreme power and beauty.