Architecture Discovery Program Faculty

working on a new book that looks at two African American communities in the St. Louis metropolitan area over a period of twenty years and explains the policies and planning strategies that have led to the weakening of these communities.

Catalina Freixas has taught in the Sam Fox School since 2004. She is engaged in urban humanities research and practice, with a focus on resiliency in natural, built, and social environments. Supported by grants including the Missouri Humanity Council and The Divided City initiative, her work has looked at the broad range of consequences of urban segregation locally, leading to the new book Segregation by Design: Conversations and Calls for Action in St. Louis. Freixas weaves her approach to resilient design into the studios and seminars she teaches and has had a significant impact on students in our undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as our Architecture Discovery Program for high school students, which she has directed since 2012.

Remote learning has encouraged students to further develop their work through experimentation supported by independent research led by faculty on Zoom sessions. This is some of the work my students have done in a class called Architecture for Non-architects. It is similar to what you will be making in ADP.

check back soon for updates!

planting a lot of pepper seeds in preparation for the summer. I like to make my own hot sauce!

An interdisciplinary artist and designer based in St. Louis, Michael Powell uses book arts, papermaking, and emerging technologies to create artworks that explore memory and the poetics of everyday life. When he is not lecturing in communication design in the Sam Fox School, he can be found working on a number of branding and web design projects through his design studio Studiopowell, and serving as the director of marketing + design at Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design.

My current undergraduate students in Intro to Bookbinding are producing projects based on my Zoom demonstrations and our reading discussions. They just learned how to make wrapped slipcases.

Sung Ho Kim is a professor of architecture at Washington University, where he coordinated the digital media and core curriculum. Previously, he taught at Rhode Island School of Design and was assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern University. He was a visiting professor at Konkuk University in Seoul, Korea, and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. He has worked as a designer for Nasrine Seraji in Paris, France, and Wellington Reiter in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a principal researcher for Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Interrogative Design Group at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT.

Micah began designing for film and theater at Northwestern University. He developed an interest in landscape research after working as a docent and a farmhand at Navdanya Biodiversity Conservation in northern India. He has also worked with SCAPE Landscape Architecture in New York City and MU Architecture in Paris.

As Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, Micah focuses on foundational design studios. He also teaches a seminar on the history of the discipline of landscape architecture. His other teaching specialties are research methods and digital representation.

Recently he began a research project at Tyson Research Center to study science gardens, through drawing, and then to design urban research gardens for ecological study and public engagement.

working on the campus design for Doorways, a nonprofit that provides housing and services for people affected by HIV/AIDS. I have also been going on a lot of walks with my two dogs.

L. Irene Compadre, PLA, is the founding principal of Arbolope Studio, an award-winning landscape architecture, urban design, and public art practice based in St. Louis. Compadre draws from her multidisciplinary background in music, visual arts, ecology, architecture, and landscape architecture to create work that blends programmatic requirements, site specificity, environmental stewardship, and playful experimentation. She is also a lecturer in the Sam Fox School, where she teaches in the landscape architecture, architecture, and urban design programs. 

Currently, I am collaborating on an interactive installation with a musician who plays the viola. Conceived prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the project is being completely re-imagined with a greater emphasis on connection and interaction in a time when that is increasingly difficult and desired.

Lindsey Stouffer is a sculptor and teaches in both the architecture and art programs in the Sam Fox School. Her work has been exhibited internationally and includes public art, furniture, and studio works.

My architecture students are currently designing Architecture Machines (a term inspired by a blend of Nicholas Negroponte and Ken Isaacs). These are custom-designed habitats for one of their classmates measuring 12 x 12 x 12. This semester they learned to use Rhino, so once we switched to remote learning they continued to build on their work. We work together using Zoom, share screens and drawings, and have exciting guest lecturers such as Alan Wexler.

designing a backyard playhouse with my 6-year-old triplets to be built this summer!

Kelley Van Dyck Murphy leads the experimental architecture and design practice Van Dyck Murphy Studio based in St. Louis. The practice engages in built and speculative projects that explore ideas of focused contextuality, materially driven form, and projected space through experimentation with material logics and geometry in innovative ways. Murphy is an assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School, teaching design studios and seminar courses in representation, digital media, and material studies. In 2019, she was awarded research grants from both Washington University and the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, to examine new possibilities for masonry and ceramics in architecture through computational design, digital tooling, and 3D printing. The research focuses on assemblies that yield innovative visual or tactile effects while also engaging specific material performance. The work confronts the seemingly disparate modes of physical making and digital form–giving with the introduction of a new material system that expands the aesthetic and performative potential of aggregated enclosure assemblies.

These are drawings from our most recent review with students working online this semester.

Pablo Moyano is an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where he has taught since 2005. He holds a professional degree in architecture from the University of Buenos Aires and a Master of Architecture and Master of Urban Design from Washington University, where he was awarded the AIA Medal for scholastic achievement and professional promise. Moyano has extensive experience in the field of architecture, developing his career in firms with a strong connection to construction. His teaching and research focus on the performative aspects of concrete. He has been awarded research and teaching grants for his work exploring concrete as a sustainable building material for innovative building applications at multiple scales. Moyano served as the faculty design leader for CRETE House, Team WashU’s entry for the 2017 Solar Decathlon; the project received second place in the competition’s architecture contest.