Contributors

Coleman Coker

Katie Coyne

Matt Fajkus

Francisco Gomes

Abby Randall Ulrich Dangel

Juliana Felkner Will Davies

Daniel Garcia

Aleksandra Jaeschke Katherine Lieberknecht

Miriam Solis Jen Wong

Coleman Coker is the Professor of Practice at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture and director of the Gulf Coast DesignLab. He is a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Rome Prize recipient from the American Academy in Rome. Coker is an Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 2019 Architectural Education Award winner for his community-outreach work with the Gulf Coast DesignLab. Coker has practiced architecture for over thirty-five years, much of that in partnership with Samuel Mockbee at Mockbee/Coker Architects, and later as head of building studio. He has received numerous awards, including National AIA Honor awards, Architectural Record awards, and P/A Design Awards. His work has been highlighted at the Museum of Modern Art, SF MoMA, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and his work resides in the National Building Museum permanent collection. He is past director of the Memphis Center of Architecture and holds a master’s in fine arts from the Memphis College of Art where he also received an honorary doctorate of fine arts in 2008.

Katie Coyne leads the Urban Ecology Studio at Asakura Robinson. Her work spans planning and design disciplines and incorporates resilient design; landscape ecology; and plant-, health-, and climate science into parks, conservation areas, urban landscapes, neighborhood and small area plans, sustainable tourism strategies, and green infrastructure design. Katie’s education and experience in ecology, planning, and design helps her understand how economic, cultural, social, and ecological goals must be balanced across scales for a resilient and equitable future. She has been part of the leadership team on numerous innovative projects. In 2019, Katie won the Austin Under Forty Award in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction category; was recognized by the Austin Business Journal as one of the top twentyfive women leaders in Austin; and, in 2020, won the Central Texas Planner of the Year Award. Katie serves as Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for Austin’s Climate Equity Plan, Vice Chair on both the City of Austin Environmental Commission and Joint Sustainability Committee, and is on the Board of Directors for The Trail Foundation and Austin Outside. As a former board member of Equality Texas (#yallmeansall), she continues to work on LGBTQ+ advocacy in Austin and throughout Texas.

Ulrich Dangel is an associate professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in design, construction, architectural detailing, and structural design. He received a diploma in architecture from Universität Stuttgart in Germany and a master of architecture from the University of Oregon. His professional career led him to London where he worked for internationally renowned architecture firms Foster and Partners as well as Grimshaw. He is a registered architect in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Texas and maintains an Austin-based design practice. Dangel’s research and teaching focus on the use of wood in construction, its influence on building culture and craft, and how it contributes to the advancement of sustainable practices at the local and global economic scales. Birkhäuser Basel published his first two books, Sustainable Architecture in Vorarlberg: Energy Concepts and Construction Systems and Turning Point in Timber Construction: A New Economy, in 2010 and 2017, respectively. Dangel’s latest edited book, Time for Timber, published by the Center for American Architecture and Design, documents research he completed as the Center’s 2016-2018 Meadows Fellow.

Will Davies is an educator, advocate, and researcher based in Austin, Texas. He has experience developing and implementing educational programs from oneon-one learning to multi-district initiatives for a wide variety of ages, languages, subjects, and geographies. As a researcher and advocate, his experiences as a bilingual classroom teacher and college success advisor drive his focus on strengthening access to high-quality educational opportunities through policy and practice for those students and communities least-well served by our schools and institutions. Will earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Boston University and a MEd from The University of Texas at Austin, where he is currently pursuing a PhD in the same department. He is a policy and data analyst with Breakthrough Central Texas, a non-profit serving first- generation college aspirants and their families. He is currently part of the evaluation team for the Building a Green Texas Project, funded through a NOAA Environmental Literacy Program.

Matt Fajkus is an associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, where he also leads the Graduate Program in Sustainable Design. Fajkus holds an MArch from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is Founding Principal of Matt Fajkus Architecture in Austin, which has received extensive recognition, including the 2019 AIA National Healthcare Design Award, and inclusion in the AIA National Emerging Professionals Exhibit at the AIA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. His designs, research, and writings have been published extensively in National Public Radio, Texas Architect, Dwell, and The Wall Street Journal, and he recently co-authored a book with Dason Whitsett titled Architectural Science and the Sun, published by Routledge Press.

Juliana M. Felkner studied architecture and spatial planning at the University of Kansas and the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. She worked for Ateliers Jean Nouvel in Paris before moving to Zurich to conduct her PhD research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. She is a member of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects. She serves as an assistant professor at UT Austin’s School of Architecture, teaching courses in construction, sustainable design, environmental controls, and research design. Prof. Felkner’s research and teaching address the societal and architectural challenges that come with the increasing urbanization of the world. She is a 2020 recipient of the Energy Institute’s grant for Fueling a Sustainable Energy Transition, collaborating on the project “Decarbonization of the Built Environment.” She is a member of the Junior League of Austin, which sponsors FIT (Food in Tummies), a program aimed at preventing weekend hunger for over 1,500 Austin school children.

Daniel Garcia is an architect at Matt Fajkus Architecture in Austin, Texas. He earned his MArch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his bachelor’s in environmental design at Texas A&M University. At MIT, Daniel

worked as a research fellow at the International Design Center in the Digital Design & Fabrication Group and served as a teaching assistant in design computation courses and architecture design studios. Daniel’s special interest is learning from past civilizations that developed sophisticated archetypes and technologies to live in extreme climates. During his academic studies, Daniel researched Indigenous civilizations such as the Atacameños in Chile and Native American tribes in Utah, Arizona, and Colorado, speculating on new ontologies of human life and habitation. Daniel’s thesis at MIT, “Pedagogy & Space” (2020 TSA Studio Design Award Winner), revolved around defining a heuristic architecture through the adaptation of industrial rural archetypes in Texas, such as grain silos and warehouses.

Francisco Gomes is an architect, the son of Danish and Portuguese immigrants, and is extraordinarily lucky to be the husband of Dabney, with whom he is raising two kids. In addition to the design implications of construction materials and techniques, his interests include the history of radiology and surf ski racing. He has taught at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture since 2008, where he has also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and held the Meadows Foundation Centennial Fellowship at the School of Architecture.

Aleksandra Jaeschke is an architect and an assistant professor of architecture and sustainable design at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. Born and raised in Poland, she holds a doctor of design degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and an AA diploma from the Architectural Association in London. Aleksandra holds a professional license in Italy where she practiced at AION, an architectural firm she co-founded and co-directed with Andrea Di Stefano. In 2013, AION held a solo exhibition entitled EcoMachines at the Wroclaw Museum of Architecture in Poland. In 2011, Aleksandra received the Europe 40 Under 40 Award conferred by the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design & Urban Studies and Chicago Athenaeum. Aleksandra’s interests range from ecological science and thought, through definitions and models for sustainability in architecture, to systems theory and cross-scalar integrative design strategies. A book based on her doctoral dissertation Green Apparatus: Ecology of the American House According to Building Codes is forthcoming from Princeton Architectural Press in 2022. Jaeschke won the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s 2019 Wheelwright Prize, and is also the recipient of the inaugural Mark Cousins Theory Award conferred by DigitalFUTURES.

Katherine Lieberknecht is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. She researches urban water resources planning, metropolitan-scaled green infrastructure planning, and urban climate planning. Prior to joining the faculty, she worked in regional land conservation. Dr. Lieberknecht was the inaugural chair of Planet Texas 2050, The University of Texas at Austin’s first grand challenge research program, and continues to serve on its leadership team. She is the faculty lead for the Texas Metro Observatory, co-leads the Equitable and Regenerative Cities Flagship Project, and is principal investigator for a National Science Foundation Smart and Connected Communities project, among other research initiatives. She grew up in Austin where she lives with her three children. Abby Randall is a visionary leader in the green-schools movement with a passion for deeply embedding sustainability and climate-justice education into every facet of our school systems. A former secondary science teacher, Abby has decades of experience facilitating and designing educational programs for a wide variety of K-12 science courses and alternative education programs. Abby holds a BA in anthropology from Trinity College and an MS in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University. In 2018, Abby was selected as an ee360 Fellow for the North American Association for Environmental Educators, and she is currently the principal investigator for the Building a Green Texas Project, funded through a NOAA Environmental Literacy Program. As EcoRise’s Deputy Director, Abby oversees the implementation of leading-edge educational resources, including the sustainability and environmental justice curriculum, a workforce development program focused on equitable green-building education, teacher professional development, and a K-12 grant program that brings students’ green innovations to life. Abby also leads EcoRise’s equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives and is responsible for leveraging and streamlining technology to efficiently scale EcoRise’s innovative programs to thousands of educators across the globe.

Miriam Solis is an assistant professor of community and regional planning at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on infrastructure planning and design. Examining how infrastructure can reinforce racialized inequality, she highlights organizational, procedural, and policy strategies that advance social justice. Dr. Solis’s ongoing research projects involve partnerships with nonprofit organizations and local government. She is a 2020–2022 UT Austin Humanities Institute Fellow for her work on youth perspectives on racial justice and decarbonization.

Jen Wong is an architectural researcher, educator, curator, and writer. Since 2013, she has served as Director of the Materials Lab at The University of Texas at Austin, where she conducts and supports material investigation in design, oversees multi-disciplinary programming and education efforts, and curates an extensive collection of architectural materials and assemblies. Wong’s research interests concern the role and impact of materials on built and natural environments from a systems standpoint, with a focus on low-impact, high-performance materials.