Urban Design

2011

Assistant/chief executive officer for local government(s) in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina; city manager for the city of Beaufort, South Carolina

Congress of the New Urbanism, International City County Management Association

"A desire to help to shape tomorrow's urban designers with the tools necessary to understand the public good, the financial implications of design and the behavior of households and firms in urban, rural and regional economies."

2011

Postgraduate researcher and graphic designer, Harvard University Graduate School of Design; teaching assistant, Harvard University Graduate School of Design; urban designer, Solid Objectives - Idenburg Liu; landscape architect intern, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; planning consultant, Lott + Barber Architects; appointed member, Savannah Historic Site and Monument Commission; neighborhood coordinator, city of Savannah; campus planning intern, University of Virginia's Office of the Architect

Penny White Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University; State of Georgia Planning Award for the Statesboro Comprehensive Plan, with Lott + Barber Architects

American Society of Landscape Architects

• "The Boulevard and the Future of Adaptability: Lisbon's Segundo Circular," Rethinking Real and Virtual Infrastructures in the 21st Century: Innovative Boulevards in Lisbon, Fall 2011
• "Reflections on Intangible Infrastructure in Mumbai," co-authored with Bryan Bell, Extreme Urbanism: Reimagining Mumbai's Backbay, Fall 2011
• "Guidelines for Sustainable Buildings and Environmental Design," University of Virginia's Office of the Architect, 2005

With more than half of the global population now living in urbanized areas, the 21st century is also the first urban century. As a student of the city - our greatest collective achievement - I am inspired to share my ideas with others so that we might contribute to the creation of more equitable, resilient and delightful neighborhoods, public places, cities and regions. Such an ambition is necessarily collaborative and multidisciplinary. It also requires the dedication and optimism of talented students of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design who will go forth to shape the city of tomorrow.

I believe that there are at least as many different 'urbanisms' and urban imaginaries as there are actual cities, and probably as many as there are teachers and students of the built environment who care deeply about the past, present and future of the city.

• ARCH 438 Urban Issues Seminar
• ARCH 717 Graduate Architecture Studio I
• ARCH 754 Architecture Seminar
• ARCH 765 Emerging Urban Issues
• URBA 705 Political Economy of Urbanization
• URBA 709 Urban Design Studio I

1995

Photography instructor, Cape Fear Technical College, Wilmington, North Carolina; editor/manager of communications for international architectural associations, Berne, Switzerland; planner/architect, Suter + Suter International Consultant Corporation, Basel, Zurich, and Berne, Switzerland; architectural intern, F. Carter Williams Architects, P.A., Raleigh, North Carolina; architectural intern, National Park Service Internship Program, Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; architectural intern and project renderer, Suter + Suter International Consultant Corporation, Basel, Switzerland; photographer/owner of photography studio, Wilmington, North Carolina

"The relationships that have grown out of the work done in the Gulf Coast communities since 2005-when Hurricane Katrina destroyed buildings, neighborhoods and whole towns-have contributed meaning and lifelong value to the architecture, interior design, historic preservation and industrial design students who have accompanied me on annual visits to the region affected. Students have played significant roles in the recovery and rebuilding processes, working very closely with various neighborhood associations and community leaders, as well as individuals who were in urgent need of design services such as housing, community centers, schools, church fellowship halls and more. The integration of SCAD design students into the vast network of organizations who are engaged in the rebuilding of these communities has been especially rewarding and has led to a number of employment opportunities for graduates."

Vulcan Excellence in Teaching award; nominated for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement and Support of Education's U.S. Professor of the Year Award; AIAS Most Valuable Foundations Teacher Award; AIAS Most Valuable Teacher Award; AIAS national award for community service project, "ArchiPetTure"

U.S. Green Building Council, Savannah chapter; American Institute of Architects; Georgia Historical Society; Christ Church-Savannah Building Committee

• Hurricane Katrina Relief Design Studios, exhibited in New Orleans, Louisiana
• Eight student works published in "Architectural Drawing: a Visual Compendium of Types and Methods," Rendow Yow, 2007

"For teaching, I am inspired by every great teacher I have had in my past. For art, by every artist, known and unknown, whose work I have seen, touched, tasted, felt and experienced. For design, by nature."

• ARCH 301 Architecture Design Studio I
• ARCH 302 Architecture Design Studio II
• ARCH 303 Architecture Design Studio III
• ARCH 404 Architecture Design Studio IV
• ARCH 485 Undergraduate Independent Study
• ARCH 707 Architecture Design Studio VII
• ARCH 708 Architecture Design Studio VIII
• ARCH 709 Architecture Design Studio IX
• DRAW 115 Graphics for the Building Arts
• DSGN 223 Architectural Fundamentals Studio I

2003

Visiting assistant professor, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina; freelance architect intern, BJAC, PA, Raleigh, North Carolina; Olin Residential Design, Raleigh, North Carolina; architect intern, Innovative Design Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina; architect intern, Cherry Huffman Architects, Raleigh, North Carolina

Gaining professional licensure as a registered architect

North Carolina American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Award

LEED Accredited Professional; Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; U.S. Green Building Council, Savannah Branch Leadership Group

Articles

• "Texas Sustainable School Design Guidelines," (co-author) 1999.
• "Guidelines for Energy-Efficient Sustainable Schools, Clark Co. Nevada," (co-author), 2000.

Presentations

• ACSA SE Regional Conference, Savannah, Georgia, Fall 2009: Topic Chair and author: "Landscape as Canvas"
• ACSA NE Regional Conference, Hartford, Connecticut, Fall 2010; Seventh Savannah Symposium, The Spirituality of Place, Winter 2011: Paper presentation and author: "The Suburban Land(scape) Accordance"

"Both the profession and academia of architecture demand the highest of standards-it would be a disservice to the students not to require only the best of their effort and assist them to reach these high standards. Students are encouraged to go further with their work through suggested readings and input from all professors and peers. The professor should inspire and lead the student into taking on their own responsibility to critically learn, have ownership of their projects and challenge themselves."

• ARCH 101 Introduction to Architecture
• ARCH 300 Architecture Design Studio I
• ARCH 302 Architecture Design Studio II
• ARCH 303 Architecture Design Studio III
• ARCH 404 Architecture Design Studio IV
• ARCH 405 Architecture Design Studio V
• ARCH 406 Architecture Design Studio VI
• ARCH 465 Sustainable Design
• CULT 160 Fundamentals of Cultural Landscape
• CULT 210 Historic Landscape Design
• CULT 305 Culture of the Landscape
• CULT 320 Cultural Landscape Seminar
• DRAW 115 Graphics for the Building Arts
• DSGN 223 Architectural Fundamentals I
• HIPR 717 Preservation of the Cultural Landscape
• HIPR 732 The Cultural Landscape of Petroleum
• HIPR 780 Special Topics in Historic Preservation
• URBA 705 Political Economy of Urbanization

1991

Assistant professor of architecture, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; assistant professor of architecture, Auburn University; lecturer in architecture, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo; architecture designer, Dan Dworsky Associates, Los Angeles, California; job captain, Gelman and Greenberg Architects, Venice Beach, California; designer and draftsman, Charles Kober Associates, Los Angeles, California; design draftsman, Urban Innovations Group and Charles Moore, Los Angeles, California; architecture designer, Lange Architecture Designs, Los Angeles, California

Supporting revisions to the curriculum for the two-year Master of Architecture degree program and Architecture Fundamentals Design at SCAD sequence; serving as program director for the Master of Urban Design, including authorship of curriculum for Master of Urban Design, post-professional Masters of Architecture in Urban Design and undergraduate minor in urban design, SCAD; coordinating fifth-year architecture (10 years), including authorship of architecture thesis guidelines, SCAD

Selected participant in executive seminar at Harvard University Graduate School of Design; "AIA National Urban Design Honors" for excellence in urban design at SCAD, with Christian Sottile, Manfred Thoms and Lee Meyer, AIA; ACSA South East Special Projects Fund: "Sustainable Infrastructure For Southern Cities," with Joseph Burton, Ph.D., Clemson University; School of Architecture nominee for University of Tennessee Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award; University of Tennessee Faculty Development Grant: 20th Century Metamorphosis of Los Angeles Architecture; University of California at Los Angeles Regents Travel Grant: North American Indian Dwellings

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; Savannah Development and Renewal Authority; Montana State University Promotion and Tenure Committee member; John Wiley and Sons Publishers; City of Santa Monica, California, Citizens Committee for Revitalization of Third Street Mall

• "Constructing Beginnings, A Role for Technology in Architectural Education," Journal of Architectural Education, Volume 45; National ACSA Technology Conference, San Francisco, California; 8th National Conference on the Beginning Student, Arizona State University.
• "The Otherside of Seaside," Foundations in Architecture: An Annotated Anthology of Beginning Design Projects, with Michael Kaplan, editors: O. Cappleman and M. Jordan, Van Nostrand Reinhold Publishers; 5th National Conference on the Beginning Student, University of New Mexico.
• "Metamorphosis of Cultural Dreams in the Los Angeles Avant-Garde House: Innovation and Consumption in a Capitalistic Economy," the Harvard Architecture Review, Issue 11; IAPS 12 Conference Proceedings, Thessalonica, Greece; National ACSA Technology Conference, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
• "Reclamation: Designing Pedagogy Stimulating the Recycling Bi-products of Mass Consumption," Making Environments: Technology and Design 10th Annual ACSA Technology Conference Proceedings
• Beaufort Government Center: presentation at University of South Carolina Beaufort Gallery; exhibit; facilitation of three workshops for New Government Center Master Plan at Beaufort, South Carolina, City Hall
• "Shifting the Paradigm: Rethinking Urban Planning and Policy in Mega City Settlements" with Drura Parrish, International ACSA Conference, Havana, Cuba
• "City as Farm House/Villa/Plantation," with Joseph Burton, Ph.D., International Making Cities Livable Conference, Savannah, Georgia; ACSA SE Regional Conference, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
• "Continuity of Community Through Metamorphosis of Use," 1998 International Making Cities Livable Conference, Carmel, California
• "The Phenomena of Science and Art: Interactive Metaphor as Technology," National ACSA Technology Conference, Washington, D.C.; University of Tennessee Journal of Architecture 11.

Academic mentors included two Pritzker Award recipients, Thom Mayne of Morphosis and Rem Koolhaas of OMA, and an AIA Gold Medallion recipient, Charles Moore, Ph.D., FAIA

• ARCH 404 Architecture Design Studios IV
• ARCH 707 Architecture Design Studio VII
• ARCH 708 Architecture Design Studio VIII: Thesis I
• ARCH 709 Architecture Design Studio IX: Thesis II
• ARCH 712 Graduate Seminar in Architecture
• ARCH 717 Graduate Architecture Studio I
• ARCH 745 Graduate Seminar in Architecture
• ARCH 765 Emerging Urban Issues
• ARCH 798 Graduate Architecture Studio: Thesis I
• ARCH 799 Graduate Architecture Studio: Thesis II
• DSGN 223 Architectural Fundamentals Studio I
• DSGN 224 Architectural Fundamentals Studio II
• DSGN 225 Architectural Fundamentals Studio III
• URBA 759 Urban Design Studio III
• URBA 769 Urban Design Research Seminar
• URBA 791 Urban Design Studio IV: Thesis I
• URBA 792 Urban Design Studio V: Thesis II

2004

Visiting professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa; associate and project manager/designer, Burke Hogue Mills Inc., Lake Mary, Florida; project manager/designer, Nudell Architects, Detroit, Michigan; intern architect, Stevenson Architects Inc., Sarasota, Florida

Receiving the Florida Trust Historic Preservation Award: Daytona Beach Bandshell

Assessment grant: Developing a Collective Theory of Architectural Education; Florida Trust Historic Preservation Award: Tarragona Arch

American Institute of Architects; Docomomo Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites, and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement

Articles

• "Collaboratively Crafting a Unique Architecture Education through MODEL Assessment," ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings, 2009.
• "Designing Stewards: A collaboration based outreach course offering," ACSA Southeast Fall Conference Proceedings, 2007.
• "Designing Cities: Designing Students," ACSA Central Fall Conference Proceedings, 2007.

Presentations

• Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Conference. Portland, Oregon, Paper: "Collaboratively Crafting a Unique Architecture Education through MODEL Assessment," 2009
• Measuring Unique Studies Effectively Conference. Savannah, Paper: "Collaboratively Crafting a Unique Architecture Education through MODEL Assessment," 2009
• 7th International Workshop on Social Intelligence Design. University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Paper: "Collaboratively Crafting a Unique Architecture Education through MODEL Assessment," 2008
• Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Southeast Fall Conference. Washington, D.C., Paper: "Designing Stewards: A collaboration based outreach course offering," 2007
• Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Central Fall Conference. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Paper: "Designing Cities: Designing Students," 2007

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." - Ernest Hemingway

• ARCH 101 Introduction to Architecture
• ARCH 301 Architecture Design Studio I
• ARCH 302 Architecture Design Studio II
• ARCH 303 Architecture Design Studio III
• ARCH 341 Construction Technology II
• ARCH 404 Architecture Design Studio IV
• ARCH 405 Architecture Design Studio V
• ARCH 406 Architecture Design Studio VI
• ARCH 495 Special Topics in Architecture
• ARCH 707 Architecture Design Studio VII
• ARCH 717 Graduate Design Studio I
• ARCH 779F Graduate Field Internship
• ARCH 799 Graduate Architecture Studio: Thesis II
• DRAW 115 Graphics for the Building Arts
• DSGN 223 Architectural Fundamentals Studio I
• DSGN 224 Architectural Fundamentals Studio II
• DSGN 225 Architectural Fundamentals Studio III

1999

Design principal, Sottile & Sottile, Urban Design and Civic Architecture, Savannah; urban research fellow, Florence, Italy; city architect, city of Beaufort, South Carolina; professor of architecture, SCAD Savannah; apprentice, John C. LeBey, FAIA, Architect, Savannah

Establishing Sottile & Sottile as an international, award-winning urban design and civic architecture practice with its primary focus on civic design and master planning, emphasizing historic research, urban analysis and community-wide engagement. Leading the design of the new SCAD Museum of Art, a historic preservation project that revived the freight sheds of the Central of Georgia Railroad complex, a National Historic Landmark and the only extant antebellum railroad complex in the U.S.

Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter Award, SCAD Museum of Art, 2012; Historic Savannah Foundation, Preservation Award, SCAD Museum of Art, 2012; AIA National, Emerging Professional, Curated Exhibit, Washington D.C., 2012; International Interior Design Association, Georgia, Best of the Best, SCAD Museum of Art, 2012; Congress for the New Urbanism, Art of the New Urbanism, Curated Exhibit, 2012; National Council of Arts Administrators, Art Leadership Award, 2011; AIA National Honor Award for Urban Design, 2010, 1998; Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter Award, 2009; Government Finance Officers of the United States, 2009; AIA Georgia Honor Award, 2008, 2005, 1996; Georgia Department of Community Affairs, 2008, 2005; Historic Savannah Foundation, Preservation Award, 2008, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2000; American Planning Association, 2008, 2005, 2004; Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, 2003; USA Today, Top 100 Academics in the Nation, 1998

Preservation magazine: "New Life for an Old Depot: Remnants of an 1853 railroad depot contribute to a major expansion of a Savannah Museum"

SCAD press release:

• SCAD names Christian Sottile as dean, School of Building Arts

American Institute of Architects; National Council of Architectural Registration Boards; National Council of Arts Administrators; National Charrette Institute; Veritas Academy Rhetoric School; Savannah Development and Renewal Authority; Creative Coast Alliance; Congress for the New Urbanism; American Planning Association

• Architect Magazine, SCAD Museum of Art, May 2012
• AIA Designs of the New Decade, Civic Master Plan, April 2012
• Architectural Digest, SCAD Museum of Art, February 2012
• Blueprint, UK, SCAD Museum of Art, February 2012
• Preservation Magazine, New Life for an Old Depot, December 2011
• Architect's Newspaper, Foundation Studies, November 2011
• Il Giornale dell'Architettura, Torino, SCAD Museum of Art, November 2011
• Wallpaper, SCAD Museum of Art, November 2011
• TEDx Conference, Recovering Humanity in the Built Environment
• China, Jiujiang City, U.S. Planning and Historic Preservation
• Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, The New City
• Georgia Conservancy, Blueprints for Successful Communities
• New York Project for Public Spaces, Livability Forum
• Urban Land Institute, The Next Big Ideas
• United States Urban Forestry Program, Savannah's East River
• American Planning Association, National Conference, Human Design Principles
• International Making Cities Livable Conference, Design Districts
• National Public Radio, History of Ellis Square
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Sustainable Urbanism

"To engage in discourse about our collective future, to dissolve perceived boundaries between design disciplines and to re-establish art as the shared language of the built environment. The future is the city. It is the place where all design disciplines come together and where all design disciplines are needed at the same time. At SCAD, we are doing nothing less than preparing students in the School of Building Arts to be the designers of the new city."

• ARLH 306 Reading Urban Form
• ARCH 302 Architecture Design Studio II
• ARCH 303 Architecture Design Studio III
• ARCH 421 Advanced Architectural Presentation
• ARCH 707 Architecture Design Studio VII
• ARCH 765 Emerging Urban Issues
• INDS 321 Interior and Exterior Illustration

1999

Clinical assistant professor, department of architecture, State University of New York at Buffalo; visiting assistant professor, department of architecture, State University of New York at Buffalo; architectural design and construction, Savannah; architectural design and construction, Buffalo, New York; architectural designer and owner, Datum Design & Construction, Inc., Massachusetts and New York; design consultant and presentation team member, Hamilton Houston & Lownie; Buffalo, New York; architectural designer, B.O.A., Buffalo, New York; architectural designer, Fahy Engineers and Designers, Rochester, New York; architectural designer, William O'Neal Architect, New York City

Receiving an educational grant for studies at Harvard University in liberal arts, architecture and visual arts

• Presidential Fellowship Grant, "Interdisciplinary Research of Japanese Architecture, Materiality, Space and Design: Translations of the Traditional into the Contemporary," SCAD, 2008.
• Presidential Fellowship Grant, "Choreography of Space," SCAD, 2003.
• "Homogenization"; installation and performance along with Joel Varland, ARTillery Punch and RenaZance, for the STARland Arts Complex, Savannah; Fall 2004.
• "Amphibious" exhibition for Main Street/Art Street (competition winner). Installation in downtown Buffalo, New York, storefront; 1998. Exhibition 1998-2000.
• Faculty Award, voted by AIAS - State University of New York at Buffalo, 1994.

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; U.S. Green Building Council; Southeastern College Art Conference; Creative Coast Alliance; Savannah Citizen Advocacy Project; Coastal Heritage Society

Articles

• "The SPACE of Robert Wilson's Theatrical Works," Intersight, Spring 1997.
• "The Qualitative and Quantitative World of Robert Wilson's Theater," Conference Proceedings, Bridges 2010, Pecs, Hungary.
• "Homogenization," Drain Magazine, Issue 01: Silence, 2004.

Presentations

• "Story Savannah: Ethnography + Design," SECAC, Southeastern College Art Conference, Richmond, Virginia, Oct. 21-24, 2010
• "The Qualitative and Quantitative World of Robert Wilson's Theater," Bridges 2010, International Conference, Pecs, Hungary, July 23-28, 2010
• "Engawa and More: Japanese Concepts and Architectural Behaviors of Liminal Spaces," SECAC 2009 Annual Conference, Mobile, Alabama, Oct. 22-24, 2009
• "The Color Room: A Phenomenological Approach to Color" at the Annual College Art Association Conference (CAA), Toronto, Feb. 25-28, 1998
• "The Electronic Sanctuary," Sixth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Built Form and Culture Research, Making Sacred Places, the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, Oct. 16-19, 1997

"Teaching is also learning, and is both a career and practice of curiosity and pursuing the questions of 'why' and 'what if.' Teaching connects one with perpetual hope, quest, and energy from the students. It is a career of promise of what the world can be, rooted in creative evaluation and wisdom of what the world has been. Among the benefits of teaching, such as being inspired by the students' perpetual youthful energy and the spirit of hope, it is the added benefit of taking such care with information and discernment of the world around that perhaps is most important because I am a college teacher as well as a designer. I pay attention to things in the world, from its past history, to current events and the present, and think about implications and possibilities for the future in keen ways, because this information is my teaching material. In short, teaching motivates attentiveness to life and all of its facets. I strive to pass on these skills to my students, as individuals, citizens and designers."

• ARCH 300 Architecture Design Studio I
• ARCH 302 Architecture Design Studio II
• ARCH 303 Architecture Design Studio III
• ARCH 403 Story Savannah: Designing Relationships
• ARCH 404 Architecture Design Studio IV
• ARCH 405 Architecture Design Studio V
• ARCH 454 Architecture Seminar
• ARCH 703 Advanced Story Savannah: Designing Relationships
• ARCH 707 Architectural Design Studio VII
• ARCH 708 Architectural Design Studio VIII: Thesis I
• ARCH 709 Architectural Design Studio IX: Thesis II
• ARCH 712 Graduate Seminar in Architecture
• ARCH 717 Graduate Design Studio I
• ARCH 745 Graduate Seminar in Architecture
• ARCH 798 Graduate Architecture Studio: Thesis I
• ARCH 799 Graduate Architecture Studio: Thesis II
• DRAW 115 Graphics for the Building Arts
• DSGN 224 Architectural Fundamentals Studio II
• DSGN 225 Architectural Fundamentals Studio III
• URBA 709 Urban Design Studio I
• URBA 729 Urban Design Studio II
• URBA 759 Urban Design Studio III