People:
- Richard Plunz
- Michael Conard
- Patricia Culligan
- Richard Gonzalez
- Kubi Ackerman
- Maria Paola Sutto
- Grant Goodrich
Research Interns
Richard A. Plunz
Director, Urban Design Lab
Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Richard Plunz is a leading figure in all aspects of urban design and is considered one of the world’s leading authorities in urban housing. The Housing Studio, which he developed at Columbia, has now become an integral part of architectural curricula everywhere.
Plunz moved to Columbia University in 1974 and in 1977 became chairperson of the Division of Architecture, with oversight on the renewal of the professional Masters Curriculum. Since 1992, Plunz has been director of the Urban Design Program, one of the most substantative curricula in the field.
His research into the evolution of housing in New York City has led to a number of projects including his landmark study, A History of Housing in New York City, (1990).
In his long term research interests, he completed a fourteen-year project on the urban expropriation of the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Park in New York State, with the help of J. M. Kaplan Fund and others; a three-decade study of physical and social transformation at Turgutreis, (Bodrum), on the Turkish Aegean Coast. The study was in part supported by The Aga Khan Award.
In 2005, Plunz was appointed director of the Urban Design Lab at Columbia's Earth Institute.
After receiving professional degrees in engineering and in architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Plunz specialized in urbanism related to both urban history and application of cybernetic and information theory to urban development. Plunz has held professorships at Rensselaer, Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). He has taught and lectured extensively and internationally.
At Rensselaer and Penn State, Plunz developed pioneer research related to hospital design and public secondary education related to inner city contexts. With the support of the United States Public Health Service, Plunz conducted pioneering research in digitized environmental modeling for a low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia (Mantua). He developed anthropological field techniques toward built form considerations. Here he initiated his long-term research interests related to housing design and development of sustainable higher-density alternatives to the suburban single-family house. He continued his involvement with the anthropology of building with an extensive study on the two-century transformation of a utopian industrial community in San Leucio, Caserta, (Italy).
Plunz's work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Aga Kahn Award, the United States Public Health Service and the Ford Foundation. In 1991, he received the Andrew J. Thomas Award from the American Institute of Architects for his pioneering work in housing.
Plunz is the author of many articles, studies, and reports. Among his publications are many books, including A History of Housing in New York City, (1990), translated in French and Japanese, The Urban Lifeworld. Formation, Perception, Representation (2002); After Shopping (2003). His last co-edited publication has been Eco-Gowanus: Urban Remediation by Design (2007).
B.S., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1965; B.Arch., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1966; M.Arch,, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1967.
Michael Conard
Assistant Director, Urban Design Lab
Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University
Michael Conard is a registered architect in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. He holds an NCARB certificate, is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design and is a Past Fellow of the Design Trust for Public Space.
Michael Conard has directed applied and academic urban design research for over twenty-five years on five continents in both the public and private sectors. His work has bridged urban and architectural design and environmental sustainability with public health, local economic development and equal access. Most recently he edited The Carbon Studio: Bankok (2008), which addressed urban sustainable redevelopment along the Padung Lungkasem Canal Site in the historic core of Bankok.
Mr. Conard has directed numerous studios and studies at the GSAPP and Urban Design Lab. Some of his recent projects include Curbing Childhood Obesity (2008), a design and systems recommendations to address the current epidemic, and Creating a Cultural Corridor: 125th Street (2007), a local cultural sustainability plan. He co-directed Hell's Kitchen South: Developing Strategies (2002), a set of design and planning recommendations to the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association and the Design Trust for Public Space. His work has also been published and exhibited internationally.
B.S., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1980; B.Arch., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1981; M.S. Architecture and Urban Design, Columbia University, 1993.
Patricia Culligan
Engineering Faculty Associate, Urban Design Lab
Professor, Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University
Patricia Culligan is an expert in geo-environmental engineering whose research is currently focusing on issues related to urbanization and sustainable urban design, including urban water and waste management, brownfields redevelopment and the use of green industries for urban reindustrialization.
Together with Richard Plunz, Patricia Culligan oversees the teaching activities of the Lab. Culligan is the author or co-author of over 100 technical articles, including 2 books, 3 book chapters and over 60 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings. Culligan is also the founder of Columbia University’s Education Center for Sustainable Engineering.
BSc (hons) Leeds University UK, 1982, MPhil Cambridge University UK, 1987, PhD Cambridge University, 1989. Member, American Society of Civil Engineers and Chartered Engineer, UK.
Richard R. Gonzalez
Project Manager, Urban Design Lab
Richard R. Gonzalez joined the Urban Design Lab in 2008. As an architect and urban designer, Richard is a native to New York City and brings an array of experience on issues effecting the urban environment. Previously, he has worked in the architectural profession designing a diverse mix of projects within New York, the U.S. and abroad. Such project types include master planning, corporate offices, institutional, residential and industrial buildings. With an extensive background on community based projects within Harlem and Washington Heights, he has worked with private organizations and not for profit entities, addressing the social and political needs of the community.
Recipient of the Mathew W. Del Gaudio Award for Excellence in Total Design in 1999. Richard R. Gonzalez is a registered architect in New York, and a LEED® Accredited Professional with the United States Green Building Council.
B.S.1998, B.Arch.1999, City College of New York; MSAUD, Columbia University, 2008.
Kubi Ackerman
Design Research Coordinator, Urban Design Lab
Kubi Ackerman joined the Urban Design Lab in 2007. At the UDL Kubi has worked on the Childhood Obesity project, a proposal to rezone 125th St. in Harlem to encourage cultural uses, a study of urban development patterns in the Hudson River Estuary, and a project to promote physical activity and economic development in northern Manhattan through the redesign of public parks. He has also taught and worked for several years at the Salvadori Center at City College of New York, developing design and architecture-based curricula for public schools in New York City. Kubi has conducted extensive research into the history of architecture and urban development in Prague, Czech Republic. He is also a LEED® Accredited Professional with the United States Green Building Council.
B.A., Wesleyan University, 1998; M. Arch., Columbia University, 2007.
Maria Paola Sutto
Program Coordinator, Urban Design Lab
Maria Paola is a biologist and a journalist. Her main interests are in the environmental impacts and social components of environmental change in food, art, education and community life. From 1991 to 2001, she has written extensively for the Italian media (Bravaitalia, Multimedia, Gulliver, Teknos, Prima Comunicazione). She is a project coordinator and initiator (Editoria 2000, Sullivan County Green Energy Fair 2007), and founder of citizen advocacy institutions for (Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition FPEB). She has been consultant of public and private institutions for projects between Italy and the United States. She speaks English, French, Italian and Spanish.
B.S., Biology, University of Milan.
Grant Goodrich
Program Manager, Urban Design Lab
Grant Goodrich joined the Urban Design Lab in 2009. As a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former operations planner, Grant brings to the Lab an energetic problem-solving perspective and organizational skills especially useful in the growing challenges facing urban areas. He is eager to help our communities deal with the problems posed by climate change, freshwater scarcity and environmental degradation.
Grant is a recipient of the prestigious Olmsted scholarship, awarding one year of language training and two years of study at a foreign university, which he pursued at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia studying international relations. Most recently, he served as a strategic planner for U.S. activities in West Africa and the Trans-Sahara. He has extensive overseas operational experience, and is conversant in four languages.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Grant currently resides in Manhattan. He blogs for the Columbia Water Center, writing the Great Lakes column. He is also a LEED® Accredited Professional with the United States Green Building Council.
B.S., U.S. Naval Academy, 1994; Graduate, USMC Command and Staff College, 2008; M.P.A. in Environmental Science and Policy, Columbia University, 2009.
Leo Daehwan Chung
Research Intern, Urban Design Lab
Leo Chung joined the Urban Design Lab in 2009 and is collaborating on the Dongtan-2 South Korea feasibility study as well as the Seoul 2009 Design Olympiad Exhibition. During graduate school, he mainly focused on the study of waterfront revitalization and urban sustainability. Prior to graduate school, he worked in Center for Architecture and Urban Design in Seoul, Korea while also aquiring an employment position at Archiban for over two years. Afterwards he was employed with Balmori Architects and John Reed Architecture in New York City where he has been involved in diverse scales of projects, gaining professional experiences in both architecture and urban design.
B.A., Chungang University, Korea 2005; MSAUD, Columbia University, 2008
Marc Leverant
Research Intern, Urban Design Lab
Marc Leverant interned at the Urban Design Lab in 2009 and collaborated on the Dongtan-2 South Korea feasibility study as well as the Seoul 2009 Design Olympiad Exhibition. His work has been published in Metropolis and I.D. Magazine and exhibited internationally at such venues as the Venice Biennale, the Beyond Media Festival in Florence, Italy, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, and the New Center for Contemporary Art in Louisville, KY. His team was awarded the Metropolis 2007 Next Generation Design Competition Runner-Up for the design of a pollution, light, and sound absorbing barrier system for highways.
B.A. in Architecture, Clemson University, 2006; M.Arch, Columbia University, 2010
Zoe Malliaros
Research Intern, Urban Design Lab
Zoe Malliaros joined the Urban Design Lab in 2009 and has been working on Curbing Childhood Obesity, Dongtan-2 South Korea feasibility study and the 145th Street Corridor research project. With a background in evolutionary psychology and a commitment to public health, she entered the field of architecture after coordinating a merger and renovation for the Children’s AIDS Program (now SPARK Center) at the Boston Medical Center. She worked for several years as a project designer at Siris/Coombs Architects before entering graduate school.
B.A. Psychology, Harvard University 2003; M.Arch, Columbia University, 2010
Caroline Qiong Wu
Research Intern, Urban Design Lab