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Department: Landscape Architecture

Vikram Prakash

Dr. Vikramaditya “Vikram” Prakash is an architect, architectural historian and theorist. He is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington with adjunct appointments in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and Planning. He received his B. Arch. from Chandigarh College of Architecture, India and his M.A. and PhD in History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University.

Vikram works on issues of modernism, postcoloniality, global history and fashion & architecture. His books include Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, A Global History of Architecture (with Francis DK Ching & Mark Jarzombek), Colonial Modernities (co-edited with Peter Scriver), The Architecture of Shivdatt Sharma and Chandigarh: An Architectural Guide. A Global History is widely used as a textbook and being translated into five languages. His next book, One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash, is due in summer 2020.

Vikram is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Built Environments. He previously served as Associate Dean for External Affairs, Chair of Architecture and Director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs. His public service includes terms on the Boards of Seattle Center and the Seattle AIA. He also directed Chandigarh Urban Lab, a series of interdisciplinary international studios.

Vikram is co-PI (with Mark Jarzombek, MIT) of three successive grants of $1.0 million (2014), $1.5 million (2016) and $1.0 million (2019) awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. These resulted in the creation of GAHTC – a collective of over 200 teachers of global architectural history.

Vikram is host of ArchitectureTalk – a bi-weekly podcast based on curated conversations with invited guests. In its first two years, ArchitectureTalk received over 60,000 unique downloads and has been independently reviewed in The American Scholar.

The 2020 Annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recognized Vikram with the title of ACSA Distinguished Professor. 

Rob Peña

Robert B. Peña, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Architecture, teaches in the areas of architectural design and building science with an emphasis on ecological design and high-performance buildings. Professor Peña is also an adjunct faculty member in the Landscape Architecture department. He received a B.S. in Architectural Engineering from the University of Colorado and an M.Arch. from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Peña has over a decade of professional experience gained while working as a principal at Van der Ryn Architects and the Ecological Design Institute in Sausalito, California; EHDD Architects in San Francisco; Mazria Architects in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and in private practice in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. Professor Peña has held teaching appointments at Montana State University, The University of Oregon, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and has taught as a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Peña’s academic and professional work can be characterized by three interconnected themes: critical practice in the architecture sub-discipline of ecological design; teaching through the development of the knowledge and methods for sustainable design; and service in the university and community aimed at ecological literacy, environmental health, and resource conservation. In partnership with the UW Center for Integrated Design, Professor Peña works regionally with design teams on the development of high performance and net-zero energy buildings. Since the inception of the Bullitt Center, he worked with the Bullitt Foundation, the Miller Hull Partnership, and Schuchart Construction on the design and development of this groundbreaking high performance building.