Embedded Files
Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching emphasizes learning by doing, interdisciplinary collaboration, and professional responsibility. Students engage real problems, real constraints, and—whenever possible—real partners. Courses are structured to mirror the conditions of professional practice while supporting students to stretch, take calculated risks, and develop creativity and persistence.
Across studios and courses, I focus on:
Making expectations and evaluative criteria legible,
Building student agency and confidence in their own judgement,
Structuring critique, and
Cultivating interpretive fluency
This approach reflects my belief that technical grounding can unleash creativity and agency.
Four principles shape how my courses are structured and how students engage real-world problems.
Four principles shape how my courses are structured and how students engage real-world problems.
Principle 1:
Making Expectations Legible
I design assignments and critiques so that evaluative criteria are visible and discussable rather than assumed. By foregrounding how work will be read and assessed, students are better able to understand expectations, take risks, and reflect on their own decision-making processes.
Principle 2:
Building Student Agency
I structure coursework around staged decisions, iterative milestones, and moments of reflection that shift responsibility for choices to students. Clear scaffolding supports students as they develop confidence in their own judgment and learn to take ownership of architectural decisions.
Principle 3:
Structuring Critique
Rather than treating critique as an unstructured performance, I design critique formats that assign roles, perspectives, or evaluative lenses. This approach makes critique more legible, broadens participation, and helps students understand how architectural work is read from different professional and disciplinary viewpoints.
Principle 4:
Cultivating Interpretive Fluency
I emphasize interpretive fluency over procedural mastery by helping students reason through performance claims, physical phenomena, and analytical tools. Students learn how to read and translate technical information into architectural decisions that support design intent.
Studios, Courses, and Learning-by-Doing
Studios, Courses, and Learning-by-Doing
Teaching Areas & Studio Work
Teaching Areas & Studio Work
My teaching spans architecture, building science, and climate-focused design education, with particular emphasis on applied, project-based learning. Areas include:
Climate-responsive and high-performance buildings
Building science and energy systems
Design studios focused on decarbonization and resilience
Interdisciplinary courses developed in collaboration with external partners
Studio Highlight: Innovative Approaches to Housing
Studio Highlight: Innovative Approaches to Housing
Studio Highlight: SunBlock (Solar Decathlon Design Challenge)
Studio Highlight: SunBlock (Solar Decathlon Design Challenge)
I have over fifteen years of experience teaching a wide range of courses including graduate research methods, research seminars, undergraduate marketing, technical courses on energy and high-performance buildling, and design studio. For example, from 2018-2022, a studio course organized around the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge has connected high-performance building priniciples with the potential of district energy.
To date, we've worked in four different Tucson neighborhoods to develop the potential of the SunBlock distributed district energy concept, which allows the scaled implementation of thermal energy generation and sharing while increasing equitable access to cooling.
My teaching in Spring 2026 is extending the SunBlock concept with a real-world partner, Aris Hydronics, and clients developing property in Tucson's historic Dunbar Spring neighborhood.
Pedagogy and Scholarship on Teaching
Pedagogy and Scholarship on Teaching
My research examines how climate, energy, and building technologies are understood, adopted, and negotiated in practice. Drawing from social science, building science, and energy systems research, I focus on the institutional, cultural, and professional dimensions of technological change.
Rather than separating research from teaching, I use scholarly work to inform curriculum design, studio frameworks, and student engagement with real-world systems. Research outputs include peer-reviewed publications, applied reports, and public-facing writing intended to inform both professional practice and education.
Across my work, I prioritize integration. Applied projects inform studio pedagogy; research deepens technical and conceptual rigor; teaching builds the next generation of professionals equipped to work across disciplines.
Making Professional Practice Legible
Making Professional Practice Legible
I focus on making the tacit expectations of architectural practice legible through carefully structured studios and coursework that operate at the intersection between building performance and design.
Much of my teaching engages questions of affordable housing, climate risk, and equitable access to comfort, using building performance and energy systems as tools for social and environmental resilience.
I work with students to develop the judgment, confidence, and agency necessary to integrate interpretive building performance analysis with a design sensibility.
In the News
In the News
Interviews & Media Mentions
Interviewer: Shaley Sanders/KOLD, November 1, 2021
Interviewer: Mark Brody/The Show, KJZZ (Phoenix), August 18, 2021
by Chris Malloy, Bloomberg City Lab, May 11, 2021
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse