Agenda - 01-22-1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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J' Wr Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater- Zyberk, Architects 2949 Coconut Avenue, Miami, Florida 33133 (105) 445 -7602 Since the founding of their firm in 1980, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater - Zyberk have been widely recognized for their architecture and urban design projects, including Seaside, Florida, the only authentic town to be successfully built in the United States in the last 40 years. The firm has 25 people in its home office in Miami, Florida, and two outpost offices: one in Boston and one in Maryland. Besides sharing the design and administrative responsibilities of the practice, the two principals maintain an active involvement in academia. Plater - Zyberk is Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Architecture Program at the University of Miami. Duany travels to universities around the country; in the last three years he has taught studios at the graduate schools of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The principals' teaching and practice agenda are closely related, part of a mission to produce alternatives to 20th century suburban sprawl. The firm's work assumes that the documented ills of suburbia, such as social isolation, traffic congestion, the separation of the work force from job locations, not to speak of visual blight, are potentially solvable in the design of focused and integrated communities using the traditional small town as the model. The method is being tested in town design projects currently under way, ranging in size from 60 to 4,500 acres: Belmont, Virginia; Riverfront, New Hampshire; Kentlands, Maryland; Mashpee, Massachusetts; Blount Springs and Tannin, Alabama; Friday Mountain, Texas and others, in which the firm's responsibili d es are for master plan design, zoning and architectural coding. This practice along with the concerns above has produced a special graduate studies program at the University of Miami School of Architecture in Suburb and Town Design. As part of the same agenda, the firm's architectural projects explore the relationship of the individual building to its urban context, as well as its participation in the specific local geographical and historical tradition. The firm's built projects have been recognized by over 18 awards in the last five years, and by publication in over ninety books, journals and periodicals, including Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Both principals maintain a professional service involvement as well. Plater -Z yberk is a Trustee of Princeton University and a member of the Indianapolis State Capitol Complex Design Advisory Board. Duany has just completed a term as a member of the City of Miami's Heritage Preservation Board and is currently on the review board of the National Endowment of the Arts. Both Duany and Plater - Zyberk received the B.A. in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University and the Master of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture. February 1989