Meet the Urban Design and Architecture Studies Adjunct Faculty

Frederick Bland, FAIA, AICP; B.A Yale College; M.Arch Yale University

Frederick Bland is a Managing Partner of Beyer Blender Belle, Architects and Planners, a 180- person firm based in New York City. Beyer Blender Belle is internationally-known for its outstanding preservation work. Projects include the U.S. Capitol, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center and Ellis Island. The firm has developed numerous master plans for many universities. Presently, it is in the process of concluding master plans for the Harvard Business School, Princeton University, Stony Brook University and the University at Buffalo (the flagship university of the State University of New York). Mr. Bland has served on numerous boards of prestigious not-for-profits. Mr. Bland is the chairman of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and serves on the Dean’s Council at the Yale School of Architecture and on the Vestry of Trinity Church. He is recipient of the NYU Golden Dozen teaching award, 2012.

 

 

 

Franny Eberhardt, M.A. Historic Preservation, Columbia University

Franny Eberhardt is a Preservationist with many years of experience in New York City.  She has been Director of the Historic Districts Council and Chair of the Historic House Trust.  Her teaching in the undergraduate and M.A. programs emphasizes the legal and practical contexts of preservation and its history.

 

 

Yetsuh Frank, AIA, M.Arch University of Oregon

Yetsuh Frank is an architect, writer, and educator with over 15 years experience in green building and sustainability. Previously the Director of the NYC office of YR&G sustainability consultants, Professor Frank currently leads the Program and Communications efforts of Green Light New York, a non-profit energy and lighting efficiency center for the NYC real estate community. He also advises a select group of private clients through his business entity, Quinault Consulting.

Prior to his work at YR&G Professor Frank was Director of Programs at Urban Green Council, the New York chapter of the US Green Building Council, where he was responsible for the development of educational programs and advocacy initiatives that promoted green building in and around New York City. He chaired the LEED 2009 Regionalization Task Force for the Northeast Corridor Region, is a LEED Subject Matter Expert, and a member of the USGBC Core Team. Prior to joining Urban Green Council he was an Associate at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, where he led the Sustainable Design Group and managed a series of high profile projects, including the Tutu Center, the Sports Museum of America and the Geothermal Well Field for the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan — the largest geothermal well field in the region. In 2007 Professor Frank was selected by the Climate Project to be among the 1000 volunteers trained by Al Gore to present his slideshow on the global climate crisis. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1995 and presents regularly on green building issues to a variety of organizations.

 

 

Holly Haff

Holly Haff is the Assistant Director, Economic Development at Metro North Railway.  She is the former Greenway Director for the New York City Department of Transportation (2002-2006).

 

 

Robert LaValva, B.A. New York University (valedictorian); M.Arch Harvard Graduate School of Design

After obtaining a Masters in Architecture, Robert worked for the City of New York, Department of Sanitation as a planner for nearly ten years, where he helped design and implement one of the nation’s most innovative and extensive urban composting programs.  He left government to pursue his interest in food systems and regional development, and worked briefly for the international Slow Food organization at the US headquarters in New York.  There, he instituted the nation’s first consortium for raw milk cheese producers; worked on programs to help preserve heritage animal breeds and heirloom fruits and vegetables; and managed Slow Food’s Urban Harvest festival, which was held as the first New Amsterdam Market in October, 2005.  Robert has devoted most of his efforts towards this project since then; he also teaches a yearly course on observing the urban environment at New York University.

 

 

Theodore Liebman, FAIA; M.Arch, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Theodore Liebman is a Principal at Perkins Eastman, the largest architecture firm in New York and with thirteen offices worldwide. Mr. Liebman’s career spans more than 40 years directing the design and development of housing and large scale urban projects He was awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship in Architecture and the Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in Architecture from Harvard University’s GSD to study “Criteria for Housing at High Densities.”  Between 1969 and 1975, Mr. Liebman was Chief of Architecture at the New York State Urban Development Corporation where he oversaw the building of housing for 33,000 families. Mr. Liebman joined the Harvard Institute for International Development in Tehran, Iran as Principal Architectural and Urban Design Advisor to the Tehran Development Council Secretariat and President of HAUS International (Housing and Urban Services, International) from 1975 to 1979. Mr. Liebman was a founding Principal of The Liebman Melting Partnership (TLMP), focusing on affordable housing and neighborhood development where he designed and built several thousand units of new housing and several new communities in the northeastern United States as well as large scale mixed-use projects in Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Azerbaijan. Mr.Liebman was the Land Development Manager for the Russian Federation Housing Project funded by the World Bank in 1995/96, where he created the documentation for infrastructure projects according to World Bank rules for international tender and directed land auctions for housing development parcels in five cities in Russia. In 2007  the Liebman Melting Partnership joined Perkins Eastman continuing their focus on large scale development projects internationally.  Mr. Liebman is a past president of the New York Chapter of the AIA and in 1988, he was the recipient of the Andrew J. Thomas Pioneer in Housing Award.

 

 

Lynden B. Miller, B.A. Smith College

Lynden B. Miller is public garden designer in New York City and director of The Conservatory Garden in Central Park, which she restored beginning in 1982. Her work includes gardens for The Central Park Zoo, Bryant Park, The New York Botanical Garden, Madison Square Park, and Wagner Park in Battery Park City as well as many smaller projects in all five boroughs and beyond, including waterfront gardens in Red Hook, Brooklyn; improvements to Union Square Park and the 97th Street Park Avenue Mall; renovations of the “Gateway to Harlem” Broadway Mall at 135th Street, Loeb Plaza for Hunter College, the 67th Street Armory; and the completion of a garden design for the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. She has designed and enhanced the campus landscapes at Princeton University, Stony Brook University, and Columbia University, where she continues to work on new projects. Most recent projects include the Chelsea Cove Entry Garden at Hudson River Park, the British Garden at Hanover Square, and the reinvigoration of the Heather Garden at Fort Tryon Park.

 

 

Emma Alexandra Benardette Moll, BA, New York University; MA, Art History, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; M.Arch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Emma Moll is a New York State-registered architect and LEED accredited professional. She has worked as a project architect in firms specializing in residential projects ranging from urban apartment buildings to free standing houses throughout the tri-state area. She also has collaborated with other designers on lighting and furniture design and worked closely with fabricators from the prototyping to final production stages. Most recently, she worked for both developers as well as city-funded public projects in Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, for which she studied existing zoning regulations and helped formulate new regulations for special districts. She is an urban design consultant with an independent practice focusing on affordable, sustainable residential design.

 

 

Jim Morgan, AIA; M.Arch, M.I.T.

Jim Morgan is an architect with a long history of design, activism and teaching at the Pratt Institute and in the NYU UDAS program since 1972.  He is a former member of Community Board 5, midtown Manhattan.  During the 1980’s and 90’s Jim helped raise funds for and design the Rosehill residence for AIDS patients. He is currently working with the Brooklyn Friends School to develop and support schools in rural Tanzania. He is a recipient of the NYU Golden Dozen teaching award, 2012.

 

 

Peter Pennoyer, AIA; B.A., Columbia College; M.Arch Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation

Peter Pennoyer is a Principal in Peter Pennoyer Architects, focusing on traditional and contemporary architecture, historic preservation, and renovation.  He is the Chariman of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America.  Mr. Pennoyer is a co-author of The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich, The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore, and The Architecture of Grosvenor Atterbury with Anne Walker. He and Walker have also written the introduction for a reprint of Frank M. Snyder’s Building Details.

 

 

Jean Parker Phifer, B.A., Yale College; M.Arch, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation

Architect Jean Phifer specializes in planning, sustainable design and restoration projects for cultural institutions, including schools, museums, libraries, public spaces and landscapes. Past projects include the restoration of historic structures in Central Park, planning for the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum, Green Roof Guidelines for New York University and a Cultural Landscape Report for the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. Current projects include the restoration and greening of a Raymond Loewy-designed entry plaza and lobby at 1025 Fifth Avenue; consulting on the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral; and design of a new LEED Gold child care center for the GSA in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Ms. Phifer is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a LEED accredited professional. She served as architect member and President of the Art Commission of the City of New York, now the Public Design Commission, from 1998-2003. She is the author of Public Art New York (Norton, 2009).

 

 

Stephen Raphael, B.A, Columbia College; LL.B. Harvard Law School; LL.M. New York University Law/Planning

Stephen Raphael is a partner in the law firm Raphael & Marks. He is an attorney for development projects within New York City that have created more than two thousand units of cooperative and condominium housing, as well as auxiliary retail and commercial space. These projects have encompassed new construction, rehabilitation, and historic restoration, including the conversion of the Sofia Warehouse Building in Lincoln Center to residential apartments; the construction of Memphis Downtown, an eighty-family condominium in Greenwich Village; the creation of the Medical Arts Cooperative office building in Brooklyn Heights; two hundred residential units in rehabilitated town houses located in the Park Slope Historic District; the conversion of the historic former Ansonia Clock Factory to residential use as seventy-three condominiums, seven townhouses, and twenty-two garages. Professor Raphael’s professional service includes the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (Commissioner, 1991-1997); Brooklyn Legal Services (Director 1972-1982 and Chairman, 1976-1982); Otsego Land Trust, Inc. (Director, 1989-1999); Real Estate Board of New York, (Member, 1989 – present); Friends of Czech Greenways (Counsel and Member of Board of Directors, 1994 – present); and the Municipal Arts Society, Preservation, Law, and Planning Committees (Corporation Member, 2000 – present).  He has also been a consultant and participant in numerous development projects within the New York City metropolitan area involving home ownership, housing preservation and historic preservation; a partner in a real estate development company specializing in restoration and rehabilitation of historic properties in New York City, and a participant in International conferences on development of Lednice-Valtice historical sites with the World Monument Fund.

 

 

Magda Salvesen, B.A. St. Andrews, Scotland; Courtauld Institute, London

Magda Salvesen is the curator of the Jon Schueler estate. She is a garden designer and historian of gardens and landscapes.  Her latest book is Exploring Gardens and Green Spaces: From Connecticut to the Delaware Valley. WW Norton 2010.

 

 

Samuel G White. FAIA, LEED AP

Samuel White is a Principal at Platt Byard Dovell White, a New York firm that focuses on designs that introduce new interventions to historic settings in ways that both reinforce and reinterpret their contexts. The firm’s current opportunities to explore the intersection of old and new include the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory and new entrances and galleries for the New-York Historical Society. Mr. White is the co-author with Elizabeth White of Stanford White Architect, published by Rizzoli.  Other books include Nice House.