Resilience In Concrete

AUTHOR

Carmen L. Guerrero is a practicing architect and Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Physical Planning of the University of Miami School of Architecture in Coral Gables, Florida • Since 2016 she has managed the architecture campus’ physical resources as well as leading renovation, interior design and campus planning projects for the school • More recently, she managed the space modifications for all the administrative and learning environments of the school during the Covid-19 pandemic • Her research is dedicated to Italian modernism of the inter-war period, adaptive re-use of historic structures and interior design • She has contributed to numerous international exhibitions and publications in these topics • As principal of the firm Carmen Guerrero Design Studio, Inc., her work has been featured in Home Miami, Florida 100 Architects and Interior Designers and the Miami Herald. In 2008 she was the recipient of the City Beautiful Award for Most Outstanding Interior in Coral Gables.

CONTRIBUTORS

Rodolphe el-Khoury is Dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture. • Before coming to UMSoA in July, 2014, he was Canada Research Chair and Director of Urban Design at the University of Toronto, Head of Architecture at California College of the Arts, and Associate Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design. • He has taught at Columbia University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Princeton University and has had Visiting Professor appointments at MIT, University of Hong Kong, and Rice University (Cullinen Visiting Chair). • After earning a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design, el-Khoury obtained a Master of Science in Architecture from MIT and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. • el-Khoury was trained as both a historian and a practitioner and continues to divide his time between scholarship and design. • As a partner in Khoury Levit Fong (KLF), his award-winning projects include Beirut Martyr’s Square (AIA San Francisco), Stratford Market Square (Boston Society of Architecture), and the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art (AIA Cleveland). • His books on eighteenth-century European architecture include The Little House, An Architectural Seduction, and See Through Ledoux; Architecture Theatre, and the Pursuit of Transparency. • Books on contemporary architecture and urbanism include Monolithic Architecture, Architecture in Fashion, States of Architecture in the Twenty-first Century: New Directions from the Shanghai Expo, and Figures: Essays on Contemporary Architecture. • el-Khoury’s current research in architecture focuses on applications for information technology, aiming for enhanced responsiveness and sustainability in buildings and smart cities. • He is also working on the application of robotics and embedded technology in architecture in projects and prototypes for interactive and responsive environments, including immersive environments and multi-sensory architecture. • With the tools and resources of RAD-UM, his lab at UMSoA, he aims to put every brick online and believes that “embedded technology empowers networked environments to better address the environmental and social challenges we face today.” • Articles on his projects and research have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and WIRED Magazine. • He was also featured online (Gizmodo, DeZeen, Fast Company, Domus, Reuters) and on television and radio shows (CBC, Space Channel, NBC, TFO, BBC World), speaking about the Internet of Things and importance of connectivity. • His work in this area is documented in The Living, Breathing, Thinking Responsive Buildings of the Future (Thames and Hudson, 2012). • His 2013 TEDxToronto talk on Designing for the Internet of Things has been viewed more than 15,000 times.

Peter Leifer first serious photographic undertaking happened at the early age of 12 years old when he acquired his first 35mm camera. It was a range-finder with a fixed lens that led him to his first studies in formalism, an interest that he has pursued both visually and theoretically to the present day. His early work in New York City where he grew up featured exhibits in formalism with studies done almost exclusively in black and white. Education: He received a Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College with dual majors in English literature and philosophy, endeavors that enabled him to expand his aesthetic vision with deep insight into the mechanism of art and philosophical precepts innate to architectural achievement. This was hardly a detour from his photographic passion, which he pursued in earnest throughout his academic studies and in fact motivated his interest in Kant’s Critique of Judgment and the consequential evolution of his theory of Aesthetic Formalism. That interest resulted in more than one themed essay on the subject and the intent to pursue a masters to further explore the theoretical applications of the philosopher’s vision to our modern appreciation of architectural forms. He believed the compliment of that insight along with the spectrum of vision achieved through the lens were perceptions that would eventually reinforce the study of complex architectural structures and the enigma of their evolution through inception to planning, revisions and eventual construction. Fashion In LA - Conceptual Advertising Though that never happened the exigencies of life led him into the field of fashion, which he pursued in Los Angeles where he set up a photo company devoted to conceptual advertising photography and a photographic exploration of fashion as an expression of form which he engineered into advertising imagery. University Town Center in San Diego and its affiliated centers throughout the USA, including the Oakridge Mall San Jose and the Conestoga Mall Nebraska, was a major client along with local small fashion outlets. Return To New York And Paul Mitchell Systems. On returning to New York City he continued to exhibit work featuring formalist content and worked in home fashion to explore textural elements in fabric and home decor. He also met Paul Mitchell, an extraordinarily talented individual and innovator in hair products and the two collaborated on Paul Mitchell Systems first advertising campaign. That collaborative effort ended with the untimely death of Paul who never lived to see his vision fulfilled. The Business Alliance: Leifer-Stieffel And Ultimately Miami In Focus.

Cheryl Stieffel Her work appeared in many local publications as she persistently sought to apply her creative illustration skills to the fulfillment of marketing and advertising assignments. One in particular set her on a new route to creative success. Cheryl was hired by Peter Leifer to provide fashion illustrations from photographs for the A&S department store in New York City. That working relationship expanded rapidly into a mutual business called Leifer-Stieffel that encompassed many local fashion accounts and eventually led to catalogs and photo shoots with models for the home fashion industry as well as a Wacoal campaign for stylish lingerie. From Graphic Art To Business Aesthetics: Immediately taking reins of this new business she was able to expand her talents at business management and client relations a role in which she excels in to this very day. Though art was her calling from a very young age she was lured by the aesthetics of photography and its use in marketing as an objective way to evolve a company’s image and brand. Experience at Time Inc. and Warner Bros. Working with marketing and directorial teams at Warner Bros and Time Inc she found her footing as a skilled communicator and business manager with the role of unveiling and maintaining the direction and outcome of many complex projects all on the frontier of the new digital age. The demands for perfection at Time Magazine and Warner Bros as well as the fulfillment of many complex job assignments from companies at the top of the business chain has driven her sense of perfection and the need for detail and proper management of the companies she has evolved into thriving businesses. Skilled in Photography and its Effective Integration into Marketing: As a skilled photographer herself she has an intimate sense of every aspect of a job evolution and is able to assert the necessary control over the inception and fulfillment of a job. Miami in Focus derives its strength from her perception and management skill under the paradigm that the client’s needs must be innately understood and fulfilled. That perception comes from a history of personal insight into the art of design as well as the role that photography has in unveiling the most intimate aspects of the total creative accomplishment. Her own personal instincts for design and art have made her insights compellingly productive as an analyst and contributor to every project worked on by Miami in Focus.

Robin Hill Miami and New York based photographer, Robin Hill straddles the boundaries between architecture, design and fine art by using his medium of choice; photography. • Born and raised in Nottingham, England, Hill began his career in 1987 in the most inauspicious way by taking pictures of toddlers in supermarkets and department stores across London. • He didn’t know at that stage that one day his photographs would be exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao or grace the pages of the world’s leading design publications such as Vanity Fair, Wallpaper* and Architectural Digest. • Architecture is the corner-stone of his work; perspectives colliding and geometries intersecting, light playing with shadow and whimsy dancing with rigor, a philosophy of action that has led him to work with many of the world’s leading architects including Herzog and de Meuron, Zaha Hadid and Arquitectonica. • Hill likes to see his work as a metaphorical tripod with the three legs of his photography; architecture, design and fine art all coming together within the camera that sits atop the tripod. • Hill first became known in the world of architecture through a project known as MiMo (MIami MOdern), which is a movement to preserve post-war modern architecture in Miami and resulted in the seminal exhibition ‘Beyond the Box’ which debuted at the Municipal Art Society in New York City and resulted in the publication of MiMo: Miami Moden Revealed. (Chronicle Books 2004) The first of more than twenty books that Hill has collaborated on. • Hill became involved with other media hosting the EMMY award winning ART 360 on PBS and delivering keynote lectures at the Sarasota Design Conference and the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami. • Hill received the AIA award for Florida in 2015 as the Architectural Photographer of the Year.

Oscar Riera Ojeda is an editor and designer based in the US, China, and Argentina. Born in 1966, in Buenos Aires, he moved to the United States in 1990. Since then he has published over three hundred books, assembling a remarkable body of work notable for its thoroughness of content, timeless character, and sophisticated and innovative craftsmanship. • Oscar Riera Ojeda’s books have been published by many pres- tigious publishing houses across the world, including Birkhäuser, Byggförlaget, The Monacelli Press, Gustavo Gili, Thames & Hudson, Rizzoli, Damiani, Page One, ORO editions, Whitney Library of Design, and Taschen. • Oscar Riera Ojeda is also the creator of numerous architectural book series, including Ten Houses, Contemporary World Architects, The New American House and The New American Apartment, Architecture in Detail, and Single Building. • His work has received many international awards, in-depth reviews, and citations. He is a regular contributor and consultant for several publications in the field. • In 2001 Oscar Riera Ojeda founded ORO Editions company for which he was responsible of the completion of nearly one hundred titles. In 2008 he stablished his current publishing venture, Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers firm with fifteen employees and locations across three continents.