Steve Badanes is nationally recognized for designing and building innovative projects--from homes to playgrounds to public sculptures. He is an expert on energy-efficient building techniques and speaks on the social responsibilities of architects and the role of architecture in building communities. Steve is a founder of Jersey Devil, an architectural firm comprised of skilled craftsmen, architects, inventors, and artists "committed to the interdependence of building and design." Jersey Devil architects/builders live on-site during construction of their designs, which are known for energy-efficiency and innovative use of materials. At the University of Washington, Steve holds the Howard Wright Endowed Chair and leads design/build studios that have focused on community service projects for nonprofit organizations in the Seattle area. Steve attended Wesleyan University for undergraduate studies and Princeton University, where he received his Master of Architecture.

Heavy Trash is an anonymous arts organization of architects, artists, and urban planners, Heavy Trash creates large, disposable art objects that draw community and media attention to specific urban issues. By explaining a particular urban problem and suggesting a solution, Heavy Trash seeks to provoke dialogue among citizens. Heavy Trash's work has attracted local and national media, ranging from The Los Angeles Times to The New York Times and Adbusters.

Patrick Rhodes, in 2001, formed Project Locus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, to design and build community structures in areas of need, and to develop his growing interest in teaching. Since that time, he has worked in communities across the country including Los Angeles, Boston and Baltimore and has worked with design professionals, students and academic institutions across the country. After Hurricane Katrina, Patrick began working through Project Locus in New Orleans to aid in the rebuilding process. During the summer of 2006 with 35 student volunteers, he designed and built the House of Dance and Feathers Mardi Gras Indian Museum and Community Center in the Lower Ninth Ward. Now teaching at Tulane University, Patrick will continue his work in New Orleans and elsewhere through engaging students in the development and construction of spaces in poor and underserved communities. Patrick is a 1996 graduate of the University of Florida architecture program, and earned his Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1999.

Ronald Lewis is the founder of Tupelo Street Neighborhood Association, established in 1992 to maintain the quality of life and upkeep of the neighborhood. Ron is also a Folk/Traditional Craft Artist in the Social and Pleasure Club Tradition, an historian and a youth educator specializing in hands-on and visual teaching methods. In 2003 he founded the "House of Dance & Feathers" neighborhood museum and educational resource center for cultural history of Social and Pleasure Clubs and Mardi Gras Indians, Lower-Ninth Ward Neighborhood History, and Musical history. In 2004, he was awarded both a Certificate of Appreciation and Congressional Recognition, "in recognition of outstanding and invaluable service to the community, from William Jefferson and a Certificate of Merit from the New Orleans City Council.

Justin Lee worked for various architectural offices in New York and Boston before joining the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova, Italy, in 2005. He has worked on the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the Port Development Project in Oslo and the Trans National Place in Boston. He collaborated with the MIT Media Lab (Senseable City Laboratory) on the Tsunami Safe(r) Project on the design of the Tsunami Safe(r) House and participated in the research trip to Sri Lanka in the summer 2005 to research the post tsunami conditions and oversee the construction of the Tsunami Safe(r) House prototype. Born in Hong Kong in 1975, Justin earned his Bachelor of Arts with honors in studio arts from Wesleyan University in 1999, and his Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2004.

Scott Shall is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Scott's work and teaching is based upon an ongoing study into issues ranging from sustainability and innovative materials of design to the cognitive patterns of the 21st century student. Through this work, Scott has developed a unique guerrilla-style design process, which he teaches to his students through a series of design-abroad projects offered every spring and summer semester. To aid this work, Scott has founded the International Design Clinic (IDC)--a registered not-for-profit dedicated to giving students of design to use their skills as designers to aid a world in need. Every summer, Scott and the IDC team up with UL Lafayette's study abroad program to send a team of students to a community in need in a foreign land. Once in place, the students work to use the materials at hand to design and construct an intervention that will aid their host community. Not surprisingly, the fruits of this work have had a profound impact upon Scott's growing architectural practice, sgsa+d, producing a series of projects which root themselves in the materials at hand to create a provoking and thoughtful response to the unique conditions of SW Louisiana.

Phoebe Crisman is a practicing architect, urbanist, and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia. She practiced with firms in Chicago, Cambridge, and Hong Kong prior to establishing Crisman+Petrus Architects in Charlottesville, Va. In her teaching, research, and practice, Phoebe investigates fragmentary and overlooked places, processes and materials. She has published numerous essays, most recently "Outside the Frame: A Critical Analysis of Urban Image Surveys" in the journal Places. Her forthcoming book, Site Out of Mind, examines design strategies founded on an ethical mode of attentiveness to unacknowledged places. Phoebe is currently designing strategies for the co-existence of waterfront industry and ecological regeneration in several projects along the Elizabeth River in Virginia's Hampton Roads region. Funded by a Virginia Environmental Endowment Grant, she has just completed work on a Sustainable Revitalization Plan for 330 acres of industrial land at Money Point, in collaboration with The Elizabeth River Project and the UVA Institute for Environmental Negotiation. Since January 2006, Phoebe has led an interdisciplinary team of UVa students and diverse community partners to design and fabricate The Learning Barge--a floating, self-sustaining environmental education field station on the Elizabeth River. Phoebe was educated at Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon, and conducted post-graduate research as a Netherlands-America Fulbright Fellow in Amsterdam.

Jori Erdman is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Clemson University School of Architecture. She has received the ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award and an AIA Education Award Honorable Mention. Jori was recently appointed as Design Editor for the Journal of Architectural Education. Studio South, a research driven design-build program, which Jori co-founded with Patricio del Real, was the recipient of the 2004 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award. The work produced by students and faculty in Studio South has been presented nationally and internationally. Jori has received funding to conduct research on the history of design-build programs in schools of architecture and is developing a book proposal on this topic. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University as well as a licensed architect in California.

Nils Gore is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Kansas and is a licensed architect in Kansas. Prior to teaching at KU, he taught at the Boston Architectural Center and at Mississippi State University. His recent research focuses on design strategies, which draw on 'play,' with real materials, at a real scale, as a means of developing design solutions not likely to be found in the space of the imagination. Through design/construct projects and activities, students find that hands-on making, coupled with traditional design media sponsors innovation. Nils' other research looks at the processes and tectonics of construction as a source of architectural ideas. Student design/build projects demonstrate how ideas about skill, craft, materials, fabrication and construction can serve as potent sources of architectural ideas. Nils earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Kansas State University and Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Robert Corser, AIA studied architecture at the University of Virginia and at Harvard's Graduate School of Design where he was recipient of the Peter Rice Prize for the integration of architecture and engineering. A licensed architect in California, he has practiced in San Francisco, and most recently in London where he was a project architect in the Advanced Geometry Unit at ARUP. Robert has taught at Syracuse University and since 2005 at the University of Kansas where he specializes in digital design and fabrication. Robert's research and teaching explores the convergence of design and construction technologies and the impact of new tools and processes on this relationship. His work deals with historic, current and emerging manifestations of technology and design. Areas of current work include parametric digital design strategies, numerically controlled physical prototyping and fabrication, high performance materials ans systems, and digital design collaboration. He is a founding member of a consortium dedicated to promoting high performance design through research and development in the area of building technologies.

Lori Ryker grew up in Texas and has lived and worked in Boston, New York City, Portland, North Dakota, Alabama, and Basel, Switzerland. She makes her home in Livingston, Montana where she is the executive director and founder of Artemis Institute, and is a partner, along with Brett W. Nave, of Ryker/Nave Design. She is the author of Mockbee Coker: Thought and Process, Off The Grid: Modern Homes + Alternative Energy and the forthcoming Off The Grid Homes. Lori is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education. Lori, along with her partner Brett W. Nave, received funding in 2000 from the Graham Foundation for their research entitled: "Dialogue: Design, Construction and the Natural Environment." This research, located in southwest Montana, is focused on helping a community come to a clearer understanding of its relationship with and impact upon the larger ecological environment in which it exists through holistically grounded design and build practices. Lori earned her Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and her PhD from Texas A& M University.

Vincent Petrarca has one core belief, that the influence of construction on design and design on construction should be the fundamental premise that shapes the process of every project. The two separate but undeniably integrated firms, Tonic Design and Tonic Construction, of which Vincent is currently a partner, formalize this concept. After graduating from North Carolina State University's School of Design and spending 7 years at a traditional architectural firm, his first independent project was the ‘Honeymoon Cottage’, a home that he and his wife designed and built during their engagement and first year of marriage. The house won a NC AIA and SARC. This experience shifted both his approach to architecture and his focus, resulting in numerous construction-led design projects executed by an energetic and talented team at Tonic Design and Tonic Construction. Vincent strives to contribute to the existing context of modern architecture by creating and realizing highly personalized projects for clients in North Carolina, which enhance the lives of those who inhabit the spaces.

Luke Clark Tyler, originally from the Pacific Northwest, earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 2006. During school, he had several internships with corporate and for-profit architecture firms in both New York and San Francisco. After completing his education, he turned to Design Corps to explore the role of an architect in a world full of social needs. Design Corps connected him with the Task Force for the Homeless, a homeless service and advocacy agency in Atlanta. He now lives and works at the Task Force as the Design Coordinator for the renovation of their historic 100,000SF building located in downtown Atlanta.