Previous Visiting Scholars

Jennifer Bonner is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Director of MALL.

Bonner received a Bachelor of Architecture from Auburn University and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the James Templeton Kelley Prize for her project Assemblage of Twins. Her research and design work has been published in journals including Architectural Review, Architectural Record, Wallpaper, a+t, DAMn, ART PAPERS, PLAT, and MAS Context. Bonner has exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, National Building Museum in Washington DC, Association of Architects of Catalonia in Barcelona, WUHO Gallery in Los Angeles, HistoryMIAMI, and most recently at the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Bonner was the first recipient of an annual teaching fellowship at Woodbury University in Los Angeles and held the position of TVSDesign Distinguished Studio Critic at Georgia Institute of Technology where she founded a Guide to the Dirty South with forthcoming titles in Atlanta and New Orleans. Previously, she has also taught design studios and seminars at Auburn University, the Architectural Association, and Lund University.

Watermarks, a 2011 exhibition at Woodbury University’s WUHO Gallery in Los Angeles, examined rising global water levels through simulation of Venice’s Acqua Alta, a biannual flooding of Piazza San Marco.

Chandler Ahrens is a co-founder and director of the Los Angeles office of Open Source Architecture (OSA). The international research and design architectural practice has designed commercial and residential projects in addition to designing, fabricating, and mounting several complex installations including The Hylomorphic Project at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, n-Natures at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Evolutive Means at Pratt Institute in New York. Ahrens’ work with OSA has been extensively published internationally, and he has lectured at various academic institutions, including University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC), Cal Poly Pomona, RISD, University of Tel Aviv (Israel), and Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico).

Ahrens has worked for several large international architectural firms, including nine years as a lead designer at the Pritzker Prize-winning office of Morphosis Architects, where he was responsible for notable buildings such as the New Academic Building at Cooper Union in New York; Hypo-Alpe-Adria Bank in Udine, Italy; and Caltrans Headquarters in Los Angeles. Other projects include Emerson College in Los Angeles (currently under construction) and Phare Tower in Paris (soon to begin construction). In addition, Ahrens worked on design proposals for the new United States Embassy in London, Columbia University Medical Center, New Doha International Airport City, Vienna University of Economics Library and Learning Center, Sanya Hotel in China, SOHO China mixed-use development, Broad Art Foundation museum, Greenwich South Visioning master plan, Rutgers University master plan, Pudong Cultural Park, Taichung Opera House, Javits Convention Center addition, and the ENI Headquarters in Milan.

Ahrens served as an assistant professor at Woodbury University in Los Angeles in 2011-2012.

Christian Stayner is a founding partner and Design Principal of Stayner Architects in Los Angeles. Previously he was a vising faculty member at Woodbury, as well as a tenure-track faculty member in the Departments of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he also held the William Muschenheim Fellowship in Architecture.  Stayner Architects is an award-winning, idea-based architectural practice located in Los Angeles with projects located across the city, the United States, and abroad. The office balances intellectual rigor and attention to design with a proven commitment to realizing thoughtful architecture under demanding constraints. They add value to situations defined by the complexity of contemporary life: in challenging sites, in contexts with sensitive politics and dynamics, on projects that others consider impossible, and in collaboration with a variety of interdisciplinary consultants and associates.

Yasushi Ishida’s research focus while at Woodbury has been on investigation of novel use of flexible sheet materials as formwork for concrete. In his 11 years of professional experience, Yasushi Ishida has focused on execution of geometrically complex design through the use of advanced 3d modeling computer programs. He has worked for several of award winning architectural firms such as Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Gensler, Morphosis and Michael Maltzan Architecture. He has played a significant role in the following projects: Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Building and Mizuta Memorial Hall at Josai University (Sakado, Japan), The Broad Museum (Los Angeles), Emerson College (Los Angeles), Phare Tower (Paris, France) and Leona Drive Residence (Los Angeles). Yasushi received his Bachelor of Human Studies in Psychology from Kyoto University and his Master of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Taught by visiting faculty member Yasushi Ishida, the Form Work studio investigated flexible sheet form work. The exhibition of work created by architecture students in the Spring 2016 5th year studio at Woodbury School of Architecture.

Mark Stanley is a Lecturer and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee’s College of Architecture and Design and co-founder of StudioMARS, a speculative design-research practice. He joined the faculty at UTK after teaching at Woodbury University School of Architecture in Los Angeles, where he was a Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor. He also previously taught as an instructor at the University of Michigan.

Mark’s current design-research project, Other Spacesuits, claims the Cold-War era Apollo spacesuit as the most exuberant piece of material and cultural production in history, recognizing it as one among many in an ontological genre of self-contained atmospheric envelopes–though some of them no longer resemble ‘suits’ at all–from the gas mask to the indoor shopping mall to the 24-hour news cycle. The project uses the Apollo spacesuit as a catalyst for work on three architectural, but traditionally separate, discourses: the atmospheric and interfacial envelope, the methods of design and production, and the aesthetic projects allied with every designed object.

Mark holds a Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Design-Research from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture with Honors from Texas Tech University.

Curt Gambetta is a PhD candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at Princeton and is co-editor of Attention Audio Journal, a web-based architecture journal. Prior to joining the PhD program at Princeton, he was the Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning (2011-2012) and a teaching fellow at Woodbury University School of Architecture in Los Angeles (2012-2013). During the 2000’s, he was a resident of the Sarai program of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi, India (2002-03 and 2004-05), where he was involved in a number of initiatives in new media, including moderation of the Urban Study Group e-list, coordination of a digital archive of historical documents about urbanism and other projects.

Curt’s research interests include the history and anthropology of building materials, fieldwork in architectural history and practice, the architecture and urbanism of waste management and the design of public infrastructures such as lighting and streets. As part of his research project The Assembly of Trash, he undertook a residency (How To Make Waste Public) at WUHO Gallery in Los Angeles (2014).