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Phoebe Crisman

Faculty, School of Architecture, Global Studies

Phoebe Crisman AIA is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where she teaches design studio and courses on sustainability, architectural theory and urbanism. Crisman also directs the interdisciplinary Global Studies - Environments + Sustainability major in UVA’s College of Arts & Sciences. She is a Registered Architect and Urban Designer with Crisman+Petrus Studio. In her creative practice, scholarship and teaching, she focuses on designing sustainable relationships between specific cultures and environments. Working in overlooked places and with people underserved by design, Crisman investigates how intertwined socio-economic revitalization and environmental restoration can create more resilient and just communities. Over the past twelve years, she has collaborated with public agencies, NGO’s and disadvantaged communities on brownfield and coastal resilience projects in the Hampton Roads region and beyond. Crisman specializes in public collaborative design and has realized several projects with UVA students. She led a multidisciplinary collaboration of faculty, students, and community partners to design and build the Learning Barge—a floating, off-the-grid field station. Completed in Fall 2009, the Learning Barge provides innovative sustainability education to schools and the public. Currently Crisman leads a collaborative UVA research team designing resilient strategies for sea-level rise mitigation in Norfolk. She has received over 30 major awards for her work, including the AIA Education Honor Award, US EPA P3 Sustainability Award, ACSA Collaborative Practice Award, JAE Best Design as Scholarship Article Award, and several NEA, NOAA, and EPA grants. Her recent publications include book chapters and articles are published in Transgression: Towards an Expanded Field of Architecture, Peripheries, The Hand & the Soul: Essays on Ethics and Aesthetics, Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures, Arhitectura and The Journal of Architecture. Crisman’s co-edited books include Global Sustainability (Cognella, 2014) and The Value of Design (ACSA Press, 2009). She has delivered over sixty peer-reviewed conference papers and presented over seventy invited presentations ranging from a US congressional briefing to diverse academic and professional events. Crisman is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects Virginia and the Advisory Council of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Crisman co-chairs the University of Virginia Committee on Sustainability.

School: 
Architecture