Ila Berman

Ila Berman, Elwood R. Quesada Professor and former Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, and Principal of Scaleshift design, is an architect, theorist, and curator of architecture and urbanism whose research investigates the relationship between culture and the evolution of contemporary material, technological and spatial practices, including issues at the intersections of sexual subjectivity, gender, feminism, and architecture. She is a featured alumna of Harvard University’s Grounded Visionaries series and the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Design, a Special Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from Tulane University, where she was a Favrot Professor, founding director of the URBANbuild program, and the Associate Dean of the School of Architecture until 2007. At UVA Dr. Berman is the founding director of the Next Cities Institute, an interdisciplinary research center focused on the design of global urban futures, the editor of its book series, and the author of a number of books and publications including Expanded Field: Architectural Installation Beyond Art, URBANbuild local_global, New Constellations New Ecologies and her most recent book Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape among others. Her design work and installations have been exhibited in many galleries and museums among them the 2006 and 2018 Venice International Architectural Biennales.