Chris has practiced and taught and researched architecture for over 28 years, after earning a Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1983 and a Masters of Architecture II from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1988. His professional practice, 3six0 Architecture co-founded in 1995 has been recognized for outstanding design achievements with numerous awards, publications, and worldwide press. Chris has been a member of the architecture faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design since 1998 and has served in a professional capacity on several boards including the Capital Center Design Review Committee (current) and the Quonset Development Corporation Design Review Committee.
Over his career, Chris’ research has influenced exploration in his field of design. He has extensively investigated the geometry of sunlight and developed an internationally recognized large scale public installation translating the sun’s movement into architectonic construction. Chris co-authored research on computer modelling of structural ribbed surfaces, the work being featured at the international Design Modeling Symposium Berlin. In 2007, his research on the design of masonry units was published and presented at the National Concrete Masonry Association conference. Over the past two decades Chris has researched the impact materials have on culture and the imagination; his forthcoming book “Material and Mind” examines how physical material influences design and thought.
Chris’s work has been exhibited at the Cranbrook Academy, the ETH Swiss Technical University, The Architectural Association in London, The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, and the RISD Museum. Publications featuring Chris’s research include, AA Files, ViA arquitectura, Installations by Architects and Expanded Fields.
A dedicated pedagogue, Chris has influenced generations of students, developing and leading core and upper level studio curricula and most recently designing a new drawing curriculum bringing digital tools into a meaningful relationship with manual and empirical processes of drawing. Chris has lectured widely on the education of designers including Chinese University, Hong Kong, Washington University, St. Louis, the Swiss Technical University, Chur, Switzerland and the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China.