Faculty
Jacob L. Brillhart
Jacob Brillhart’s research engages the creative search through drawing, painting and design. This ongoing curiosity focuses on the ever changing relationship between design and methods of representation and visualization. His scholarly investigation of the creative search is based on Le Corbusier’s travel drawings and into his architectural theories and built work. He teaches drawing courses in the Rome program, seminars on Le Corbusier and Theory of Architecture and the Environment, plus core and upper level research studios. This scholarly study influences his own built work through his office Jacob Brillhart Architect, P.A., which seeks to establish a dynamic building vocabulary drawn from place, culture and climate. As a licensed architect and LEED AP, Brillhart is also engaged in sustainable building practices and was honored with the 2009 AIA Miami Design Merit Award for his “Mechanical House” and 2010 AIA Design Excellence Award for the “Grass House”. In 2010, he was also nominated as a finalist for the Rome Prize in Architecture.
Steven Brooke
Steven Brooke has been a practicing architectural photographer for over 30 years. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, winner of the National AIA Honor Award in Photography, and the photographer of over 30 books. His Views of Rome, a volume of 200 photographs published by Rizzoli, was the first of its kind in over 100 years. In 1997, Brooke received a Graham Foundation grant to study the work of Giuseppi Vaccaro.
Fellow, American Academy in Rome Fellow, Albright Institute in Jerusalem Adjunct Professor, University of Miami, School of Architecture
Alessandro Camiz, Ph.D., Visiting Lecturer
Architect in Rome, graduated cum laude in architecture (Sapienza, Rome 1999), Ph.D. in History of Cities (Sapienza, Rome, 2007), attended postgraduate studies: Architectural Design and Accessibility (Sapienza, Rome 1999); Diagnosis and treatment of statical damage (University of Camerino, Assisi 1999); Solar Photovoltaic Systems: Planning and Installation (LEEE-Laboratory of Energy, Ecology and Economy, SUPSI-University of Italian Switzerland, Rome 2001). Member of Civil Protection group-Chapter of Architects, Rome, is delegate for experimentation in design at the Council for Cultural Heritage-Chapter of Architects, Rome. Expert on the subject at the chair of architectural and urban design (Prof. G. Strappa, Sapienza, Rome), research grant in architectural composition (Sapienza. 2010), member of LPA-DiAP (Sapienza), adjunct faculty at the School of architecture, University of Miami.
Has worked as consultant for accessible architecture: Project Stare Italia per Tutti (CO.IN., ENEA, Department of Tourism-Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 2000) business plan Tra Norma ed Invenzione: accessibilità e Universal Design (ENEA CO.IN., 2001) Studio di fattibilità per favorire l’accessibilità nel Parco Nazionale delle Cinque terre (La Spezia) (Tandem, 2002). Has collaborated with Sartogo Architetti Associati in several projects such as the New Chancery of the Italian Embassy in Washingrton D.C. (1993-2001) New Urban and University integrated settlement, Bologna-Lazzaretto (with R. Meyer) (2000), Search group headquarters, Hong Kong (2001), Church ad parish complex S.Volto di Gesù, Rome (1998-2006) Roma interrotta-Uneternal City, XI Architecture Biennale, Venice (2008). Has collaborated at the exhibition design of Rome Lazio and Beyond, Puck Building, New York, NY (2004). Is member since 2003 of History of cities (founded by E. Guidoni) and since 2007 of the International Seminar on Urban Form.
Founder and chair of the International Study Centre for Urban Design (1999), the International workshop of sustainable architecture in archaeological area (2007) and the Giornate di Studio Sanvitesi (2010). His main interests are on: architectural and typological theories, medieval and modern urban history, the link between archaeology, history and contemporary architectural, urban and landscape design, mainly in Emilia-Romagna, Rome and the Aniene Valley. Since 2004 has coordinated the scientific activities of the Center for Research and Higher Education, Faculty of Architecture (Sapienza) in Castel Madama (RM). Is now scientific coordinator of the Enciclopedia of Architecture, UTET, Turin. Has published papers and articles on:“Paesaggio Urbano”, “Il tesoro della città”, “Architettura e città”, “Storia dell’urbanistica”, “Dimore Storiche”, “Left”, ”Urban Flux”, “Themenos“, “Schifanoia. A cura dell’Istituto di studi rinascimentali di Ferrara”.
Sonia R. Chao
Cháo is the director for the Center for Urban and Community Design at the University of Miami, School of Architecture and a faculty member. She received her Masters of Science in architecture from Columbia University. Early in her career she worked in the offices of Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Kohn Pedersen, Fox. Living in Italy for five years, she pursued research in historic preservation and urban design, funded by the Living Heritage Fund. In 1992 she co-founded and was named the first managing director for the Center for Urban and Community Design. She was a Graham Foundation Grant
recipient for her research entitled: The Rebuilding of American Cities: in the wake of disaster. Cháo later oversaw the rebuilding of 33 historic properties on behalf of Dade Heritage Trust as their Historic Preservation Grant Administrator. Since 2002, funded by the J.M. Kaplan Fund, Cháo has collaborated on a research project, studying the historic preservation and urban design patterns of Havana. In 2004 and later 2006, she curated two related exhibitions entitled: Havana, the Caribbean City. In 2007 and 2008 she curated two symposiums related to sustainable architecture and urbanism. In 2008, under
her leadership the CUCD was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a registered architect in Florida.
Rocco Ceo, University of Miami Faculty
Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Rocco Ceo is a Professor at the University of Miami, School of Architecture. Educated at the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard in fine arts and architecture, he teaches both design and drawing, with a focus on drawing as a tool of research. In Rome his work has focused on the visual and written scholarship of Michelangelo across mediums. Past publications and exhibitions have looked at Michelangelo’s built and unbuilt work through reconstructive and speculative models and drawings that attempt to give the viewer an unprecedented glimpse of “how” Michelangelo might have conceived his projects across mediums. Additionally, Ceo has taught design courses that look at the vedutisti’ tradition of mining the lessons of Rome through drawing.
Jaime Correa, University of Miami Faculty
Knight Professor in Community Building
Jaime Correa is an Associate Professor in Practice and the Director of the Master Program in Urban Design. He is also a principal at Jaime Correa and Associates, an international New Urbanism collaborative office involved in the practice of urban design, town planning, civic art and architectural design projects of many types and scales. His firm celebrates the simplicity of American life, the uniqueness of place, the engagement of history, the evolution of culture, the distinctiveness of world geographies, our own human experience, the potentialities of appropriate technologies, and the implementation of self-sufficient sustainable developments.
Jaime Correa holds a Master degree in City Planning with emphasis in Historic Preservation and a Master degree in Architecture with a certificate in Urban Design from the University of Pennsylvania. He has a Masters degree in Metaphysical Science from the University of Metaphysics; he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Religions and Metaphysics from the Universidad of Sedona where he is involved in the research of “Sacred Geometries”. He also holds a certificate in Classical Architecture and Medieval Iconography from Cambridge University, in England.
In collaboration with Professors Jean-Francois Lejeune and Carmen Guerrero, he instituted a Summer Rome Program for graduate students in urbanism. His interest in typo-morphological studies and representation has been explored in open-city seminars with undergraduate and graduate students. His introductory courses on urban design principles and metaphysical painting prepare students to understand the complexity of the various historic layers and provide a medium for the understanding of the Italian city, its spatial culture, form and architecture. His studios have explored the reconstitution of derelict spaces in the City of Rome and the creation of public space around the stadium, adjacent to the river, and in the Roman forum.
David Fix, University of Miami Faculty
Assistant Research Professor and Lecturer
David Fix lived and worked in Italy for 20 years as a violin maker and restorer of Tuscan farmhouses before returning to the United States in 1990 to begin his teaching career in architecture. He holds B. Arch and M. Arch degrees from Yale, where he worked in the office of Paul Rudolph during his four years in New Haven, and worked for Mies van der Rohe in Chicago for the last seven years of Mies’ life. He was a principal of Pier Associates, Inc. with Phyllis Lambert in Chicago before moving to Italy. His Chronological Outline of the City of Rome and the 30 maps that will finally comprise the Layers of Rome form the basis of his teaching in the UM Rome Program. He is the principal of Ars Urbis, Inc. in Miami.
Jan Gadeyne, Visiting Lecturer
Jan Gadeyne has a PhD in Archaeology and Ancient Art History and an M.A. in Classics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain, Belgium). He also studied late antique art and archaeology at the Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster (Germany). He came to Rome in 1987 with a grant of the Italian government and studied early Christian Archaeology at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. Since 1988 he has been teaching for several American study abroad programs, including Temple University, Cornell University and Trinity College, and periodically lecturing for architecture programs, among them, University of Maryland, Kent State University, Pratt Institute and Yale University. His courses embrace Ancient Roman Art and Architecture, Urban History of Rome in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Late antique and early Byzantine Art and Architecture, Ancient History of Rome. Since 2005, he is co-director of the excavation of the Roman villa on the Piano della Civita in Artena (40 miles southeast of Rome). The title of his Ph.D. in Archaeology and Ancient Art History is “Function and dysfunction of the City: Rome in the 5th century AD.” He has published papers on Roman lead seals and Early Christian apse mosaics, preliminary reports on the excavations of the Roman villa at Artena, and (forthcoming) an article on the urban history around the hospice of San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi, near Largo Argentina. He is currently working on the publication of his dissertation and on an archaeological guide of Italy.
Jose Gelabert-Navia, University of Miami Faculty
Professor
Jose Gelabert-Navia is a Professor of Architecture and former Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami.
He has been studying Italy since 1974. He was the Founder of the Rome Program in 1990. The experience in Rome have led to the development of two specialized courses: The Grand Tour: An examination of Italian Culture which prepares the students for their travel to Italy; and a History of Colonialism in Architecture, which deals specifically with the impact of distinct cultures on each other, a phenomenon which has been particularly significant in Italy. Beyond every region of Italy, Prof. Gelabert-Navia has directed focused directed study-trips to Greece, Turkey, France, Finland and Croatia.
Silvia Maria Guarnieri is a practing architect. She is the owner for the antique family Art Studio, founded by grandfather Romeo Guarnieri at the beginning of the 1900’s. The Guarnieri Studio was the subject of a degree thesis and is also described in the Biographical Dictionary of Italians in the 1900’s published by the prestigious Treccani Encyclopedia. Graduated with honors in Restoration of Monuments with prof. Paolo Marconi, she has published many articles about traditional architecture and her studios about materials and traditional methods of construction are publish in the “Manuals for the recovery of Rome” and “Manual for the recovery of Palermo. She is in charge with public jobs planning and restoration projects for the Community.
Carmen L. Guerrero, University of Miami Faculty
Assistant Professor in Practice, Rome Program Director
Carmen L. Guerrero ,is a practicing architect and Assistant Professor in Practice at the University of Miami School of Architecture. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Miami (1990) and a Master of Architecture degree from Cornell University (1994). Since 2000 she has been involved as faculty and coordinator for the school’s Rome program and has developed special courses on 20th century Italian modernism. Recently she has taught travel seminars focusing on the role of regionalism in the design and building of contemporary architecture in Switzerland. Her university sponsored research has contributed to several exhibitions in Italy focusing on the work of the Italian Rationalist architects.
Petra Liebl-Osborne, Visiting Lecturer
Petra Liebl-Osborne is working as artist in Munich and Miami and is teaching in the realm of Fine Arts and History of Art and Architecture at various schools in Germany, Italy and the US (as Professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Munich, at the University of Munich, School of Architecture, University of Miami, School of Architecture, Conferences and workshops throughout Europe).
Her artwork focuses on projects connected to Architecture and Space; they are mainly site specific: Airbag for Venezia, Laguna di Venezia Venezia 2009; Casa Malaparte, Capri/Italy 1999 – 2007; Acqua Pietra Luce, Castello Maniace-Syracuse/Italy 2004; Art Installations in Public Space – Miami International Airport, Conc. E and F 2004; Waterspaces, Thermal Bath, Ueberlingen/Lake Constanz/Germany 2003.
Recent exhibitions include: Swimming Pools – transportable versions, Venezia 2009; Votomatic, Munich 2009; Acquatecture, Miami 2006; Private Public Swimming Pool, ArtBasel/Miami Beach/Ambrosino Gallery 2005; Berlin 2004 Award; Boca Raton Museum of Art, 2002.
Publications include: Private Public Swimming Pools, 2011; Gestaltungslehren in der Architektenausbildung, 2001; Casa Malaparte, Fixed Sites-Approach to an Architecture, 1999; Casa Malaparte- ein Haus wie ich, 1999; – articles on art education, architecture education and art historical subjects.
Nicholas N. Patricios, University of Miami Faculty
Professor of Architecture and former Interim Dean of the School of Architecture
Nicholas N. Patricios holds a PhD degree from University College London, an undergraduate degree in architecture, a graduate diploma in town and regional planning with distinction from the University of Manchester, and was the recipient of the Gresty Prize and Heywood Medal. He is the author of three books including Kefallinia and Ithaki: A Historical and Architectural Odyssey on the traditional architecture of two Greek islands and Building Marvelous Miami on the city’s architectural and urban history. He has a forthcoming book on The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium: Art, Liturgy, and Symbolism. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome during which time he carried out extensive research on the architecture and art of Early Christian churches in the city. He is the recipient of many academic, research, and professional awards, has been a Fulbright Fellow and the co-leader of an Earthwatch expedition, and is the author of over fifty articles in international and national journals. He also practices as an urban design and planning consultant. His interest in the Rome Program is in the study of urban spaces and analyses of Renaissance palazzo facades having conducted student projects comparing the façade designs of palazzi in Rome, Florence, and Venice.
Alessandro Pierattini, Visiting Lecturer
Alessandro Pierattini is an expert on traditional design, traditional and ancient italian building techniques, and heritage restoration and preservation. He is the author of Manuale del restauro archeologico di Ercolano, a book that illustrates the building techniques of ancient Roman houses. As a professional, he has been primarily engaged in the analysis, survey and restoration of monuments in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome. At present, he is engaged in the preservation project of the archaeological site of Djemila (World Heritage List), in Algeria. Alessandro holds a Master in Restoration and is now Ph.D. candidate at the University of San Sebastian (Spain). He has taught at the University of Roma Tre, Notre Dame, and Miami, and lectures across Italy and abroad. An essayist and an editor, since 2005 he directs the series “Vitruvio e i suoi eredi“ (Editrice Dedalo Roma), a collection of the main historical treatises on Architecture. He also works in visual arts (graphics, video), and has participated in major exhibitions (Biennale di Venezia, Festival du Cinema d’Annecy, etc.).
Salvatore Santuccio, Visiting Lecturer
Salvatore Santuccio was born in Rome in 1959. He’s an architect and a professor at University of Camerino in the Scuola di Architettura e Design “E. Vittoria”. He studied italian rationalism and wrote some monography about Luigi Moretti (1985), Il Foro Italico in Roma (1990), Modern Italian architectures in movie (2000), Utopia in ‘900 architecture (2003), The architecture of young fascist organization in the thirties (2004), the Palazzina Romana (2007) and Luigi Moretti all the villas (2009). He’s also a teacher of architectural drawing and a watercolorist. He wrote book in this field like Come un carnet (1997), Un quaderno finlandese (2005) and Intorno al Mediterraneo (2009). His watercolor sketches were in a big exposition in Tanger, Morocco, titled Autour de le Mediteranèe in june 2010. Actually he teaches Landscape sketching and Formal Theory at his University.
Edgar Sarli
Edgar Sarli is a Florida registered Architect. He received a Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD) from Harvard University in 2003 and his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami in 1999. Subsequently he worked as a Senior Designer in the office of Rafael Moneo in Madrid (2003-2008). In 2009 he founded 1521 designstudio with Tamar Loeb. They have won awards in Switzerland and Spain. Their project “Tirana: Filling the Gaps” has been exhibited in the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2010. Their work has been published in Arquitectura Viva Proyectos in Spain, and in Domus Web and Europaconcorsi in Italy. In the Rome program, he has taught both design studios and drawing courses. The main focus of the design studio projects has been the search for an architectural expression capable of embracing the historical context of the city and the contemporary forces that shape today’s architectural discourse. In his drawing seminars students engage the long standing tradition of “on site” architectural research and analysis through field documentation and observation. The emphasis of his latest courses has been the study of the work of Donato Bramante and Francesco Borromini.