Advisory and Editorial Board

Andrew Benjamin (Sydney)
Andrew Benjamin is Professor of Critical Theory at University of Technology Sydney, Faculty of Design Architecture and Building. He was previously Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Research in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick University. An internationally recognized authority on contemporary French and German critical theory; he has been Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York and Visiting Critic at the Architectural Association in London. His many books include: What is Deconstruction? (1988), Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde (1991), Present Hope: Philosophy, Architecture, Judaism (1997) and Philosophy's Literature (2001). He also edited The Lyotard Reader (1989), Abjection, Melancholia and Love: the Work of Julia Kristeva (1990) and Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and Experience (1993).

Sanford Kwinter (New York)
Sanford Kwinter is a New York based writer and editor with a background in comparative literature. He is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at Rice University, and co-founder of Zone Books, with Jonathan Crary and Bruce Mau, which includes the journal Zone, a serial publication of philosophy and contemporary culture. He has written widely on philosophical issues of design, architecture and urbanism and has been involved in the series of ANY conferences and publications, as well as the journal Assemblage, and was part of the exhibition and book Mutations in Bordeaux (2001). Head of Studio !KASAM, a content and communications design firm in the USA, Kwinter has published Pandemonium: The Rise of Predatory Locales in the Post-war World and Architectures of Time: Towards a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture.

Christian Girard (Paris)
Christian Girard is an architect and theoretician practicing in Paris. He studied architecture in Paris, and holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Paris I Sorbonne. From 1993 to 1999 he was Professor of Architecture at Ecole d'Architecture Paris-Villemin where he served as Chairman 1996-98. He was a founding member of the Ecole d'Architecture at Paris Malaquais, which opened in 2000, where he heads the Theory History Projects Department. In 1986 he published an essay on architectural epistemology "Architecture & Concepts nomades, Traîté d'Indiscipline" (Edition Mardaga). He has lectured in France, USA, Japan and Brazil. He opened his own practice as Atelier d'Architecture Christian Girard in 1987. The Atelier participates in competitions and has built public buildings and social housing programs. Works by the firm have been published in professional magazines. Christian Girard serves on the editorial board of Chimères, founded by G.Deleuze & F.Guattari and is a member of the Comité Technique of the FRAC Centre, Orléans. He is a regular participant in the Archilab conferences.

Stephen Perrella (New York)
Stephen Perrella is an architect and architectural essayist formerly associated with Columbia University GSAP in the role of editor of Columbia Documents and Newsline. His thesis 'HyperSurface Architecture' has gained wide dissemination in architectural literature, including having guest edited two issues of Architectural Design: HyperSurface Architecture (1998) and HyperSurface Architecture II (2000). He founded HyperSurface Systems, Inc., an internet technology design firm in 1997, which was created to explore broader architectural interfaces, and to theoretically and practically address the evacuation of the dichotomy between material and electronic surfaces in the built environment.

Christopher Hight (Houston)
Christopher Hight is Associate Professor at Rice University teaching in the areas of Architecture, Urbanism, Media, Emerging Material and Information Technology. His numerous essays and book chapters in architectural theory include "Architecture After Capitalism" Praxis 5, "Yahoo-topia: architecture at the end, of history?" in Latent Utopias: experiments within contemporary architecture (2002), "Bleeding Edges: space beyond the machine and organism" in DO: the space of extremes (2002), "Stereo Types: The Operation of Sound in the Production of Racial Identity" in Leonardo (2003), "Breakspotting: matter, signification and order in contemporary architecture." in Signs as Surfaces (2004) and "After all: Architecture Practice after globalization" in Perspecta (2004). He is a member of the do-group, an organization founded for the experimental research in design as a philanthropic engagement.

Michael Speaks (Los Angeles)
Michael Speaks (Ph.D. Duke University, 1993) is Head of the Metropolitan Research and Design Postgraduate Degree (MR+D) at Sci-Arc. He has been the Senior Editor at ANY magazine in New York, where he was also the Series Editor for "Writing Architecture", published by the MIT Press. Speaks has published and lectured internationally on art, architecture, urban design and scenario planning. A contributing editor for Architectural Record, Speaks also serves on the senior editorial advisory board of A+U (Japan) and Archis (The Netherlands), and on the advisory board of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City.

Andreas Ruby (Cologne)
Andreas Ruby studied History of Art at University of Cologne, Germany, before completing post-graduate education in Theory and History of Architecture at the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture Paris with Paul Virilio, and at Columbia University New York with Bernard Tschumi. In 2001 he established textbild with his partner Ilka Ruby, an office for architectural communication dedicated to writing texts, publishing books, organizing symposia and consulting institutions in the context of contemporary architecture. His recent publications include: Spoiled climate - The Architecture of R&Sie... (Birkhäuser, 2003), Images - A Picturebook of Architecture (Prestel, 2004), The Challenge of Suburbia (Wiley-Academy, 2004) and Groundscapes (Gustavo Gili, 2005). He has lectured in numerous schools of architecture in Europe, North & South America and South-East Asia. Until 2005 he was Visiting Professor for Architectural Theory and Design at University of Kassel, Germany. From Fall 2005 he will be engaged as Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, Cornell University, Ithaca, and the Escuela de Arquitectura, Universidad de Alicante, Spain.

Barbara Penner (London)
Barbara Penner is a Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. In 2003, she completed her doctoral dissertation, "Alone at Last: Honeymooning in America, 1820-80," an interdisciplinary work which explores the intersections between public space, architecture and private lives. Her essays have been published in several edited collections and scholarly journals, most recently in Negotiating Domesticity (Routledge 2005); the Journal of International Women's Studies, (June 2005); Architecture and Tourism (Berg, 2004) and Winterthur Portfolio (Spring 2004). With Jane Rendell and Iain Borden, she edited Gender Space Architecture (Routledge, 2000), and with Charles Rice, she guest-edited the Journal of Architecture on the theme of 'Constructing the Interior' (Autumn 2004).

Branden Hookway (Princeton)
Branden Hookway is currently a PhD candidate in architecture at Princeton University. His published work includes Pandemonium: The Rise of Predatory Locales in the Postwar World with Sanford Kwinter and Bruce Mau, "Cockpit" in Cold War Hothouses: Inventing Postwar Culture, from Cockpit to Playboy and "Games, Mapping, and Mediation" in Mapping in the Age of Digital Media: The Yale Symposium. His thesis, "Cockpit Console Cubicle", examines the interplay between organizational theory, ergonomics, and design. He has taught at Rice University and the Pratt Institute, and has worked as an architect, graphic designer, and industrial designer in Houston, Toronto, and New York.