Designer Advisory Board

Dean Peter B. MacKeith Chair, Designer Advisory Board

Peter MacKeith is dean and professor of architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. Appointed in July, 2014, and reappointed for a second five year term in 2019, he is the fifth dean of the school and a nationally recognized design educator and administrator. He also serves as Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Campus Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas.

Over the eight years of his leadership of the Fay Jones School, the school has grown significantly in student enrollment, retention and graduation outcomes, faculty appointments and accomplishments, curricular programs, diversity initiatives, community engagements and outreach centers, external funded research, new facilities, and financial resources. He is currently overseeing the completion of an $80,000,000 capital campaign for the Fay Jones School, and guiding the design and construction of the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, a regional center for research and development of new wood products and new approaches in sustainable construction materials.

Based on an international competition attracting over 100 submissions, Grafton Architects (Dublin, Ireland), the 2020 Pritzker Prize in Architecture award recipients, have been commissioned to design the Anthony Timberlands Center, working with modus-studio of Fayetteville, Arkansas. A groundbreaking took place in late 2021, substantial construction has begun in late 2022, with completion and dedication envisioned for fall, 2024.

A nationally recognized leader in advancing the cause of a forest-centered culture and economy, and the cause of a wood-product centered approach to architecture, engineering and construction, MacKeith lectures and presents frequently on these topics, most recently for The Architect’s Newspaper, the Sustainable Forests Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, and the International Living Future Initiative. He has worked with the Arkansas World Trade Center to organize a state trade and industry delegation to Finland in 2021, to advance the state’s interests in environmental and economic development, particularly in its forests, timberlands and wood products industries, and with the production team of the PBS series “America’s Forests” on two episodes devoted to the Arkansas forests and forest communities. In 2021, MacKeith received the AIA-Arkansas Order of Merit.

MacKeith serves as chair of the advisory committee for the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, a regional initiative of the Walton Family Foundation, and is a member of the editorial and management boards of Places Journal for architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism.

From 1999 to 2014, MacKeith was associate dean, professor of architecture and associate curator for architecture and design at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1995-1999, MacKeith was the director of the Master of Architecture – International Program at the Helsinki University of Technology Finland, and he held previous academic and administrative appointments at the University of Virginia and Yale University.

MacKeith received his Bachelor of Arts in Literature and International Relations, with distinction, as an Echols Scholar from the University of Virginia (1981) and his Master of Architecture and the Alpha Rho Chi Medal from Yale University (1985).

MacKeith was recognized in 2022 as an ACSA Distinguished Professor. A 2020 Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, MacKeith has been recognized twice by Design Intelligence as a “design educator of the year” (2017 and 2019) and twice by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture with national awards for “creative achievement in design education,” for his design studio teaching and curatorial work. He is the recipient of research and exhibition grants from the US Forest Services Wood Innovations Programs, the Graham Foundation of the Advancement of the Visual Arts, the National Science Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art and The Finnish Cultural Foundation. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, most recently RADICAL PRACTICE: The Work of Marlon Blackwell Architects (with Jonathan Boelkins); Louis I.Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes (authored by Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Fjeld) and Housing Northwest Arkansas: A Challenge, An Initiative, A Response (together with Stephanie Foster); his first book, The Finland Pavilions: Finland at the Universal Expositions 1900-1992, focused on Finnish identity as expressed in the World’s Fairs of the 20th century. He has served as editor of Perspecta, the Yale Architecture Journal (issue 24, On Materiality) and The SOM Journal, a professional journal of history, theory and criticism (9: Collaboration/Teamwork and 10: Leadership/Authorship).

Since receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to Finland in 1990, MacKeith has worked as a liaison between the architecture, art and design cultures of the United States, Finland and the Nordic region, through educational programs, teaching, exhibitions and publications. He has written and lectured extensively on modern and contemporary Finnish and Nordic architecture. With support from the 2017 Finland 100 Centennial Fund, MacKeith conceived and curated the 2017-2018 exhibition for the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., The Iconic and the Everyday: Creative Finland in the United States. From 2016 to 2019, he was the Centennial Lecturer in Architecture for the Finlandia Foundation. He was curator for Lighthouses: On Nordic Common Ground, the exhibition of The Nordic Pavilion in Venice, Italy, for the 13th Architecture Biennale in 2012, working with The Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Swedish Center for Architecture and Design and the Norwegian Museums of Art and Architecture, bringing together the work of 33 architecture practices from Finland, Sweden and Norway. He has also led the organization of exhibitions and conferences in the United States with the National Building Museum; the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Brookings Institute; the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis; the US Forest Service and the US Endowment for Forests and Communities.

MacKeith served as Honorary Consul for Finland in the state of Missouri from 2012-2014, and serves now as a member of the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York Advisory Board, and as a Senior Advisor to the Fulbright-Finland Foundation. In 2014, he was installed as a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of Finnish culture.

Personal:
Age: 63 / USA national / Finland permanent resident 1990-1999
Married: Carol S. Weaver (USA national) / Daughter: Ada MacKeith (USA/Finnish national)
Languages: Finnish (very good), Swedish (reading), French (good), Italian (reading)

Dr. Kenneth Foote Designer Advisory Board

Dr. Kenneth Foote is a professor of geography at the University of Connecticut where he also directs the Urban and Community Studies Program. His research focuses on historic preservation, heritage tourism, and the commemorative landscapes of the U.S. and Europe, especially the way events of violence and tragedy are interpreted and memorialized. His recent research has also focused on the spatial dimension of racialized and gendered violence in the U.S. In addition, Foote is also known for his work in geospatial technologies, especially geovisualization, as well as his efforts to improve professional development opportunities for early-career academics and department leaders.

Among his books in these and other areas are Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (2003), the co-authored Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative (2016), and the co-edited Re-Reading Cultural Geography (1994) and Teaching GIScience and Technology in Higher Education (2012), and Aspiring Academics: A Resource Book for Graduate Students and Early Career Faculty (2009). His current project is a co-authored book on Hungary’s contested sites of memory entitled Places of the Past in the Hungarian Landscape: Contests over Public Memory in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

Foote is a past president and fellow of the American Association of Geographers (2010-11) and a past president the U.S. National Council for Geographic Education (2006). He has received major national and international awards for his research, teaching, mentoring and service from the American Association of Geographers, National Council for Geographic Education, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, and the Royal Geographical Society of the United Kingdom. Before moving to the University of Connecticut, Foote taught at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado Boulder. He holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BA Honors) and University of Chicago (MA and Ph.D.).

Mary Kay Lanzillotta Designer Advisory Board

Mary Kay Lanzillotta, Partner, joined the firm of Hartman-Cox Architects in 1989. She has been responsible for managing complex institutional and historic projects in Washington, DC and throughout the country.

Beginning with the renovation of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials over 30 years ago, Ms. Lanzillotta has become experienced in the design and approval of memorials and monuments on and around our National Mall. Some of the projects that she has worked on include the World War II Memorial, the Holodomor Memorial, and Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial. In addition, she has led the design team for modifications and additions to both the East and West Building of the National Gallery of Art.

For a decade Ms. Lanzillotta directed the renovation and restoration of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, home of Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, a National Historic Landmark and one of the most important Greek Revival buildings in America. The project has received numerous awards and is a significant project for the city of Washington, DC. She assisted Tudor Place Foundation in the development of a preservation master plan to protect and enhance the collections of Tudor Place, a National Historic Landmark. Additionally, she has worked on the Hay-Adams Hotel, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, the Patterson House, and several building by John Russell Pope including the Jefferson Memorial, the American Pharmacists Association Headquarters, and the House of the Temple all in Washington DC.

Additionally, she has worked on the restoration of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the American Pharmacists Association and The Hay-Adams Hotel, all in Washington, DC. Currently she is working on the restoration of and renovations to the House of the Temple and the National Gallery of Art. Her expertise also includes higher education projects including a renovation and courtyard enclosure for Anheuser-Busch Hall at Washington University in St. Louis, Rouss Hall at the University of Virginia, the Morehead Planetarium Addition and Renovation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Cadet Chapel, Sijan Hall and McDermott Library at the United States Air Force Academy.

She received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Virginia and her Masters of Architecture and Certificate in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduate school Ms. Lanzillotta was a US-ICOMOS fellow to the Soviet Union. She is NCARB certified, a registered architect in the District of Columbia and three states and is a LEED Accredited Professional. In 2008 she received Fellowship from the American Institute of Architects.

Mia Lehrer Designer Advisory Board

Mia Lehrer, FASLA is president and founder of Studio-MLA, an international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design practice based in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Inspired by the power of nature, Mia is recognized for a research-based design process that advocates for resilient and just relationships between individuals, communities, and our natural world. She has led ambitious public and private projects including Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium and associated public parks, Dallas’s Fair Park Community Park, San Francisco’s Levi’s Plaza, the public gardens at the LA County Natural History Museum, and many urban river-related planning projects, including the Rio Tietê in São Paulo, the LA River Taylor Yard G2 Park, and the Upper LA River & Tributaries Revitalization Plan. A native of El Salvador and educated at Tufts University and the Harvard University GSD, she and the firm are the recipients of Fast Company’s 2023 Most Innovative Companies Award, Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum’s 2021 National Design Award for Landscape Architecture, among many honors. Mia is the newest Commissioner of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power and served on President Obama’s U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 2014-2018.

Allison Grace Williams Designer Advisory Board

Allison Grace Williams FAIA, NCARB, LEEDAP, NOMA
AGWms_studio

Allison Grace Williams amassed an international portfolio of large-scale civic, cultural and research buildings in 40 years of practice as a design leader with SOM, Perkins and Will, and AECOM. Respected for her inventive instincts and design leadership, her built work bridges culture, technology, and the environment. It is a narrative on the values and traditions of their audience and place. Notably, her work includes: The August Wilson Center (Pittsburgh, PA), The Health and Sciences Campus for Princess Abdulrahman University for Women (Saudi Arabia), CREATE (in Singapore), The US Port of Entry at Calexico (Calexico CA), a GSA Design Excellence Commission, and research laboratories at NASA Langley and NASA Ames.

In 2017 Williams founded AGWms_studio as a platform for conceptual design consulting, academic teaching and lecturing, design competitions, frequent AIA design awards juries and pro bono activities. Clients include Fair Park First Dallas (with Studio_MLA), University of Illinois, Chicago (NESB, a competition won with HDR in 2022), and The Oakland Athletics. Williams is an adjunct lecturer at Stanford, chaired Harvard GSD’s Visiting Committee and was The 2021 Esherick Distinguished Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. Williams juried the 2019 COTE Top Ten Design Awards, was appointed to the 2021-2023 AIA Jury of Fellows and recently delivered the keynote address at NOMA’s National Conference in Brooklyn, NY.

Williams holds an M.Arch from UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, a BA in the Practice of Art, also from Berkeley, was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard GSD and was elevated to AIA Fellowship in the AIA 1997. Williams was awarded The Norma Sklarek Award in Architecture by the AIA California Council and serves on the Board of Directors for Designing Justice Designing Spaces(DJDS).

Williams lives in San Francisco.

Updated: February 2023