JOHN KRIKEN is a Consulting Partner at SOM, where he was a former principal and founder of SOM’s Urban Design and Planning Studio. At SOM, he was well known for his public planning process of San Antonio River as well as his extensive urban design work on San Francisco and his international practice (Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, et al). His approach has historically been to find the unique characteristics of a city or town and instill those traditions for the future. This place-based direction was described in his book "City Building: Nine Planning Principles for the Twenty-First Century" which was released by Princeton Architectural Press last year. He is currently a faculty member in the Urban Design Program at UC Berkeley. John was one of the original AIA R/UDAT team members and is very fond of David Lewis and vice versa. He has a B.Arch from Berkeley and an M.Arch from Harvard in Urban Design. Kriken is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and is the founding member of the 27-year-old Sunday Afternoon Watercolor Society in San Francisco.

This lecture is in conjunction with an exhibition of the work of Urban Design Associates in celebration of the 50th anniversary of its founding in 1964 by David Lewis.