After 11 years at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, Professor John Folan has been appointed Professor & Head of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. In addition to his duties as the department head, Folan will design, develop, and initiate a new center for design and housing innovation in Fayetteville.
Folan spent a remarkable 11 years at the SoA as the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture, founder and director of the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS), Track Chair of the Masters of Urban Design (MUD) program, and member of the Remaking Cities Institute (RCI). He mentored scores of students in classrooms and studios, and the UDBS flourished under his leadership. He inspired students, professors, professionals, and community leaders to collaborate on the implementation of appropriate, affordable, and replicable design solutions that address critical social and economic challenges.
Under Folan’s leadership, UDBS received recognition with three SEED Prizes for Public Interest Design, 18 AIA Awards for Design Excellence, eight ACSA National Collaborative Practice Awards, and two AIA/ACSA National Housing Design Education Awards. UDBS was also named AIA Pennsylvania Impact Design Practice of 2018 and its work featured in the 2016 Pan American Biennial, Quito Ecuador, and the 2014 Hong Kong-Shenzhen UABB Biennial.
Folan also co-founded and was Executive Director of PROJECT RE_, a community workshop, job training facility, and fabrication center that reuses materials in nontraditional ways to build products from furniture to buildings, while providing skills development for traditionally disinvested populations. PROJECT RE_ was featured in Routledge’s Public Interest Design Education Guidebook.
Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, Folan co-founded, co-directed, and served as an executive board member of the Drachman Design Build Coalition, a university-affiliated, non-profit, 501(c)3 corporation dedicated to the design and construction of environmentally specific, energy efficient, affordable housing prototypes.
Folan’s private practice informs his work in the public interest arena on regionally-specific, appropriate, and replicable design solutions with community-vested entrepreneurial opportunities for residents. Registered as an Architect since 1995 and a LEED Accredited Professional since 2008, his body of work includes the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the National Wildlife Federation Headquarters, and the United States Embassy Compound in Nairobi, Kenya. Throughout his career, Folan has centered his research and creative practice on understanding material, productive process, and people in the translation from drawing to building.
The School of Architecture appreciates Professor Folan’s contributions over the last decade and wishes him well in his new endeavor.