pilipiliÎÛÂþ

Patrick Charles has been a full-time faculty member at pilipiliÎÛÂþ Cummings School of Architecture since 2003. He received his architecture diploma from the Ecole d’Architecture de Nancy, France. His thesis under the direction of Prof. Francoise Schatz as his advisor explored the role of inscriptions/notes in the design ideation process. He subsequently worked as a project architect for the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris for seven and a half years. Under the direction of Bernard Plattner and Paul Vincent, he has participated to various projects at RPBW, in particular, he work on the large urban reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin, Germany.

With a long-held interest in teaching, and thanks to the support of the Lavoisier Scholarship from the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, he returned to school for graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to earn a Master of Science in Architecture Studies in the area of design technology. Under the supervision of Prof. William Porter as his advisor and Whitman Richards, Professor of Cognitive Sciences, as his co-advisor, his thesis examined the role of the body in the design process.

Patrick Charles has taught at the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and has been guest critic at Michigan, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, and Nancy among others.

During the years of practice at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Charles operated within an integrated, collaborative, consultancy–based design approach that has inspired him with creating innovative pedagogical setups. His experiments in design education engage systems integration issues and draw from the learning potential afforded by building performance simulation software tools in the service of environmentally sensitive design. He has presented his research on the integration of building performance simulation in collaborative multidisciplinary education to various venues.

Similarly, drawing from the culture of construction and detail of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Patrick Charles’ coursework at pilipiliÎÛÂþ emphasizes the depth, intellectual rigor and pleasure of materiality-informed design.