Phoebe Crisman

B.Arch, Carnegie Mellon University, College of Fine Arts;
M.Arch in Urban Design with distinction, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design

Associate Professor

Phoebe Crisman is a practicing architect, urbanist and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where she teaches architectural design studios and lectures on architectural theory and urbanism. Ms. Crisman was educated at Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon, and conducted post-graduate research as a Netherlands-America Fulbright Fellow in Amsterdam. She practiced with firms in Chicago, Cambridge and Hong Kong prior to establishing Crisman+Petrus Architects in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her professional work, including the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), the Discovery Museum and Urban Bridges, has been widely published and has received numerous design awards.

In her teaching, research and practice, Ms. Crisman investigates fragmentary and overlooked places, processes and materials. She has published many essays, most recently "From industry to culture: leftovers, time and material transformation in four contemporary museums" in The Journal of Architecture (UK); “Outside the Frame: A Critical Analysis of Urban Image Surveys” in Places; and "Working on the Elizabeth River" in the Journal of Architectural Education. Her chapter, "A Case for Openness," will be published in Ethics + Aesthetics: Twelve Essays on Art and Architecture, Sanda Iliescu, ed. (University of Virginia Press, 2008).

In her design practice, Ms. Crisman explores eco-effective design strategies that incorporate complex infrastructure systems, greater land use density, site specificity and community planning. She explored these issues in the Urban Bridges project by designing a series of sustainable, high-density bridge buildings over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston. She began this agenda while transforming a 27-building abandoned industrial complex into the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) with Bruner/Cott & Associates.

Currently Ms. Crisman is designing strategies for the co-existence of waterfront industry and ecological regeneration in several projects along the Elizabeth River in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. Funded by a Virginia Environmental Endowment Grant, she recently completed a Sustainable Revitalization Plan for 330 acres of industrial land at Money Point, in collaboration with The Elizabeth River Project and the UVA Institute for Environmental Negotiation. Crisman+Petrus Architects received the 2007 EDRA/Places Planning Award for their work on the Money Point Plan and the project was featured in the Winter 2007 issue of Places.

Since January 2006 Ms. Crisman has led an interdisciplinary team of University of Virginia students and diverse community partners to design and fabricate The Learning Barge - a floating, self-sustaining environmental education field station on the Elizabeth River. The project received the 2006 National Student Collaborative Design Award from the American Institute of Landscape Architects. In 2007, the project was awarded an NCARB Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy, the Go Green Honor Award from the James River Green Building Council, and the Youth Council for Sustainable Science and Technology P3 Design Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. In April 2007 the Learning Barge team won the US EPA P3 Sustainability Award in a competition on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

In acknowledgment of her innovative teaching, Ms. Crisman received the 2007-08 Collaborative Practice Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the 2008 AIA Education Award from the American Institute of Architects.