CNU 17 (June 10-14, 2009) Denver, CO

Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, FAIA, LEED AP, is Malcolm Matheson Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Master of Urban Design Program. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine. She was dean of the School of Architecture 1995-2013. She teaches courses on urban design and built environment adaptation to climate change.
Plater-Zyberk has collaborated with faculty across the University including recently with Engineering colleagues researching net-zero water management in buildings. She is a member of the UM Built Environment Behavior and Health Research Group, working with Miller School faculty on projects researching the well-being of children and elders’ relation to characteristics of the built context in which they live. As a consultant with DPZ Partners, she has worked with healthcare systems in Richmond and Chicago on the design of their campuses and community surroundings.
Plater-Zyberk is recognized as a leader of the movement called the New Urbanism, promoting walkable resilient urban design. A co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism in 1992, her teaching, research and consulting professional practice has ranged across new community design, community rebuilding, regional plans and zoning codes. A number of innovations in professional practice, such as the traditional neighborhood design zoning code (TND), were initiated with students in School of Architecture design studios and first implemented through community outreach in South Florida. Recent professional projects include the design of the University President’s house and the City of Miami Zoning Code, Miami 21.
Plater-Zyberk’s publications include refereed journal articles and book chapters. She is co-author of Suburban Nation: the Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (over 85,000 sold), and The New Civic Art: Elements of Town Planning. Her work, with Andres Duany and DPZ Partners, has received numerous awards and recognitions including honorary degrees, Architectural Record’s first Women in Architecture Award, and the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture. She has served on numerous review and editorial panels, including the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

DPZ was founded in 1980 by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk as an architectural practice. Identifying the deficiencies of the suburban context for their early buildings led to a rediscovery of neighborhood structure and influenced the design of Seaside, acclaimed for its traditional town plan, streetscapes and buildings.
Recognizing the need for an alternative to suburban zoning, the firm proposed a re-integration of urban components with the Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) in 1990. The TND became a model regulation for compact mixed-use neighborhood design, informing hundreds of municipal ordinances throughout the country.
With several new communities well underway, Duany and Plater-Zyberk joined contemporaries to found the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) in 1993. CNU’s charter, annual meetings and numerous policy initiatives, are guiding an international movement of sustainable urban growth and community design. The firm’s subsequent initiatives have generated documents that reflect DPZ’s commitment to ‘open source’ – the Lexicon, SmartCode, Transect, Lean Urbanism, Sprawl Repair, Light Imprint, among them.