Correspondence about School of Architecture History, T.A. Spain and Faculty

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.

Aristides j. Millas, a registered architect since 1962, holds degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from Carnegie Mellon and Harvard Universities. He taught architectural design, historic preservation, and history at the University of Miami School of Architecture for over forty years until his retirement in 2015. His expertise in historic preservation of architecturally significant South Florida buildings, his research on elderly populations in Miami Beach, and his diverse research library collection of books, journals, reports, and ephemera form a significant contribution to a variety of scholarly Florida-related topics as well as Byzantine and Classical Greek and Roman architecture and art history.

Obituary Miami Herald https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/herald/name/aristides-millas-obituary?id=31593744

Nicholas Patricios holds a Bachelor of Architecture in 1962 by the University of Witwatersrand and a Doctorate of Philosophy by the University College London, England , 1970. He was the Director of the Urban & Regional Planning Program at UM from 1978 to 2012 and Interim Dean of the new School of Architecture from 1983-1984.

Tomás Luis López-Gottardi, architect and educator, leads his own architecture firm in Coral Gables and has designed buildings and complexes such as the Venetian Harbor Condominiums in Miami and the Moscow River Center in Russia, as well as several residences in Miami-Dade County. He has directed several design competitions and is active in design research related to the South Florida community. López-Gottardi was a professor emeritus at the University of Miami, where he directed the undergraduate architecture program. He received his architecture degree from the University of Havana and has a Master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University and a second one in urban design and city planning from the University of Pennsylvania.