Interview Jacob Brillhart, 5 October 2016

Gilda Santana joined the faculty of the University of Miami Libraries in 2007 as Head of Architecture Information and Resources to direct the Paul Buisson Architecture Library. She led the expansion and redesign of the library now called the Architecture Research Center (ARC) in 2018. Her research interests include facilitating the culture of design research through studio embedded-librarianship and the evolution of digital humanities in architecture and the arts. In 2013 she became the Librarian for Art & Art History. Santana has a Master of Science in Architecture from the School of Architecture, University of Miami, a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a Bachelor of Art from Bard College where she majored in Art History. She actively serves in the Association of Architecture School Librarians (AASL) and the Art Libraries Association of North America (ARLIS).

Jacob Brillhart’s research engages the creative search through drawing, painting and design. This ongoing curiosity focuses on the ever changing relationship between design and methods of representation and visualization. His scholarly investigation of the creative search is based on Le Corbusier’s travel drawings and into his architectural theories and built work. He teaches drawing courses in the Rome program, seminars on Le Corbusier and Theory of Architecture and the Environment, plus core and upper level research studios. This scholarly study influences his own built work through his office Jacob Brillhart Architect, P.A., which seeks to establish a dynamic building vocabulary drawn from place, culture and climate. As a licensed architect and LEED AP, Brillhart is also engaged in sustainable building practices and was honored with the 2009 AIA Miami Design Merit Award for his “Mechanical House” and 2010 AIA Design Excellence Award for the “Grass House”. In 2010, he was also nominated as a finalist for the Rome Prize in Architecture.