Education: B.Arch., Carnegie Mellon University; M.Arch./U.D., Harvard University

Background: Phoebe Crisman is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and principal of Crisman+Petrus Architects. She currently teaches Architectural Design Studios and Arch 308/508: Architectural Theory + Analysis. While practicing with architectural firms in Cambridge, Hong Kong, Chicago and Washington, D.C. she designed cultural, commercial and residential architecture and urban design projects. Professor Crisman's teaching, research and practice investigates the intersection of architecture and urbanism - a narrow, yet expanding space between two academic and professional disciplines. Rather than accept the increasingly marginalized position of architecture due to globalization, environmental concerns, rapid urbanization, and the loss of place within the contemporary American landscape, her work seeks to develop a theoretical basis and specific architectural strategies for difficult urban conditions.
Crisman investigated concepts of urban and architectural palimpsest, terrain vague, interpretive openness and hybridization in the transformation of a 27-building landmark mill complex into the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), while she was project manager and senior designer with Bruner/Cott Associates. The project has received numerous awards, including an AIA National Honor Award, and a National Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. MASS MoCA started a research agenda that she pursued in Amsterdam during a Netherlands-America Fellowship, and now continues with a focus on linear indeterminate spaces within the morphological continuity of densely structured American cities. Her creative work with Crisman+Petrus Architects, "Interstices: architectural appropriation of transportation infrastructure in the post-industrial city center," was recently published and exhibited. Professor Crisman also lectures and publishes on changing conceptions and representations of urban space, and possible relationships between architectural theory and design practice.