Dr. Lynnette Widder
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Professor of Professional Practice, M.S. in Sustainability Management, School of Professional Studies
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BIOGRAPHY:
Lynnette Widder is Professor of Practice in Sustainability Management at Columbia University. Her funded research includes work on urban diaspora and non-cultivated plant life (Columbia World Projects and the Center for the Study of Social Difference), sustainable bauxite mining in West Africa (UNDP and Earth Frontiers), earth construction and its environmental implications (SPS and GSAPP), and innovation in climate change conceptualization and communication (the Climate School Earth Networks). She is the author of Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf in Postwar West German Building Culture (gta Verlag, 2022) and co-authored Architecture Live Projects: Pedagogy into Practice (Routledge, 2014) and Ira Rakatansky: As Modern as Tomorrow (William Stout, 2010). Her non-fiction writing has appeared in the Oxonian Review, Daidalos, Bauwelt, Architecture, Manifest, Kritische Berichte, the Journal of Industrial Ecology, and The Social Science Journal; and her fiction, in Northwest Review, Blue White and Camera Obscura. She helped to ensure the legacy of Japanese-American architect Kaneji Domoto and curated three exhibitions in New York City, Purchase and Atlanta as well as winning awards for her renovation of his Lurie House. Her work has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the AIA New York Center for Architecture, the Graham Foundation, the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), Fulbright, and the UN Development Programme in Guinea; and has held fellowships from the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris and MacDowell. The work of her architectural office, aardvarchitecture, has been published in the US, Europe, China and Australia.
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As the official university partner of this year's Climate Week NYC, the Climate School has an exciting lineup of events planned for September 22-29.
PROJECTS
Only select projects listed below| Name | Start Date | End Date |
| Community-Based Environmental Impact Tracking for Bauxite Mining in Guinea | 1/1/20 | 12/31/21 |
PUBLICATIONS
(books)
Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf in West German Building Culture (gta Verlag, 2022)
Architectural Live Projects: Pedagogy into Practice (Taylor and Francis, 2014) with Harriet Harriss
Ira Rakatansky: As Modern as Tomorrow (William Stout Architectural Books, 2010)
(articles and chapters)
‘Three Windows: Accounting for Embodied Resources and Cultural Value’ in Rahman Azari, ed., The Routledge Handbook on Embodied Energy in the Built Environment (Routledge, 2023)
‘Those who Remained Amidst the Destruction: Rubble, Ruin, Repair in West Germany at War’s End’ in Kate Irwin, Markus Berger, ed, Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Taylor and Francis, 2022)
‘The Lightest Parliament in the World – Hans Schwippert’s Bundeshaus (1949)’ in Wilfried Wang, et al. ed., Theory/Practice: Case Studies in Architecture (Scheidegger & Spiess / Park Books, 2022)
‘Sustainably Growing Guinea’s Bauxite-Aluminium Industry’ with Thomas Pacioni, in Norbert Edomah, ed., Regional Development in Africa (IntechOpen Ltd., 2019)
‘Whose Modernism? The 1953 Bauhaus Debate and the Right to Define Modern Architecture’ in Cloud Cuckoo Journal of Art and Architectural History, ‘Theorizing Technology in Architecture and Urbanism’ Vol. 24, Issue 39, 2019
‘Sustainably Growing Guinea’s Bauxite-Aluminium Industry’ (with Thomas Pacioni) book chapter in Regional Development in Africa, Norbert Edomah, ed., IntechOpen Ltd., 2019
‘Using Technological Innovation and Corporate Social Responsibility to Connect Africa’s Smallholder Farmers to the Global Sustainable Agriculture Economy’ with A. Igharo and S. Merriweather, in EAI International Conference on Technology, R&D, Education and Economy for Africa Proceedings, August, 2018
‘Studies in Small Scale Data: Three Case Studies on Describing Individuals’ Spatial Behaviour in Cities’ with J. Braden, J. Ko, K. Steinfeld, in EAI Endorsed Transactions on Internet of Things 18(10): e1, http://eudl.eu/issue/IoT/3/10
‘The Will to Technology: The Image and Fact of Construction 1951-57 in Two Buildings by Sep Ruf’, in: Cloud Cuckoo Journal of Art and Architectural History, ‘Theorizing Technology in Architecture and Urbanism’ Vol. 19, Issue 33, December 2014, p. 175-90
CONTACT
NETWORK AFFILIATION(S)
Adapting the Existing Built Environment Network Bridging Scientific and Artistic Approaches Climate Imaginations NetworkEXPERTISE
architectural design and sustainable building construction urban systems urban morphology architectural and construction history wartime destruction and rebuilding in the 20th centuryFIELDS OF INTEREST
Sustainable and Low Embodied Resource Construction and Architecture; Sustainable Development; Resilient Communities; History and Theory of 20th Century Architecture and Construction
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Federal Technical University of Switzerland Zurich (ETHZ); Master of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University; Bachelor of Arts, Barnard College
HONORS & AWARDS
NY State Council on the Arts, 2023 Columbia World Projects (with Anelise Chen and Darby Minow) 2022-24 MacDowell Fellow 2022 DAAD/German American Academic Exchange, 2021-22 Institute for Ideas and Imagination, 2020-21 Fellow AIA New York Brunner Award, 2020 Washington University in St. Louis Arts and Sciences ‘Divided Cities’ Grant with Profs. Kelley Murphy and Heidi Kolk for the research project and exhibition ‘Beauty in Enormous Bleakness: The Design Legacy of the Interned Generation of Japanese American Architects’, 2020-22 Earth Frontiers Interdisciplinary Research Seed Funding/UN Development Programme Funding for ‘Community Based Environmental Impact Tracking for Bauxite Mining in Guinea’, January, 2020-December 2021 Docomomo Modernism in America Award, Restoration of Kaneji Domoto’s Lurie House, 2018 Fulbright Specialist Program rostered specialist, October 2017- 2020 The Dean’s Applied Research Award, School of Professional Studies, Columbia University, 2017 The Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, School of Professional Studies, Columbia University, 2017 New York State Council on the Arts Fiscal Year 2017 Independent Project Grant: Production of a publication on Japanese-American architect Kaneji Domoto’s Usonia Houses, 2017 SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research Program Grant), US Army Corps of Engineers (with Novel Textiles): $150,000 Phase 1 grant to complete proof of concept for a textile reinforced adobe building system, 2015-16 Core 77 Design Award: Professional Runner-Up, Strategy and Research category: ‘Making the Giraffe Path’ (with AILw), 2014 The Higher Education Academy for Arts and Humanities (UK): HEA Workshop and Seminar Series grant, ‘Live Projects: Pedagogy into Practice’ with Harriet Harriss, 2013-14 Santander Research Scholarship 2014 and Santander University Faculty Grant 2014, with Harriet Harriss, 2013-14 Graham Foundation Individual Grant, ‘Sep Ruf and the Image of Post-war Modernism: The Construction Detail as Index of Changing Paradigms in German Architecture, 1949-59’, 2011-12 The Dean’s Award of Excellence, Rhode Island School of Design, 2010 Graham Foundation Institutional Grant through Rhode Island School of Design (with John Caserta and Thad Russell) for Ira Rakatansky: As Modern as Tomorrow, 2008-10; book published 2010 DAAD Conference Award, 2008 Kyobo Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Research, Rhode Island School of Design, 2004, 2006, 2010 William Kinne Traveling Scholarship, GSAPP, Columbia University, 1990 Award for Excellence in History and Theory of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP, Graduating Class of 1990 Fulbright Scholar, Berlin, West Germany, ‘Bruno Taut and Sigfried Kracauer: Weimar Space’, 1988-89