School of Architecture

Ms. Sullivan started at the University in 1998 as an instructor in the Interior Architecture program. In 2000, she became the founding director of our School of Architecture, a position she held until fall 2007. Under her direction, the Architecture program received its first accreditation from NAAB (National Association Architectural Board) creating the Master of Architecture degree at the Academy. Most recently, Mimi has been consulting with the Academy on NAAB-related activities for our architecture program.

Amily has been with the Academy since 2002 and received her Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University, New York. Amily has worked in the industry for Gensler, New York and Saladino Group, New York, and provides design and consulting services for Step One Studio in Oakland.

Anne-Catrin Schultz has been teaching in the field of architecture and design for over 15 years. She has worked on numerous research projects and publications. Her most recent book about the San Francisco International Terminal by SOM was published with Axel Menges editions in 2008. Anne-Catrin Schultz studied architecture and urban planning in Stuttgart, Germany and Florence, Italy, and earned a Ph.D. in architecture at the University of Stuttgart researching the work of the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa. Following post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and worked for several years with Turnbull Griffin Haesloop and Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM). At SOM, she was involved in local projects like the St. Regis Hotel in South of Market in San Francisco and a large scale housing project in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco.

Anne-Catrin has taught at different colleges and universities including the University of Stuttgart, Germany and the University of California at Berkeley. She has been teaching at the Academy since 2009 and teaches onsite and online History and Theory classes.

Anne-Catrin is active in architecture preservation and is a board member of the Landmark Heritage Foundation related to Julia Morgan's City Club building in Berkeley. She is currently working on a monograph of the Jerusalem Supreme Court by the Israeli architects Ram Karmi and Ada Karmi-Melamede.

Jennifer Asselstine is a licensed architect and runs her own design office in San Anselmo. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Minnesota, where she was honored with an award from the American Institute of Architects. Ms. Asselstine went on to work for RTKL and CS&D in Baltimore, Maryland. She later moved to the U.K., where she studied at the Architectural Association in London and later worked for WATG Architects.

Ms. Asselstine has worked in the U.S., London, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Sydney, Australia on a broad range of projects, from hotel and resort design and senior housing, to an IMAX theater. The Red Cross Headquarters and Blood Processing Center, which was designed by Ms. Asselstine for CS&D Architects in Baltimore, Maryland, won a Design Award from the American Society of Interior Designers. She currently specializes in single-family housing and community design work.

Monica Tiulescu's work centers on research practice. She is designing work for competitions, exhibitions and publications. Monica is interested in systems thinking methodology as it applies to urban projects that concentrate on density and performance at multiple scales. This incorporates organization of contextual and theoretical information through demographic and behavioral analysis, and testing scenarios and variable patterns through mapping.

The work consists of proposing design speculations that are reactive to context and suggest evolving hybrid territories that interweave the context, program, spatial interaction, and navigation of information. The work is developed through computation models by utilizing a language of reactive patterns that are built from fields, surfaces, and structures.

Monica studied architecture at Sci-Arc for two and a half years and then received her Bachelor of Architecture from the Cooper Union. She then went on to receive a Masters of Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. She has been teaching in numerous architectural programs both on the East and West Coast at the undergraduate and graduate level for the past ten years. Her academic focus is design studio and contemporary theory.

Peter Benoit is a Senior Designer and Project Manager at Melander Architects, Inc. in San Francisco, working on a mix of residential and commercial projects. Peter received his Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley in May 2005. His thesis work explored the value and qualities of thick architecture. Prior to graduate school, Peter worked for two years in Boston at Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects, followed by three years in New York at Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects. Peter worked freelance over the Summer of 2004 designing an artist's residency in Kauai, Hawaii. He received his undergraduate B.S. Architecture from the University of Virginia in 1998.

Peter currently teaches Perspective Drawing & a Freehand Drawing Workshop, and has been at the Academy since Summer 2007.

Beverly Choe is a registered architect in California and principal of BACH Design, which focuses on residential design. Her academic interests lie in urban housing and its effects on the socio-economic dynamics of the city. Prior to establishing BACH Design in San Francisco, Beverly worked at architectural firms in New York City and Berlin, Germany. She was project architect for La Cocina Kitchen and Housing (AIA Merit Award) and a team member for Plaza Apartments in San Francisco (AIA Honor Award 2009, Home of the Year Award from Architecture Magazine). Her personal work has been published by loud paper magazine and Harvard Design School's Studio Works.

Beverly received a Bachelors of Architecture from Cornell University and a Masters in Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University. She has served as a teaching assistant at Harvard University and California College of Arts. Beverly has been a guest juror at Cornell University and Boston Architectural Center.

Francisco Castillo is a licensed Civil Engineer in California. He is presently working as a Senior Engineer at Biggs Cardosa Inc. in Oakland, CA and has been teaching the structural design classes for the Academy of Art University Graduate Architecture Program since 2006. In addition, he serves as an advisor in structural issues to graduate architecture students working in their studio and thesis projects.

Francisco received a Bachelor's degree in 1995 and a Masters Degree in 1997 from the University of California at Berkeley. After graduating he has spent the last 11 years as a practicing Structural Engineering in the Bay Area. He is experienced in the design of wood, masonry, concrete and steel structures and some of the projects he has worked on include: housing projects, office buildings, hospitals, theaters, police facilities, university dorms, community centers, convention centers, parking structures, car dealerships and train stations. Some of Francisco's most prominent projects include the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, the new Berryessa Station for the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) and the retrofit of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

In addition, to his Engineering work, Francisco has been extensively involved in working with minority students within the Bay Area. His work has been directed to motivate and guide minority students who are interested in mathematics, science and engineering as possible careers. Most of his work with minority students has been done through programs funded by the University of California at Berkeley. Some of the programs he has been involved with include the Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP), Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement Program (MESA), Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP), Academic Talent Development Program (ATDP), etc. Francisco uses both his professional experience and his work with minority students in his work with the graduate architecture students. His overall experience permits him to put himself in the position of the student and to find new ways to help them.

Kory Bieg received his Master in Architecture from Columbia University in New York City and his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in Saint Louis.

In 2005 Kory formed K Bieg Design, a cross-disciplinary design firm that specializes in building design, fabrication and interiors. K Bieg Design has received awards for their design work, been published widely and exhibited projects at the SFMOMA, the Architectural League of New York and the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

David Kesler is an architect and industrial designer who has over 25 years of experience in the profession. He has exhibited his industrial designs in a number of museums throughout the country and was published most recently in the May 2008 issue of Architectural Digest for a modernist pool house in Orinda.

He holds a Masters Degree in Architecture from Columbia University in The City of New York, and a Bachelors Degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He was an Editor of Columbia University's Journal of the Graduate School of Architecture.

Elizabeth Tippin is an adjunct professor teaching Architectural Professional Practice. She is an attorney specializing in legal and business counsel to several architectural firms and other design professionals. Her experience includes general counsel services such advising on business organization, contract drafting, real estate issues, employment issues, quality assurance, and business development. Her litigation experience includes mediation, arbitration and trials, and she is often selected as an arbitrator and/or mediator for construction cases. Some of the cases she has handled include:

• Design and construction: design error and omission, construction defect, surveys, delay and acceleration claims, professional fee dispute claims. Projects include convention centers and infrastructure issues of large development projects, commercial buildings including offices, schools, mixed-use projects, multi-unit residential complexes and single family homes.
• Business and insurance disputes: breach of contract, partnership formation and dissolution agreements, copyright disputes, insurance coverage and bad faith litigation.
• Real Property: land use, real estate broker liability, non-disclosure relating to buy-sell agreements, flood and landslide cases, landlord-tenant.
• Environmental disputes: hazardous waste, toxic torts, site assessment.
• Employment disputes: wrongful termination, discrimination and whistle blowing.
• Products liability and personal injury: construction products, automobile/motorcycle/ATV cases, punch and printing presses.

Victoria Fong is a licensed architect with over 25 years of professional experience in design, architecture, and planning. She has been teaching at Academy of Art University since 1998 and teaches an onsite Programming and Space Planning course as well as other graduate level online and directed study courses in both the graduate architecture and interior architecture programs.

Victoria obtained both her undergraduate degree in interior design and her master's degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. In her early career, she worked in Hong Kong as an architect/planner on hotel and mass transit projects. After returning to the US, she gained valuable multi-disciplinary experience in architecture, planning and interior design in Boston and San Francisco. She was principal of her own architectural consulting practice for over ten years. Victoria specializes in higher education facilities, medical research, health care, and commercial/office building tenant improvement projects.

Victoria is a recipient of the John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship from the UC Berkeley Department of Architecture. She served on a number of advocacy, housing and education boards to reinforce her commitment to good planning and design. She was also a member of the San Francisco Board of Examiners, a public agency that reviews interpretations of local codes for alternative materials, means and methods of construction.

Mr. Mathau has been teaching at the Academy of Art University Schools of Architecture and Interior Architectural & Design for over ten years.

He is dedicated to institutions of higher learning and believes strongly in playing a part in training future professionals in the field of design of the environment.

Mr. Mathau is a graduate of University of California and the University of Pennsylvania and a founding partner of Mathau/Roche Design Group since its establishment in 1986.

Mr. Mathau has over twenty-five years of experience in the profession in which he has successfully completed a variety of projects in the areas of architecture, urban design, project design and management and interior design. Some of his recent notable projects are UCSF Mission Bay Campus Master Plan, Elihu Harris State Office Building in Oakland, CA, Vera Long Social Science Building Mills College in Oakland, CA and SRB1 Building at UC Berkeley.

Britt Browne Hayes is a passionate instructor with an ardent desire to share her knowledge of and commitment to making architecture with her students. Her areas of expertise include the renovation of existing buildings and residential construction.

In an effort to address the complexities of the exuberant modern urban condition Ms. Hayes is concerned primarily with the sustainable adaptation of existing structures and the topic of spatial flexibility. Ms. Hayes' architectural work also explores the related themes of place making, sensory perception, memory and collective identity.

Ms. Hayes received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley. She was distinguished with high honors and awarded the Departmental Citation at her graduation in 2005. Since 2004 she has worked as an associate designer at the Marin County architecture firm Hansell Design. Her work has taken her throughout the Bay Area working on commercial, residential, and mixed-use projects in urban, suburban and exurban contexts. Project clients run the gamut from Mercedes-Benz to the musician Steven Jenkins of Third Eye Blind.

In 2007, Ms. Hayes embarked upon her teaching career. She first co-taught an upper division undergraduate architecture studio at UC Berkeley. The following year she joined the faculty at the Academy of Art University's Graduate School of Architecture. She remains active in the Bay Area creative discourse by entering architecture competitions and juried art exhibitions and frequently serving as a guest critic at nearby architecture schools, including UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, and City College of San Francisco. Ms. Hayes currently teaches the Introductory Design Studio at the Academy.