September 01, 2011

Bill Black is the National Director of Strategic Business Solutions at Haworth, a world-renowned manufacturer of modular, commercial interiors. Black advocates replacing systems based primarily on short-term economic gain with more holistically-considered processes that address functional, physical, and cultural issues, but also deliver enduring social, environmental and financial value. He asks, “We have had the technological ability and sufficient knowledge to build carbon-neutral buildings for 10 or more years--we need to ask ourselves why this is still not standard practice.” Black has contributed to numerous articles and books and in 2009, he co-authored “The Commercial Real Estate Revolution.”

Stern is the dean and J.M. Hoppin professor of architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. He is also the founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York City. Robert A.M. Stern Architects is highly active in Philadelphia having designed projects including the skyline defining Comcast Center and 10 Rittenhouse Square, the development of a master plan for Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, the University of Pennsylvania's McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Drexel’s new LeBow College of Business building. The firm’s contributions to the built environment also include the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University and dozens of other projects for world’s foremost universities, libraries and public institutions.

For nearly 25 years Judith Bing has been traveling through the Balkans and Turkey researching vernacular architecture. She has traced a distinctive building element, the chardak, and drawn connections between her discoveries and those made by Le Corbusier 100 years ago during his famous trip to the east.

Prior to her retirement in 2010, Bing taught for 22 years in Drexel University’s Architecture Program, focusing on beginning design as well as on vernacular and modern architecture. As Professor Emeritus, she continues her research with collaborator J. Brook Harrington. She is a former ACSA Board Member and Annual Conference Chair. For 10 years she participated in the “Mostar 2004” summer workshops in Bosnia, exploring ideas for postwar urban and architectural revitalization.