by Center for Architecture
AIA New York and the Center for Architecture have welcomed eight new industry leaders to their boards.
On December 8, five members were welcomed to AIA New York’s Board of Directors at the 2021 Board Inaugural: Benjamin Gilmartin, AIA; Angela Lufkin; Peter Miller, AIA, LEED AP; Jha D Williams; and June Williamson, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, NCARB.
In addition, three members were welcomed to the Center for Architecture’s Board of Trustees: Peter Robinson; Marquise Stillwell; and Allison Brooke Tomlinson.
We couldn’t be more excited and honored to work with these accomplished leaders in the architecture and design sphere, and will turn to them as well as the existing board members to help us push the industry forward in 2021. We invite you to learn more about each of them below!
CENTER FOR ARCHITECTURE
Peter Robinson
Parsons School of Design, School of Constructed Environments
Peter Robinson was born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in both Kingston and New York City. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University. He has worked at several noted architectural practices in the areas of design, management, and programming, contributing significantly to the success of leading corporate, cultural, religious and academic institutions.
Robinson is an inaugural board member of the BlackSpace Urbanist Collective, which demands a present and future where Black people, Black spaces and Black culture matter and thrive. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Advisors for BRACE: Building Research + Architecture + Community Exchange. Previously, Robinson served as Treasurer for the New York Coalition of Black Architects (nycobaNOMA). He has also worked with the organization in student and professional advocacy.
Robinson has held teaching positions at Cornell University, Parsons School of Design at the New School, Syracuse University, and Barnard College. He has been a guest critic at Cornell, Columbia, the Rhode Island School of Design, China Academy of Art, and Harvard. His research focuses on cultural subjectivity and the city, broaching parallels and interferences between architecture, urban design, planning, and cultural theories to engage and inform social action.
Marquise Stillwell
Principal and Founder, Openbox
Marquise Stillwell is a designer and a catalyst for building communities across design, art, and culture. His career, spanning two decades, is based on his curiosity for people and spaces and a passion for designing systems to make environments better for all. In 2009, Stillwell founded Openbox, a New York City-based design studio and consultancy that works at the intersection of people and systems.
Making products and services work better for the people who use them, Openbox applies innovative approaches to research, with people’s needs considered every step along the way. Within Openbox, he later co-founded Opendox, a film company that tells lesser-known narratives around art, science, nature, and politics. Stillwell has executive produced films including Shield and Spear, The Limestone Conflict, Marfa, and, most recently, The New Bauhaus.
Allison Brooke Tomlinson
Principal and Northeast and Latin American Regional Legal Counsel, Gensler
As a Principal and Northeast and Latin American Regional Legal Counsel at Gensler, Allison Brooke Tomlinson is responsible for multiple offices across regions. She developed the firm’s first compliance program, which acts as the foundational guide for Gensler’s business practices. She also advises global technical leaders and the Product Design practice area.
In 2017, Tomlinson was recognized by Engineering News-Record as a “Top Young Professional” for her impact in the design industry and was also named to the GC Powerlist U.S. Latin American Specialists list. In 2019, she was recognized as a Lawyer of Distinction in the In-House Counsel category.
She previously served as Co-Vice President of the New York Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute and is currently a member of The Fourth Floor, a networking community for women in leadership. She is a former board member of the Greater New York Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a former Co-Chair of the ACC’s Long Island Chapter, and former member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, where she served on the annual gala committee. Tomlinson holds a Bachelor in Architecture from University California, Berkeley, a Master’s in Urban Planning from Columbia University, and a Doctorate in Law from Hofstra University.
AIA NEW YORK
Benjamin Gilmartin, AIA (Director)
Partner, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Benjamin Gilmartin is a partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). He has been an instrumental design collaborator since joining the studio in 2004, helping lead the growth of the practice from a small studio of 12 staff to an international practice of 120.
Gilmartin was named a partner in 2015, having led the design of some of DS+R’s major works, including the redesign of Alice Tully Hall and multiple public spaces at Lincoln Center, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a key contributor on projects such as The Broad in Los Angeles, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University, the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art, and The Shed.
Gilmartin is an active AIA member and serves as co-chair of the AIANY Global Dialogues Committee. He has taught at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and has lectured widely at schools of architecture. Alongside his fellow DS+R partners, Gilmartin received the 2017 Wall Street Journal Magazine‘s Architecture Innovator of the Year Award and the 2018 American Federation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award.
Gilmartin received a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and English from the University of California, Berkeley.
Angela Lufkin (Student Director)
Yale School of Architecture
Angela Lufkin is currently a Master of Architecture student at the Yale School of Architecture, where she was the 2020 recipient of the Wendy Elizabeth Blanning Prize. While at Yale she has served as a Coordinating Editor for the student-run publication Paprika! and as a co-organizer of the Swissness Applied exhibition and the “Image Architecture Place” panel discussion. In addition to several other positions she has held at the school, she is currently a Teaching Fellow for the Senior Undergraduate Studio and a member of the University’s Title IX Student Advisory Board.
Originally from Phoenix, AZ, she earned a BSD in Architectural Studies with Honors from Arizona State University. She spent the following three years working as an urban designer at Utile in Boston, where she contributed to a broad range of projects. Upon graduating from Yale, Lufkin hopes to stay involved in public work and architectural writing while continuing to pursue the path to licensure.
Peter Miller, AIA, LEED-AP (Director)
Principal, Palette Architecture
Peter Miller is a Principal of Palette Architecture, which he co-founded with John Sunwoo and Jeff Wandersman in 2010. Palette focuses on creating built environments that enhance the experiences of people, with designs that distill the elements that bring us together. Miller has taught undergraduate design studio at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently the Co-Chair of the AIANY Cultural Facilities Committee and a member of the Design for Freedom Working Group, which aims to eliminate modern slavery in the building materials supply chain.
Miller is a registered architect with 18 years of experience in designing and implementing innovative building systems and components. His notable projects include Grace Farms in New Canaan, the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, The Paper Factory Hotel in Long Island City, and the revitalization of Forest Park in St. Louis. Miller’s work has won many design awards, including several AIA National Honor Awards and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize. His work has also been featured in many publications including Architectural Record, Elle Decor, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Miller is originally from a family of craftsmen, engineers, entrepreneurs, and tinkerers from rural Indiana. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.
Jha D Williams (Director)
Design Associate, MASS Design Group
Jha D Williams is a Senior Associate at MASS Design Group, a not-for-profit design collective whose mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. She is a Project Manager and Co-Director of the Public Memory & Memorial Lab and has contributed to projects such as the Gun Violence Memorial Project, the Franklin Park Action Plan, and the Kendall School Division II Memorial.
Before joining MASS in February of 2018, she worked as a Designer at Sasaki Associates. She received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Northeastern University and her Master of Architecture I from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught design studios at the Boston Architectural College in between her degrees. Williams is also a spoken word artist, event producer, and overall SpaceMaker for LGBTQ+ communities of color.
June Williamson, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, NCARB (Public Director)
Chair and Associate Professor of Architecture, City College of New York
June Williamson teaches and coordinates advanced studio, the site technology course, and elective seminars at the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York, where she has been on the fulltime faculty since 2008 and is currently Architecture Department Chair. She is co-author with Ellen Dunham-Jones of Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges, as well as author of many other books, book chapters, and articles.
Over a 30-year career, Williamson has practiced and taught architecture and urban design in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and Cambridge/Boston. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with Distinction from Yale University; a Master of Architecture from MIT, where her thesis received the School of Architecture + Planning’s Ralph Adams Cram Award; and an MUP in Urban Design from the City College of New York.