René Davids

Professor of Architecture and Urban Design
Address
341 Wurster Hall #1800
Phone
510 5323202
Email
rdavids@berkeley.edu

Office Hours
Wednesday mornings (appointment by e-mail)
Website(s)
http://www.davidskillory.com/
https://ced.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/staff_cv/Davids_CV_08_18_14.doc



Address
341 Wurster Hall #1800
Phone
510 5323202

Office Hours
Wednesday mornings (appointment by e-mail)
Website(s)
http://www.davidskillory.com/
Email
rdavids@berkeley.edu



EDUCATION
M.A. Environmental Design, Royal College of Art, London, U.K.
B.Arch., Universidad de Chile, Santiago





PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT
"My other teachers were my students whom I taught to teach me." Bernard Malamud, in Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life


BIOGRAPHY
Rene Davids (FAIA) was educated at the Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanismo at the Universidad de Chile. After winning the prestigious National Arts award in Santiago stored in the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, Davids was awarded a fellowship by the British Council to study art and architecture at the Royal College of Art in London UK. After graduating he was invited to teach at the Royal College, UK, the Architectural Association School of Architecture, U.K and the McIntosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art, UK. Davids has also taught at the schools of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Católica de Chile, the Universidad Católica del Perú, University of California at San Diego, the University of Arizona, the University of New Mexico and has been an invited critic in schools around the US and the world.
René Davids, was elevated to the college of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2008 and is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at U.C. Berkeley’s Environmental Design’s Department of Architecture and a principal of Davids Killory Architecture. Based in Oakland, California, the firm has gained national and international recognition for innovative design projects around the country and overseas. The work has been widely published and recognized with three AIA National Honor Awards for Architecture, two Presidential Design Awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and three Progressive Architecture Awards, among many other local, regional, national, and international awards.? Daybreak Grove one of the firm’s housing projects was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 10 best architectural designs of 1993 and the Los Angeles Times called Davids Killory housing projects ‘small, cheap and brilliant.” Committed to pursuing architecture as a form of design research, Davids Killory proceeds from the belief that each project can achieve a unique design synthesis.
Davids has also developed many theoretical projects. His “Plug-in Project” for the city of Valparaiso, which he entered with one of his students, Taylor Medlin, won the first prize at Shinkeshiku-sha International Design competition in Tokyo, Japan in 2008. The work of Davids Killory Architecture has been shown in over twenty exhibitions and included in one hundred sixty books, journals and newspapers; Davids has lectured on the work of the firm at over sixty professional, academic, and arts institutions worldwide.
With Christine Killory, Professor Davids co-edited the AsBuilt series published by Princeton Architectural Press which explores interrelationships among architectural forms, materials, and technologies; three volumes have been published: AsBuilt 1: Details in Contemporary Architecture (2007), AsBuilt 2: Detail in Process (2008), and AsBuilt 3: Details Technology and Form?(2012); the series was supported in part by a grant from the Graham Foundation. The City Review has qualified the books in the series as a “non-nonsense books about a lot of sensational and wonderful projects that are filled with fabulous photographs and drawings and good technical commentary."
Davids has also edited and substantially contributed to Shaping Terrain: City Building in Latin America?(University Press of Florida, Spring 2016). Research for the book was supported in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the Fulbright Specialist Program. The?Journal of Latin American Geography in reviewing the book points out that Latin American urban aesthetic in Shaping Terrain: City Building in Latin America adapted to the contours of both natural and social landscapes in the New World sets the stage for a series of well-crafted essays, each one easily standing alone as a case study of a particular architectural form in a specific urban setting. Collectively, they remind the reader of the very premise of geographical space, of site and situation, and elaborate on topographical and human imperatives influencing the landscape”. Davids has also written articles that have appeared in Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, The International Journal of the Constructed Environment and Places Magazine among other publications.
Professor Davids’s graduate and undergraduate studio courses and seminars feature intensively researched programs based on themes engaging the urban landscape and its infrastructure, architectural form, materials, and technology, often in international settings such as Mexico City; S?o Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Santiago de Chile, Seoul, Korea and Dessau and Berlin, Germany all sites that he has visited with students. Design work produced in Professor Davids’ studios and seminars have been published in books and online, and students have received many design and research awards for his course-related projects.


COURSES TAUGHT
ARCH 100A Fundamentals of Architectural Design
ARCH 100B Fundamentals of Architectural Design
ARCH 101 Case Studies in Architecture
ARCH 109X: Architecture and Landscape Design Built (Undergraduate Seminar)
Arch 200 A (Graduate Design Studio)
ARCH 203? Integrated ?Studio (Graduate Studio)
ARCH 205 (ex.202A) Studio Thesis Option
ARCH 262 Seminar in Architectural InDetail (Seminar)
ARCH 204 ( ex-209C) Final Project Preparation Seminar. (Thesis prep)
ARCH 209?Landscape/Architecture/ Infrastructure/Urbanism (Seminar)
ARCH 219X Architecture and Identity: Latin America (Seminar))
ENV DES 201 Urban Design Studio (MUD Program)
ARCH 209? Relating Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Graduate Seminar)
ARCH?209 Housing as a Design Generator (Seminar)
ARCH 100 D (Undergraduate Studio)
ARCH 200 B? Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)
ARCH 201?Architecture in an Urban Context (Graduate Studio)
ARCH 100 C?(Undergraduate Studio)
ARCH 200 A??Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)
ARCH 202( ex-Arch 201) Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)


AWARDS & RECOGNITION
National Awards
Elevated to the College of Fellows American Institute of Architects 2008
President's Award Metal Construction Association Annual Design 2004
Metal Construction Association Awards Program
Progressive Architecture Citation for


Work








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