Nader Tehrani

Wednesday, October 4, 2017
6 pm - 7:30 pm
Hayes Hall 403

Nader Tehrani was born in England and raised in Pakistan, South Africa, Iran, Italy and the United States.

He is dean of the Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and former head of the Department of Architecture at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Tehrani is principal of NADAA, a practice dedicated to the advancement of design innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and an intensive dialogue with construction practices. The firm has offices in Boston and New York City.

NADAA recently completed One Spadina, an urban design exemplar and catalyst for the transformation of the University of Toronto's western edge on the Spadina corridor. One Spadina is designed to showcase for the city and the University and serve as a world-leading venue for studying, conducting research, and advocating for architecture, landscape, and sustainable urbanization. The firm also designed the They also completed an award-winning design for the University of Melbourne's faculty of architecture, building & planning.

For over 25 years, he has worked to motivate academic research to change practice and to test new protocols of practice in the context of academia. His own research targeted material culture as the basis for speculation—exploring material properties, negotiating materials and their geometric predispositions and challenging the means and methods of building processes.

Tehrani received a B.F.A. and a B.Arch from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1985 and 1986, respectively. He continued his studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he attended the post-graduate program in history and theory. Upon his return to the United States, Tehrani received the M.A.U.D. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1991. He received the Young Architects Award in 1997 from the Architecture League of New York.