In Practice: Alumni Symposium

The speakers have all graduated from one of the programs offered at the School of Architecture and Planning in the past 10 years, and each has taken a distinctive path since. The symposium offers current students and other members of the School and community​ an opportunity to consider modes of practice within the realms of architecture and planning and at the intersection with other disciplines. 

Individual presentations by each of the speakers will be followed by a general Q+A session as well as smaller group conversations directed by current students.

Gabrielle Printz is an architect-trained researcher, writer, and designer. Her work hovers loosely around the bodied subject, and negotiates the designed interfaces between people and power. Having plotted a path from Political Science and Art History, to Architecture and its outer reaches, she approaches critical spatial practice through multiple disciplinary registers. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program, where her thesis on the layered jurisdictions of non-citizen apprehension and incarceration earned the award “for the thesis which makes the most significant contribution to the public sphere and which includes a realized component.” At GSAPP, she produced research projects for the Center for Spatial Research, Collecting Architecture Territories, and Echoing Borders through Studio-X Amman, and has edited texts and designed installations for Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, including "Footnotes on Climate" for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2016, she founded feminist architecture collaborative (or f-architecture), a spatial research and design office, with partners Rosana Elkhatib and Virginia Black. f-architecture spent its first year in practice at the GSAPP Incubator at NEW INC, an initiative of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Together, they have designed exhibitions, built scenographies for protest, written about the teenage girl, organized a delegation of indigenous midwives at UN Habitat, produced performances with artists on the streets of Amman, and exhibited their research on the objects and interiors of contemporary virginity at VI PER Gallery in Prague. She’s a co-editor of Beyond Patronage: Reconsidering Models of Practice (Actar, 2015) with Joyce Hwang and Martha Bohm. Her writing and work has appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Real Review, ED, at the Yale Center for British Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, and Nottingham Contemporary.

Maciej Kaczynski is a Project Leader in Studio Gang's Chicago office where he has specialized in cultural, educational, and adaptive-reuse projects. He currently leads the design team for the Beloit College Powerhouse, now under construction. The project will transform a shuttered, coal-fired power plant along the Rock River in Beloit Wisconsin into a student center of wellness and fitness. Past projects include Writers Theatre in Glencoe; Chicago’s Lyric Opera Concert Shell; and the forthcoming Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Prior to joining Studio Gang, Maciej was an instructor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Between classes he acted as the Assistant Director of the college’s FABLab, where he honed his CNC skillset in the company of routers, water jets, knife cutters, and robots. Aided with this digital toolkit, Maciej built prototypical vaults in stone, concrete, and wood—researching novel and historical means of making, joining, assembling. Maciej holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University at Buffalo, SUNY. He and his wife live in Chicago's north side along with the latest addition to their family, Sullivan the cat.

Quardean Lewis-Allen is the Founder and CEO of the nonprofit youth creative agency and innovation hub, Made in Brownsville (MiB), which provides a gateway for young people in his native Brownsville community to access education, technology, and mentorship to tackle underrepresentation in STEAM professions and cyclical poverty, as well as to address the need for place-based community revitalization. He has over a decade of interdisciplinary design experience working across public and private sectors at the intersection of tactical urbanism and social advocacy through community-led design.

Lewis-Allen was an Adjunct Lecturer in Architecture at CUNY City College and serves on the Board of Brownsville Community Development Corporation. He is an Emerging Leaders Fund recipient of Claneil Foundation, Crain’s Under 40, Forbes Under 30, America’s Promise Alliance’s People of Promise Awardee, Echoing Green Black Male Achievement Fellow, and Amex Ngen Leadership Award Finalist. He holds a Bachelor of Science from SUNY Buffalo and a Masters in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design.

As a Project Manager for TM Montante Development,  Daniel Crowther manages all pre-construction activities for TM Montante Development Projects. Specific responsibilities include the creation of conceptual site plans and building designs,  project pro formas,  development and construction schedules, management of project budgets, and the coordination of the design team through the production of construction documents. Mr. Crowther also assists in site selection, feasibility analysis, and new business development, and often coordinates joint efforts between TM Montante Development, Montante Construction, and Montante Solar.

Mr. Crowther is a graduate of UB"s School of Architecture and Planning, where he earned a bachelor's in environmental design and a Master of Science in Architecture with a specialization in real estate development. Prior to his pursuit of real estate development, Mr. Crowther worked as an historic preservation consultant. His work contributed to a number of successful National Register Nominations for historic structures in the City of Buffalo, most notably the University at Buffalo’s Hayes Hall. After participating in a 2016 design competition focused on redevelopment of the former Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital, in which his team was selected as a finalist, Mr. Crowther joined TM Montante Development. He has since played a key role in the former hospital site’s transformation into the new and vibrant mixed use district, Lancaster Square at Gates Circle. Mr. Crowther’s background in urban design, architecture, historic preservation, and real estate development, as well as his fluency in architectural and financial modeling has enabled TM Montante Development to expand its development portfolio and further its pursuit of smart growth and architecturally significant design.

Mr. Crowther lives in South Buffalo with wife and their dog, Luna, where he owns and operates a custom furniture design/build company out of his home, specializing in reclaimed materials.

Caitlin Donovan took a position at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2016 as a Community Planning and Development Representative. She is currently a participant in the departments’ Management Development Program and has been certified as the Program Environmental Specialist in the Buffalo Field Office. In her role, she oversees a portfolio of grantees that receive HUD funds ranging from local governments to nonprofits and provides technical assistance and oversight on the use of those funds. Through her work at HUD, she is able to ensure funds for homeless programs, affordable housing, public service projects, economic development loans and community development activities are being spent appropriately and effectively. Caitlin hopes to continue her work in the planning field at HUD by continuing to assist grantees who are seeking to improve the quality of life for citizens in their cities and towns.

Rebecca Yanus is the Director of Planning and Development for the City of Dunkirk who works with municipal leaders, planners, and developers to create a better tomorrow for Dunkirk. Rebecca attended the University at Buffalo where she obtained a Bachelor Degree in Environmental Design and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning. After college, Rebecca moved to Albany and worked as a planner for a private planning firm, Laberge Group. After working with multiple municipalities across New York State, on planning documents, grant writing, and grant administration, Rebecca moved back to Chautauqua County in order to pursue her passion of planning for waterfront communities.

As the Director of Planning and Development for the City of Dunkirk, Rebecca believes that this “Little City on the Lake” has big potential. Rebecca has successfully lead to the development of a Phase II BOA Plan and a Residential Housing Survey (Choosing Dunkirk). Her Department is in the process of completing a Comprehensive Plan Update and the Northern Chautauqua County LWRP. She has successfully obtained grant funding for public improvement projects through Empire State Development (ESD), NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, Department of State, and Department of Transportation. She is also working on multiple private projects to help developers secure grant funding and incentives for new development in the City of Dunkirk.