The Architecture of Place: In Conversation with Tiffany Abernathy

The ICAA, INTBAU, and The King's Foundation are pleased to continue their collaboration with The Architecture of Place: In Conversation with..., a series of interviews featuring three architects and scholars from different backgrounds and points of view: John Smylie, Tiffany Abernathy, and Dr. Patricia Canelas. Over the three-part series, each speaker has the chance to play the role of both interviewer and interviewee. In each installment, one of the three architects interviews another about the influences, experiences, and projects that have led to their design perspective on the architecture of place. At the end of each session, students from partnering university departments pose additional questions to the speakers, followed by an open Q&A with attendees.

In this iteration of the series, John Smylie interviews Tiffany Abernathy about her professional work, design background, and scholarship.

Tiffany Abernathy is an architect and educator, has served as Director of US Projects at John Simpson Architects since 2014, and runs her own multi-disciplinary design consultancy, Forms Qua Objects.

She holds degrees from the University of Miami (BArch) and the University of Notre Dame Graduate School of Architecture (MArch), a postgraduate diploma from The Architectural Association (GradDiplCons AA) and Part 3 from The Bartlett School of Architecture (ARB/RIBA, passed with commendation). Her master’s thesis focusing on the rehabilitation of the San Isidro neighbourhood in Havana, Cuba won a Tinker Pre-Dissertation Award from the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and contributed to a fellowship to study the Seventh Century Temple on Temple Hill in Ancient Corinth, Greece under Professor Emeritus Robin Rhodes.

Her professional experience ranges from artist in residence in the Bahamas to involvement in large-scale urban design projects, campus masterplans, and landmark buildings in the UK and abroad. Having moved to London to work for Porphyrios Associates in 2003, she later joined John Simpson Architects (JSA). In 2005, she received the inaugural Rieger-Graham Prize from the ICAA and completed her Affiliated Rome Prize Fellowship the following year (AFAAR ‘07).

Tiffany has worked on 35+ major projects for JSA and coordinated three publications on the firm over the past twenty years. She is licensed to practise in the state of New York and Indiana, is an AIA member and RIBA Chartered Member, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Society of Fellows at the American Academy in Rome, and the INTBAU College of Traditional Practitioners.

Tiffany was an inaugural Michael C. Duda Visiting Professor of the Practice at the University of Notre Dame in Spring 2021, was awarded Undergraduate Educator of the Year for the 2021-2022 Academic Year and has continued as part of the fifth-year thesis faculty. She was appointed to INTBAU’s Board of Trustees in April 2023 and has taught several undergraduate/graduate design studios for Notre Dame’s School of Architecture and Rome Studies Program. Tiffany was appointed Summer Studio Lead at the new Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture (CSCA) at the University of Cambridge in 2022 and 2023, and will continue to teach in Sweden and Cambridge in Summer 2024.

Tiffany is currently collaborating on two independent ‘regenerative culture’ initiatives involving education and the nature of transatlantic cities—specifically the exchange and achievements in the US and Europe —as well as an interdisciplinary research lab incorporating documentation and design (R+D).

Presented as part of The Richard H. Driehaus Curricula for the Built Environment at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The ICAA is very grateful to The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for its generous support of this program.

Tags: architecture of place, recorded event, architecture of place in conversation with, world of classicism, sustainability