About - A+D Museum

About

The A+D Museum explores the definitions of architecture and design, from the conceptual to professional practice. We embrace the themes of technology, art, scale, and urbanism. A+D guides our community through the complex effects design has on our lives and the world around us.

Mission + History

THE ORIGIN

A+D was founded by Stephen Kanner, Joe Addo, and Bernard Zimmerman in January 2001 and first opened our doors in the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles. Since then, we have had the privilege of getting to know diverse communities on the East and West sides of the city through our subsequent homes.

IN SPACE

In 2015, we moved to Downtown LA’s Arts District, an environment that informed the experimental nature of our programming. The pandemic pushed us to question how a museum transcends its physical boundaries, continues to evolve as an institution with societal needs. The shift to a hybrid model comes as a natural progression of the museum’s history as an itinerant space.

TODAY

In 2020 A+D Museum restructured the institution as a hybrid platform, both physical and digital, becoming more accessible and far-reaching than ever. Our interactive online presence gives us the opportunity to host programs across the globe. Through exhibits, symposia, multi-disciplinary projects, educational and community programming, A+D serves as a platform for contemporary issues in architecture and design that shape our built environment and our everyday experience.

Leadership

MUSEUM DIRECTORS

Natasha Sandmeier

Executive Director

Natasha Sandmeier is the Executive Director of the A+D Museum. She is a designer and educator whose work and research straddle the worlds of architecture and storytelling – with a focus on the role of media within the creation and production of speculative architectures and environments. She is an educator and leads the postgraduate Entertainment Studio at UCLA Architecture & Urban Design. She is an architect and founding partner of OUR, and the author and editor of Little Worlds (London, 2014); a monograph of projects and essays re-examining the role of the architect within contemporary architectural culture.

Camille Elston

Managing Director

Camille Elston is the Managing Director of the A+D Architecture and Design Museum. She is a Southern Californian based designer, placemaker, and artist focused on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ intersectionality in placemaking, conservation, and media. Camille received her M.HC from USC in Heritage Conservation and her BFA in Graphic Design with a minor in Art History from Cal Poly Pomona. She has acted as a Gamble House Scholar-in-Residence and is a 2021 ARCUS Leadership Program Fellow.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Roger Fricke

President, Board

Roger Fricke, LEED AP, is the President of the Board of Directors and is a retired Vice President of Clark Construction Group. He is a collaborative and innovative leader possessing technical knowledge and experience put to practice on a wide variety of complicated and architecturally significant buildings.

Nancy Levens

Chair, Board of Directors

Nancy Levens, Assoc. AIA, is the Chair of the Board of Directors and is a business development and marketing consultant for the architecture and design professions. She is both strategic and tactical, from the creation of big-picture market and business plans, to providing guidance on day-to-day, actionable objectives. Nancy's background in design, management, and museum operations adds value to her role as Board Chair, where she partners continually with a spectrum of design, construction, real estate and development colleagues toward the achievement of Museum goals.

Ryan Hollien

Vice President, Board of Directors

Ryan Hollien AIA is Vice President of the Board of Director, Past Chair of the Programs Committee, and started his involvement with A+D as a volunteer. Ryan is a Senior Designer with Perkins & Will and practiced for over a decade at Polshek Partnership and Ennead Architects. Over the course of his career, he has focused on working at a variety of project scales and typologies while exploring how architecture and design can contribute to the public realm.

John Dale

Legacy Board Member

John R. Dale, FAIA, LEED AP, is a legacy member of the Board of Directors and has previously served as Board President. He is currently the Principal and Sector Leader of HED. John has been planning, programming and designing educational environments for over 25 years. By defining small learning communities which boost student achievement and galvanize community involvement, he creates high performance learning environments that are widely recognized models of regional and national significance. John also promotes green schools. Building on evidence-based research, he puts in practice the theory that students are healthier and learn more effectively in sustainable, resilient environments.

Farooq Ameen

Legacy Board Member

Farooq Ameen, AIA, RIBA, is a legacy board member and the Founding Principal at City Design Studio, an architecture and urban design practice dedicated to revitalizing communities. He is the author of numerous publications that include deCoding Asian Urbanism, Fifty Under Fifty, Innovators of the 21st Century, and The South Asian Paradigm. Ameen has held academic appointments at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Los Angeles / Lugano), Calpoly Pomona, and Woodbury University, among others. He has lectured widely, including at the Bauhaus, Harvard, Columbia, Xian University, and UCLA. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Open Building.

Frank Clementi

Board Member

Frank Clementi, FAIA, AIGA, is a member of the Board of Directors and is the co-founder of Smith-Clementi. Frank has spent his professional lifetime exploring the ways design disciplines inform one another in the related fields of landscape architecture, graphic design and product design to create unique and holistic environments. He embraces the particular ecology of a specific place, its people, and their history, to deliver culturally relevant and cohesive experiences for all users.

Keely Colcleugh

Board Member

Keely Colcleugh is a member of the Board of Directors and is the CEO and founder of Kilograph. Keely is interested in creative storytelling and its effect on spatial perspective, both conceptually and in practice. Through experiments in visual narrative and emerging technologies, she is creating work that connects viewers with both the unbuilt and the built environments in more meaningful and memorable ways.

Eames Demetrios

Board Member

Eames Demetrios is a legacy member of the Board of Directors and is the Director of the Eames Office. He wears many different hats, but he is best known in the design world for spearheading the successful re-discovery of the Charles and Ray Eames design heritage by new generations. The mission of the Eames Office is communicating, preserving and extending the work of Charles and Ray Eames. In addition, Demetrios is an artist and filmmaker. His current large-scale project, Kcymaerxthaere, is a multi-pronged and ongoing work of 3 dimensional fiction and has been underway for 11 years.

Peter Himmelstein

Executive Director

Peter’s office in New York, Peter Himmelstein Architect, completed numerous residential and commercial spaces including townhouse renovations, lofts, single-family homes, and office interiors. In addition, he was Studio Director at the Rockwell Group where he led the collaboration with DS+R on the vast, innovative performance space, The Shed, and the adjacent residential tower, 15 Hudson Yards. Peter moved to Los Angeles in 2014 and, as Design Director at Gensler, was the principal designer of several large scale projects including multiple new buildings at Sunset Gower Studios, a commercial tower at 401 S. Hewitt in the Arts District and the renovation of the California Market Center (CMC) for Brookfield Properties. Peter established THECALIFORNIAOFFICE in 2020 with his partner, Jeff Soler.

Silvia Kuhle

Board Member

Silvia Kuhle, AIA LEED AP, is a member of the Board of Directors and is a founding principal of Standard Architecture . She received her diploma in architecture from the Technische Universität in Darmstadt, Germany and her Master of Architecture from Columbia University in New York. She also worked with Morphosis Architects for more than ten years. As Project Manager and Principal of Standard, she managed a broad range of award winning educational, institutional, governmental, cultural and residential projects.

Brian Stewart

Board Member

Brian K Stewart is a member of the Board of Directors and is an Attorney at Collins+Collins, LLP. Brian is a trial attorney at the firm’s South Pasadena office and is the firm’s managing partner. He represents professionals in all aspects of their practice with an emphasis in representation of design professionals, including contract review and negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and trial.

Lia Tatevosian

Board Member

Lia Tatevosian is a member of the Board of Directors and is the Division Manager for the Orange County & Los Angeles Special Projects Division of Swinerton. Lia brings over 24 years of experience in the construction industry and over 22 years with Swinerton, starting her career here as a field Project Engineer in May 1996. After serving a variety of roles within our organization including Project Executive and Chief Estimator, Lia has spent the past five years as Swinerton OCLA’s Operations Manager. Lia also serves on the Board of Directors of The Swinerton Foundation.

Scott Baker

Board Member

Scott Baker, a voracious advocate of urbanism, seeks to engender public life in cities across America. As the President of RELM, a Los Angeles-based landscape architecture and urban design studio, he has championed landscape architecture’s role in cultivating community, ensuring public realms are indeed public—rendering true benefit for neighborhoods and users alike. His work across Southern California is compelling. Commissions include the Los Angeles Police Headquarters, Wilshire Grand, USC’s University Village, and District NOHO, LA Metro’s largest P3 transit development. Over his career, Scott has realized various landscape typologies: mixed-use, TOD, hospitality, civic, multi-family and education projects.

Kristen Geier

Board Member

Kristen’s experience as a docent at the A+D Museum many years ago helped her to realize her design interest in the world of architecture. Now, as an interior designer, her experience includes dynamic communal workplaces, socio-economically diverse multi-tenant residential buildings, and academic and administrative higher education facilities. Kristen has worked on several historical building projects requiring contextual understanding and finding success with interfacing with the city itself. She enthusiastically shares in the mission of creating and promoting architecture and design in everyday life and the value in bringing awareness to this talented community.

Contact

Have a question for us or want to reach out? Please get in touch with our team via the form here.

Please also reach out at info@aplusd.org

The A+D Museum gratefully thanks the following sponsors, patrons, and volunteers for their generous support.

Volunteers

Landy Yichen Niu
Mark Malan
Darwin Hu
Bixuan Zhang
Mira Singh
Veronica Scupine
Shreya Satodia

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The A+D Museum explores the definitions of architecture and design, from the conceptual to professional practice. We embrace the themes of technology, art, scale, and urbanism. A+D guides our community through the complex effects design has on our lives and the world around us.

Mission + History

Leadership

Natasha Sandmeier

Executive Director

Camille Elston

Managing Director

Roger Fricke

President, Board

Nancy Levens

Chair, Board of Directors

Ryan Hollien

Vice President, Board of Directors

John Dale

Legacy Board Member

Farooq Ameen

Legacy Board Member

Frank Clementi

Board Member

Keely Colcleugh

Board Member

Eames Demetrios

Board Member

Peter Himmelstein

Executive Director

Silvia Kuhle

Board Member

Brian Stewart

Board Member

Lia Tatevosian

Board Member

Scott Baker

Board Member

Kristen Geier

Board Member

Contact

The A+D Museum gratefully thanks the following sponsors, patrons, and volunteers for their generous support.

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