About
The A+D Museum

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019 Back To Top

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. 

We are a profoundly inclusive institution, embracing the intersections between architecture and design, and social and environmental justice.

The Story of A+D Museum

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. 

Our Museum Directors

Natasha Sandmeier
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
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.

Our Board of Directors

Roger Fricke
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
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
Ryan Hollien AIA is Vice President of the Board of Directors, 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.

Volunteers

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

20/20 Founding Sponsors

Architects

Belzberg Architects

Barton Myers Associates

Clive Wilkinson Architects

EYRC (Ehrlich Architects)

Eric Owen Moss Architect

Escalante Architects

Frederick Fisher & Partners

Gensler

Kanner Architects

Kappe Architects/Planners

Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects

Marmol Radziner Architects

Michael Maltzan Architecture

Moore Ruble Yudell

Meier Partners

Rios Clementi Hale Studios

Designers

air-conditioned

ARUP

Ashcraft Design

Audi of America

BMW Group

DesignworksUSA

Buro Happold

Chadwick Studio

Eames Demetrios

Fluidity

Garson Yu of yU+co

Greg Lynn / FORM

Imaginary Forces

Kelly Wearstler

Prologue

Karten:Design

Selbert Perkins

Sussman Prejza

A+D Sponsors 2001–2021

Top Sponsors

Alonso Construction

Broad Foundation

bulthaup

City Design Studio

Clark Construction

Collins Collins Muir + Stewart

Crisp Imaging

Gafcon

HBO

HED

Herman Miller

Cynthia Kanner

Kilograph

Legendary Partners

MATT Construction

Perkins & Will

Room & Board

Standard Architecture

Swinerton Builders

Wilson/Cetina Group

All Sponsors

ACCO Engineering Systems

AC Martin

The Agency

AMPCO Contracting Company

ARC Reprographics

Avalon Bay Communities

AXIS Fire Protection

Bapko Metal

BASE Architecture

Bedrock Company

Bergelectric

Bentley Prince Street

BNIM

Bonas Company

Boffi

Brookfield Properties 

Builder’s Team

Buro Happold

California Community Foundation

Calex

CF Stinson

City National Bank

Cleveland Marble

CO Architects

CSI Electric

Cosentino/Silestone

D. Michael Hamner, FAIA Architects

DesignGuide

Domaen

Edward Cella Art + Architecture

Englekirk Engineering

Environmental Construction Group

FOSCARINI

Fortis 19

Frinier Collection

Michelle Gamble

GES Sheet Metal

G-sMATT

Graphisoft

Hathaway Dinwiddie

Henderson Engineers

Herman Miller Cares

HKS

KAA Design

House & Robertson

James Perse

JH Minassian

John A. Martin & Associates 

Land Mark Electric

Billy Lehman + Donna Goodyear

Los Angeles Art Collective

Luminaire

Made in Space/April Greiman

Magni Kalman Design

Martin Bros.

MGAC

Miller Environmental

Miyamoto International

Montalba Architects

Morley Builders

Morphosis

Mohawk

Pacific Steel Group

Pacific Wall Systems

Omgivning

Pivot Interiors

PLUS Development Group

Prime Plumbing

Rachlin Partners

Reaveley Engineers + Associates

RELM

Rheinschmidt Tile & Marble

RJC Builders

RJ Performance

Roden Group

Dan Rosenfeld

ROTO

George & Grace Ruan

Saiful Bouquet

SALT Landscape Architects

Sasco

SCI-Arc

Shaw & Sons

Shawmut Construction

Shimahara Illustration

SHoP Architects

Sideshow Collectibles

Synder Diamond

SOM

Smith-Clementi

Steinberg Hart

Robert & Elizabeth Stellwagen

Brian & Patti Stewart

Studio Blitz

THECALIFORNIAOFFICE

Tighe Architecture

True North Steel

Duan & Valerie Tran

Universal Metro

Valle Reinis Builders

VCA Engineers

Veneklasen Associates

V/S

Walter P Moore

Webcor

Westco

wHY Architecture

Westco Service

Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design

ZGF

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