Lisa Moffitt
BA in Architecture (Washington University in St. Louis), MArch (Rhode Island School of Design)
Lecturer in Architectural Design

ESALA, School of Arts, Culture and Environment
The University of Edinburgh
20 Chambers Street
EH1 1JZ Scotland

Room 4.10
Tel: +44 (0) 131 651 4246
email: lisa.moffitt@ed.ac.uk

Profile

My work occupies two seemingly unrelated spheres that overlap in productive, unexpected ways. On the one hand, I conduct material, representational, and site-based experiments, which currently include pinhole photography, salt crystal growth studies, analog/digital embroidery, painting "fictional topographies", and enacting traditional surveying techniques as fieldwork. On the other hand, I research environmental and ecological issues in architecture and landscape architecture. Topics currently include landscape remediation, renewable energy landscapes, energy transfer and entropy. Reciprocity between these material experiments and text-based research form the foundation for design work.

Research

My research focuses on broadening conceptions of the relationship between architecture and landscape architecture within the context of ecology and environment. Hybrid architecture/landscape strategies such as burying in or applying landscape to buildings, while effective in softening environmental impact, fail to address potentially richer disciplinary exchanges related to performance, temporality, and site occupation. Refocusing conversations about sustainability in architecture and landscape architecture to atmospheric conditions, energy transfers, and entropy creates a common vocabulary for cross-disciplinary thinking. This implies working at vastly diverging metrics (giga/nano rather than macro/micro) to those generally used by architects and landscape architects and to shifting material focus from building components to atmospheric elements.

Teaching

Good design is an essential and robust tool for addressing pressing social issues. I teach commitment to process and rigorous exploration of diverse visual communication strategies for developing strong spatial and critical thinking design skills.

At ESALA/University of Edinburgh, I teach Honours Options Studios and contribute to Technology & Environment 2 and the MSc Advanced Sustainable Design. I taught studios and seminars in architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Toronto from 2005-2009.

Practice

In 2008, I founded Studio Moffitt. I am currently completing construction management of a design-build off-grid house in rural Ontario, and working on a renewable energy harvesting competition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. I have been developing fieldwork strategies for large-scale site analysis through site installations, time-based photography, and GPS tracking since 2005.

Prior to 2008, I was a senior designer at PLANT Architect, Inc. in Toronto, Canada, where I was job captain for the Dublin Veterans' Grounds of Remembrance, the Toronto City Hall Podium Level Roof Garden, and a number of institutional and residential architecture and landscape architecture projects. I also worked at Studio E Architects in San Diego, California on multi-family affordable housing and at Hubble and Hubble Architects designing a straw-bale house in Anza Borrego Desert.

Competitions

Topophilia: Metaphysical Institute, ArtCity Calgary, Second Prize 2007
Nathan Phillips Square Redevelopment Project, First Prize (PLANT Architect, Inc.) 2007
Dublin Veterans' Park, First Prize (PLANT Architect, Inc.) 2007
Stratford Town Square, First Prize (PLANT Architect, Inc.) 2006