Max Underwood Professor of Architecture School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture Office: CDS 307 Phone: 480.965.5795 max.underwood@asu.edu

Academic Credentials

MArch	Princeton University
BArch	University of Southern California

Research Interests

Teaching

Great Practice
Spaces of Silence

Sponsored and Applied Research

I believe that taking an active and contributing role in ones community, assisting in the creation and maintenance of an environment that sustains and supports well being, is the responsibility of all professionals. For over 32 years as a teaching architect, my studios have under taken 36 collaborative visioning projects in the community that subsequently evolved into commissions for local professionals. Each research and design project has enabled the studio to educate the client, helping them to understand the rich potential of their project, while involving future "architects" in the real issues of contemporary practice within the local community. Highlights of our collaborative design work includes the Grand Canyon Heritage Education Campus, Phoenix Public Library, Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Kartchner Caverns State Park, Tucson City Hall, International Surfing Museum, and Desert Botanical Garden. In addition, my design-build studios have obtained funding to construct the digital orientation display in the lobby of Antoine Predock's ASU Art Museum and interactive toys for the ASU Child Development Lab.

Spaces of Silence-
Each of us has encountered moments in life that have taken our breath
away. Perceptually overwhelmed, we have paused, became still, quiet,
and allowed ourselves to be enveloped by a thickened atmosphere of emotions, distant memories and deep reflective thought. Only then could we enter this Space of Silence.

Grounded by over 14 years of international field research, first hand encounters with Spaces of Silence within architecture, landscape, the arts and literature in Asia, Europe and the Americas; and interviews with pertinent architects, artists and writers interested in silence (i.e. Tadao Ando, Ann Hamilton, Robert Irwin, Juhani Pallasmaa, John Pawson, Jim Turrell, Peter Zumthor, etc), my on-going research and forth coming book probes the essential questions, methods, elements and phenomena that combine to create a Space of Silence and its lasting impression.

>Link to photo+

Links to research and faculty pages

http://myprofile.cos.com/underwom67

http://www.spacesofsilence.com

Bio

Max Underwood is an Architect and Professor of Architecture at Arizona State University. He has a Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University and worked in the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. Known primarily as a Master Teacher, he is the recipient of the ACSA National Distinguished Professor Award, the AIA Arizona Educator Award, and has received three National AIA Honor Awards for his teaching innovations. In addition to Max's built work, he has written articles, given invited lectures, curated exhibitions, chaired symposia, and led international art/architecture and Smithsonian tours. His current research focus is investigating spaces of silence worldwide.

Curriculum Vitae