Gerhard Schmitt

Gerhard Schmitt was born in 1953. He is Vice President of ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Professor for Information Architecture. 

As Vice President for Planning and Logistics, he directs the development of ETH’s strategy and planning, in cooperation with the 15 scientific departments and the central administration. He is responsible for Human Resources and for providing the infrastructure for ETH’s 8’000 employees and 12’700 students in more than 200 buildings on two major campuses. In 2000, he initiated the development of a third, virtual campus, named ETH World with an international master plan competition. It provides the information infrastructure for learning and teaching, research and services. It has become since then Switzerland’s largest wireless LAN. In 2003, he initiated the concept for Science City, ETH’s new campus in Zurich; in 2004, the development of the master plan, and in 2006 an international competition for the best integrated urban scale sustainability concept.

As Professor, Gerhard Schmitt established the Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) curriculum, research program and infrastructure at ETH since 1988. He now concentrates on the definition and design of information architecture and knowledge visualization. With his PhD students, he systematically researches and develops aspects of this emerging field. In his previous teaching at ETH, his courses in design computing and programming placed emphasis on new design methods and media. His research focused on the development of intelligent design support systems, using artificial intelligence methods. He was instrumental in the definition of the Blue-C research project at ETH, a next generation Virtual Reality Environment. 

He taught Computer-Aided Architectural Design and conducted CAAD research at Carnegie Mellon University from 1984 to 1988. He was Visiting Professor at the GSD at Harvard University in 1993 and 1994, at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, at DTU, the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby and at the Technical University of Delft. Major research and academic contacts exist with MIT, Sydney University and EPF Lausanne. 

He was Dean of the Faculty and Department of Architecture at ETH 1994-1996, president of ETH’s Informatics Commission 1989-1997, and president of the Swiss Computer Graphics association 1996-1998. He is vice president of the board of the HMT, the Zurich Academy for Music, Theater and Ballet, and past president of the foundation board of the Studienzentrum Pfäffikon, a distance learning university institute. 

Gerhard Schmitt has authored numerous articles and several books, the latest being Information Architecture, Architektur mit dem Computer, and Architectura et Machina. He received  the Doktor-Ingenieur and Diplom-Ingenieur Degrees from the Technical University of Munich and the Master of Architecture Degree from the University of California in Berkeley.

   Thomas Regan

Tom Regan was appointed dean of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University in November 1998.  Prior to this appointment, he served as dean of colleges of architecture in three major universities during his thirty eight-year career as a professor and administrator. Regan was the dean of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction at his alma mater, Auburn University, from 1995 until joining Texas A&M.  Under his leadership at Auburn, the School of Architecture was elevated to college status, and differential tuition for information technology was initiated for all undergraduate programs.  Regan was the third dean of the School of Design at North Carolina State University, beginning his tenure there during the l989/90 academic year.  He was the founding dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami in 1984.  Regan received his undergraduate professional degree in architecture from Auburn University and his graduate degree from the Architectural Association Graduate School in London, England; he has practiced architecture in Alabama, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

 Dean Regan served on the faculty of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech for fifteen years, and held administrative appointments there as director of Foundation Studies and assistant dean for the Division of Architecture and Environmental Design.  He was instrumental in creating an off-campus unit of the College, the Washington-Alexandria Center, and became its first director.  While at Virginia Tech, he was selected twice for the Excellence in Teaching Award by his colleagues, won the Wine Award for Outstanding Teaching, which is awarded to three university faculty members annually. He also chaired the University Academy of Teaching Excellence.   

 Dean Regan is affiliated with numerous professional, educational, and community organizations. He has been a member of 18 national accreditation teams for professional programs in architecture and landscape architecture in the U.S. and Canada.  Regan served as national president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, was a member of the board of directors of the South Florida and North Carolina chapters of the American Institute of Architects, and has been on the boards of numerous community groups. He has been appointed as a consultant on design education for the states of Ohio and Maryland.   As co-principal investigator on a major research project for the Alabama Department of Education, he assisted in developing a process to improve the design and construction of K-12 school facilities throughout that state.

 Design education, visual languages, and design methodology are the major areas of Dean Regan's research.  His graduate courses in design methods combine strategies from painting, literature and the cinema and propose design processes from the perspective of information theory.  He has made presentations at dozens of universities in the U.S., Japan, China, the Czech Republic, Canada, Great Britain, and the Caribbean as well as at numerous scholarly and professional meetings. Regan often serves as a juror for design competitions and design awards programs at both state and national levels, including an appointment as a design competition consultant responsible for the Southeast Region of the U.S. for the Design Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts.