#1 David Wallance

David Wallance, FAIA is an architect, educator, and author. He is the founder of DRA/W, an architectural practice with an approach based on the integration of design thinking and technical skill, grounded in research.

Over the course of his career David has designed award-winning projects ranging from residences to museums, laboratories, and high-rise housing. He was the senior designer with Ennead Architects on the widely acclaimed Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, where he spearheaded the building’s innovative ultra-transparent glass enclosure, hailed by the New York Times as “what may well be the finest example of glass curtain wall construction ever realized in the United States”.

David’s forthcoming book, The Future of Modular Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2021) encompasses 15 years of research, design, and technical development of a next-generation system of modular construction geared for affordable mid- and high-rise urban housing.

David studied at the Cooper Union under such influential teachers as John Hejduk and Robert Slutzky. His student thesis was published in Education of an Architect (New York: Rizzoli, 1988). From 1997 to 2017 he was an adjunct associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation where he co-directed the advanced building technology sequence.