Open Building for Architects

About the Author

Stephen H. Kendall is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Ball State University in the United States. He holds a professional degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati, a post-professional degree in architecture and urban design from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In practice, he designed hospitals, schools and residential buildings and before that worked as a carpenter. In his academic career, he taught architectural design and urban design studios and courses in building technology and design theory in the US, Taiwan, Italy, Indonesia, South Africa, Japan and PR China. He is vice president of the Council on Open Building. He has written more than 45 papers and book chapters; is the co-author (with Jonathan Teicher) of Residential Open Building (Routledge, 2000), available in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean; and has authored many technical reports and funded research projects, including “Healthcare Facilities Designed for Flexibility” for the US Department of Defense Health Agency. He has lectured widely to university and professional audiences around the world. His edited books include Healthcare Architecture as Infrastructure: Open Building in Practice (2019) and Residential Architecture as Infrastructure: Open Building in Practice (2022). With John R. Dale, FAIA, he co-edited The Short Works of John Habraken: Ways of Seeing/Ways of Doing (2023). All are part of the Open Building Series of books published by Routledge.

N. John Habraken is a Dutch architect and educator. He served as founding director of the SAR Foundation (1965–75) and founding chair of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at Eindhoven Technical University (1967–75). He was Head of the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975–81), and professor, where he became Professor Emeritus after his retirement in 1989. He has lectured around the world to academic and professional audiences. Habraken is the recipient of many awards worldwide, notably including the BNA Kubus award (Dutch Society of Architects) and honorary membership in the Architecture Institute of Japan. He is the author of more than 62 published essays, book chapters, research reports and articles and numerous books (many translated into other languages) including Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing; Variations: The Systematic Design of Supports; The Structure of the Ordinary: Form and Control in the Built Environment; The Appearance of the Form: Four Essays on the Position Designing Takes between People and Things; Palladio’s Children – Seven Essays on Everyday Environment and the Architect; and Conversations with Form: A Workbook for Students of Architecture (with Teicher and Mignucci).