Eric Höweler

Eric Höweler, AIA, LEED AP, is an Associate Professor in Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he teaches lecture courses and design studios with a focus on building technologies/integration since 2008.

His advanced design studios, which bring together students from the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and urban planning, cover such topics as housing and urban architecture, climate adaptability and transit-oriented development. Eric has also coordinated the Third Semester Core Design Studio in Architecture for several semesters, during which he integrated environmental and structural systems into the curriculum. He also teaches a required lecture course in the Building Technology sequence called Cases in Contemporary Construction, which focuses on advanced topics in building systems. Höweler was recently appointed as the Area Head for Masters of Design Studies: Energy and Environment program (with Holly Samuelson), where he advises students on topics around energy modeling and simulations as well as environmental control systems.

Eric is Co-founding Principal of Höweler + Yoon Architecture LLP, a research-driven, multidisciplinary design studio working between architecture, art and media. HYA has a reputation for work that is technologically and formally innovative, and deeply informed by human experience and a sensitivity to tectonics. One of the firm’s celebrated projects is the MIT Collier Memorial, a milled granite compression structure that commemorates the life of Officer Sean Collier, who was killed in action after the Boston Marathon Bombing. The Collier Memorial has been honored with the BSA Honor Award, the American Architecture Prize, the AIA Religious Architecture Award, and has three times been a finalist for the Harleston Parker Medal. HYA’s courtyard-exhibition hall in Chengdu, SkyCourts, has been honored by Architect Magazine, Archdaily, the Boston Society of Architects, and the European Centre for Architecture. HYA’s ongoing work includes the UVA Memorial, a landscape installation dedicated to enslaved laborers at the University of Virginia, the Stuart St multi-family residential tower in Boston, MA, the new MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA, and Float Lab, a public art installation and floating laboratory on the Schuykill River in Philadelphia, PA.

Höweler + Yoon’s work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the 2006 Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt in New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and has been published and reviewed in publications including Architect, Architectural Record, Metropolitan, Domus, Interior Design magazine, Architectural Lighting and I.D. Magazine, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Financial Times.

Eric has authored several books including Expanded Practice (with J. Meejin Yoon), published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2009; Skyscraper: Vertical Now, published by Rizzoli/Universe Publishers in 2003; Public Works, Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig (with J. Meejin Yoon and Meredith Miller), published by MAP Book Publishers in 2009; and 1001 Skyscrapers (with J. Meejin Yoon), published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2000. Höweler has published essays and articles in Perspecta, Archis, Thresholds, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Lighting, and Praxis.

Prior to forming HYA, Eric Höweler was a Senior Designer at Diller + Scofidio where he worked on the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Juilliard School projects, and an Associate Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, where he was the senior designer on the 118-story ICC Tower in Hong Kong. He is LEED AP, and a registered architect in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.

Born in Cali, Colombia, Höweler received his Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture from Cornell University. Eric gained teaching and research experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was previously a Lecturer in Architecture.

Research Areas

• Construction & Building Systems
• Public Art & Exhibition Design
• Responsive Environments

Education

• Cornell University (1989 — 1995)
• International School Bangkok (1987 — 1989)
• Bolivar (1979 — 1986)