Dan Pitera, FAIA

Dan Pitera, FAIA is a political and social activist masquerading as an architect. He is the Dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD) and a Senior Principal of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), which received the National AIA’s 2017 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award and was included in the 2017 Curry Stone Design Award’s Social Design Circle. Dan co-led the Civic Engagement process for the Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning in 2010. On January 9, 2013, Long Term Planning team released its decision-making framework titled: Detroit Future City. DCDC’s engagement process was included in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s exhibition: By The People and the DCDC’s Roaming Table has been added to the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection.

Mr. Pitera was a 2004-2005 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2010, an honor bestow to only 3% of all American architects. Under his direction from 2000 to 2019, the Design Center won the 2011 and 2002 Dedalo Minosse International Prize and was included in the US Pavilion of the 2008 and 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture. The Center was awarded the 2011 SEED Award and the 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Design Excellence for the St. Joseph Rebuild Center in New Orleans. The Design Center was the recipient of the NCARB Prize in 2002 and 2009 and was included in the international exhibit/conference ArchiLab in 2001 and 2004 in Orleans, France.

Mr. Pitera is regularly a resource member for Mayor’s Institute for City Design (MICD). He has co-authored the book, Syncopating the Urban Landscape: More People, More Programs, More Geographies and co-edited the book, Activist Architecture: The Philosophy and Practice of the Community Design Center. He likes “fallout shelter” yellow…

contact: piteradw@udmercy.edu