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Michael Bell

Michael Bell is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Bell is founding Chair of the Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials, a multi-year research program hosted at GSAPP in coordination with Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart. Bell served as Director, Master of Architecture, Core Design Studios, (2000-14) and the Coordinator of the GSAPP Housing Design Studios (2000-11).

Bell’s architectural design has been commissioned and exhibited by The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Venice Biennale; the Architectural League of New York; the University Art Museum, Berkeley and has been shown in museums and galleries in Europe, Mexico and China. Architectural design by Bell is included in the Permanent Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His Gefter Press / Binocular House is included in American Masterwork Houses of the 20th and 21st Century by Kenneth Frampton. Bell has received four Progressive Architecture Awards. Books by Michael Bell include Engineered Transparency: The Technical, Visual, and Spatial Effects of Glass; Solid States: Concrete in Transition; Post-Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Engineering; Permanent Change: Plastics in Architecture and Engineering; 16 Houses: Designing the Public’s Private House; Michael Bell: Space Replaces Us: Essays and Projects on the City; and Slow Space. Bell is the editor of a monograph on the architecture of Stanley Saitowitz.

Bell taught at the University of California at Berkeley (1987-94) and Rice University (1994-99) and held visiting professorships at the Harvard University, Graduate School of Design; Cornell University, School of Architecture; the University of Michigan, Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architecture; and Berkeley, the Howard A. Friedman Professor of Practice in Architecture. Bell is a former Fellow of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University (2011-13). During 2016/17 Bell was Visiting Professor at the Stanford University, School of Engineering, where he collaborates with the Center for Design Research in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Bell is also a member of Stanford’s Urban Futures initiative.

Michael Bell received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He established his practice while teaching at Berkeley. Today the practice also includes Eunjeong Seong and is based in New York City and the Berkeley, California.

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Publications

Columbia Books on
Architecture and the City

Permanent Change: Plastics in Architecture and Engineering

Edited by
Michael Bell, Craig Buckley

Purchase Hardcover

Post-Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Engineering

Edited by
Michael Bell, Craig Buckley

Purchase Hardcover

Solid States: Concrete in Transition

Edited by
Michael Bell, Craig Buckley

Purchase Hardcover

Engineered Transparency: The Technical, Visual, and Spatial Effects of Glass

Edited by
Michael Bell, Jeannie Kim

Purchase Hardcover

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Courses

Course	Semester	Title	Instructor	Syllabus	Requirements & Sequence	Location & Time	Session & Points	Call No.
A4106‑9	Spring 2025	Architecture Studio VI	Michael Bell		Architecture Studio AAD Studio	600/700 AVERY M+TH(1:30 PM- 6:30 PM), W (1:30 PM - 3:30 PM)	FULL SEMESTER 0 Points	11004
A4678‑1	Spring 2025	Re-Scaling Housing: Energy, Economy, Policy	Michael Bell	Syllabus	History & Theory Post-1800 N/W	300 BUELL SOUTH TU 5 PM - 7 PM	FULL SEMESTER 3 Points	13289
A4105‑5	Fall 2024	Advanced Studio V	Michael Bell		Architecture Studio AAD Studio Architecture Required	600 + 700 AVERY	FULL SEMESTER	10375