On the Move: Herman Miller Names Andi Owen President and CEO
Herman Miller has announced that Andi Owen will become the company’s next president and chief executive officer. She will replace Brian Walker and has also been elected to the board of directors. Owen had a 25-year career at Gap Inc., where she most recently led 11,000 employees across 600 stores as global president of Banana Republic. She also gained experience across other verticals at Gap, where she launched the factory store division in China and Europe and the factory online division. The announcement comes after earlier news of a leadership succession planning process.
Ware Malcomb
Christina Piper has joined Ware Malcomb’s Downtown Chicago office as studio manager for interior architecture and design. She brings over 13 years of experience in corporate interior design and has worked across the country and internationally. In addition, David Newson has joined as engineering manager in the Toronto office. Newson will help grow and manage the firm’s civil engineering services in the Canadian market. In the Denver civil engineering office, Patrick Gunn has joined as engineering manager and will assist with the training and leadership of the firm.
FXCollaborative
Daniel Piselli has been promoted from senior associate to director of sustainability at FXCollaborative. He will focus on implementing environmentally responsible design strategies across the firm’s projects. Piselli has over 20 years of experience as a project architect and 13 at FXCollaborative, and among his current sustainability work is an initiative to apply Passive House to new urban public schools.
Valerio Dewalt Train
Joe Lawton has been promoted to principal at Valerio Dewalt Train. Joe joined the firm in 2010 and founded Media Objectives, an experiential design studio, in 2012. He will continue to oversee the studio in addition to the firm’s marketing and communication.
Indiana Furniture
President and CEO Max Verkamp of Indiana Furniture has been elected to the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) Board of Directors. Verkamp has 25 years of experience in the manufacturing industry and will serve a three-year term as director.
Ceasarstone
Engineered quartz surfaces purveyor Caesarstone has appointed a new CEO. Yuval Dagim, whose career spans several industries, joins from Shikun & Binui, a construction and infrastructure company based in Israel.
Concertex
Joining Concertex as design director is Aaron Mensik, who will lead the design studio and curate the brand’s aesthetic. Mensik received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has two decades of experience designing textiles, wovens, and other functional art.
Hansgrohe
Hans Jeurgen Kalmbach has been appointed the new chairman of the executive board of the Hansgrohe Group, replacing Thorsten Klapproth after four years. Kalmbach is currently an executive board member responsible for sales at the company. Additionally, Reinhard Mayer has been appointed deputy chairman and Oliver Bahr has been named president.
School of Visual Arts
Dr. Carol Bentel will replace Jane Smith as chair of the interior design department at SVA for the upcoming year. Bentel is a partner at the firm Bentel & Bentel Architects/Planners, and she will continue her practice there while serving as chair. She recently received her Ph.D. in History, Theory and Criticism in the Department of Architecture at MIT.
DIFFA
Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA) has appointed Dawn Roberson executive director. Dawn served as events director at DIFFA for five years, and will be replaced in that role by Mark Popadick. Her first major event as executive director will be DIFFA’s annual summer celebration, Picnic By Design.
HLW
Design firm HLW has announces several staff promotions and additions. In the New Jersey office, Gina Racz has been promoted to senior associate, while Wendy Ceron has been promoted to associate. Additionally, Melissa Insinga has joined the team as senior designer. In Los Angeles, David Swartz has been promoted to senior partner; Pablo Maida, Joseph Bryant, and Erin Gallagher have been promoted to senior associate; and Kiana Dolat, Melissa Horvat, David Pekema, Amy Rangel, Joacha Sullivan, Rebecca Swanner, and Shannon Woodcock have been promoted to associate.
American Society of Interior Designers
The American Society of Interior Designers has welcomed Bryan J. Soukup Esq. to the team as vice president, government and public affairs. In this role, Soukup will lead the organization’s advocacy for the profession from a policy and legislative standpoint at the federal and state levels. He has also been accepted to the board of directors of the Alliance for National & Community Resilience.
HOK
Mark Ejnes has joined the Los Angeles office of HOK as design principal. He has previous experience at Gehry Partners and Maria C. Romanach Architects, and most recently comes from Aedas, where he served as managing director. His past projects include high rises, sports stadiums, and transit hubs.
Wilsonart
Wilsonart Engineered Surfaces has announced an acquisition of Laminate Works Dallas. The latter is a division of Laminate Works Inc, a Kansas City–based manufacturer of decorative High Pressure Laminate panels.
Francis Cauffman
Two senior associates at Francis Cauffman, Denise Thompson and Kelly Miller, have been named shareholders. This announcement follows a period of continued growth from the firm. Other new leadership appointments include Wan Leung to principal for the firm’s science and technology portfolio, and the addition of Mark Harbick as principal and corporate practice leader in the New York City office.
Figure3
Figure3 founding partner Jennifer Tinson has returned to the firm as creative director, workplace, a role in which she will lead the creative vision for all projects in their growing studio. Tinson has worked on a variety of projects with major design firms in Toronto, including head offices for Nestle and the Blue Jays Founders’ Club.
Perkins + Will
Ken Wilson, interior design principal in Perkins + Will‘s Washington, D.C. office, has been named “Designer of Distinction” by the American Society of Interior Designers. It was one of four top honors to presented at the 2018 ASID National Awards.
Elkus Manfredi
David Manfredi, CEO and founding principal of Elkus Manfredi Architects, and Elizabeth Lowrey, principal at the firm, will receive the annual Robert S. Swain Jr. Distinguished Service Award from the Real Estate Finance Association. Elkus Manfredi is the first architecture firm to be recognized. They have also promoted Mark Sardegna and Andrew West to principal, in addition to appointing eight new vice presidents: Susanne Ackermann, Ross Cameron, Linda MacLeod Fannon, Christian Galvao, William Halter, Kevin Lennon, Emily Paparella, and Jane Zimmerman.
Blitz
San Francisco–based architecture and design firm Blitz has appointed Riz Walker as senior designer in its new Los Angeles office. She will work with co-founder and principal Seth Hanley, who is also Los Angeles managing partner.
Lauckgroup
Lauckgroup, which recently merged with Perkins + Will, has promoted Matt Taylor from associate principal to principal. Taylor will continue to lead technical coordination and project management in the Austin office.
TEF
TEF has named three new associates: Amanda Hoch, Karen Nealon, and Maryam Rostami. The three have a combined four decades of professional experience and have completed projects with Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Health Care, and the Live Oak School.
KAI Design & Build
KAI has promoted Todd Jacobs to director of design. He was first hired in November 2016 as vice president and senior project manager. The current director of design, Marcus Moomey, will ransition to a new position as director of design-build.
KI
Green Bay–based furniture manufacturer KI has named Bryan Ballegeer vice president of sales and marketing-education. Ballegeer, who joined KI in 2017, most recently served as regional education leader for the East Coast.
Rios Clementi Hale Studios
Rios Clementi Hale has appointed two new creative directors: Sebastian Salvadó and Andy Lantz. Salvadó, who joined the company in 2004, has expanded the studio’s multidisciplinary expression with projects ranging from furniture to large urban mixed-use. Lantz joined the company in 2011 and has expanded its workplace practice with an analytical approach to the design of environments and amenities.
The University of Pennsylvania School of Design
PennDesign has welcomed four new members of the standing faculty, subject to University approval. The appointments are: Dorit Aviv, lecturer, Department of Architecture; Sean Burkholder, assistant professor, Department of Landscape Architecture; Sophie Debiasi Hochhäusl, assistant professor, Department of Architecture; and Zhongjie Lin as a visiting associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Additionally, Megan Ryerson has been named associate dean for research.
TPG Architecture
TPG has appointed two new creative directors: Suo Lien and Ricardo Nabholz. Ricardo has over 15 years of industry experience and has taught at the Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar, Germany, as well as at his alma mater, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Suo has two decades of experience in workplace design across a range of project types, including media and entertainment, financial, and Fortune 500 companies.
Field Paoli Architects
Karena Halverson has been promoted to senior associate at Field Paoli. Halverson joined the firm in 2011 and heads the firm’s marketing and business development efforts.
MBH Architects
San Francisco–based Christiani Johnson Architects will now operate under the MBH umbrella. MBH will enlist CJA’s team for its housing studio’s new projects in the Bay Area. CJA was founded in 1994 by Richard Christiani and David Johnson, and has a portfolio that includes commercial, retail and office developments, and single family residences.
Tangram
Tangram has elevated Charlotte Wiederholt to president of the Tangram Studio unit. Wiederholt has 15 years of experience as creative director overseeing industrial design, engineering, and customer service at Tangram.
HDR
Norbert Schachtner joins the Munich office of HDR as director for education, science, and tech markets in Germany. He has spent the past two decades of his career at HENN, an architectural design firm, where he helped expand the firm’s science and health care practice. His portfolio includes projects from small laboratories to Biosafety Level 4 facilities.
Thos. Moser
The handcrafted American furniture manufacturer Thos. Moser has appointed Brad Kauffman chief revenue officer. Kauffman is the former senior vice president of business transformation and strategy at L.L. Bean. He spent over 20 years at L.L. Bean, and five at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was vice president and general manager of merchandise and retail.
