Elizabeth Martin

Professor Liz Martin-Malikian has an extensive background in practice spanning nearly three decades. Prior to joining academia, she worked as  a project manager and senior designer for The Jerde Partnership, a global architecture firm, where her design work included Taipei, Taiwan’s multi-use development Core Pacific City. Liz also contributed to monthly urban review and design workshops with local Taiwanese government officials and architects, resulting in a 12-year urban plan. She was the project designer for the Beursplein in Rotterdam, Netherlands and the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Atlanta AIA/YAF Emerging Voices Award.
 
She joined the former Southern Polytechnic State University, now KSU, in August 2006 and has since become an integral part of the architecture department’s thesis advanced core sequence. For her leadership coordinating thesis, Liz was awarded the 2018-19 AIA/ACSA Practice and Leadership Award that honors best practice examples of highly effective teaching, scholarship, and outreach in the areas of professional practice and leadership. Since 2006, Liz  has been teaching Environmental Technology I: Systems Selection & Materials examining the critical role of materials and methods for the design and construction of buildings. The course’s primary focus is on materials and systems, their properties and connections, and their intrinsic relationship to structural systems and environmental performance. Students will develop a fundamental understanding of: the relationship of materiality to construction systems and techniques, how building materials are manufactured, and how a material’s modular form, dimensions and intrinsic qualities influence the design process. As the P.I., Liz was awarded the PCI Foundation Curriculum Development Grant for $100,000 spread over 4-years.  Prior to arriving at KSU, Liz served as the Paul Rudolph Visiting Professor of Practice at Auburn University’s School of Architecture.

Liz is an active member of the Urban Land Institute and serves on ULI's Woman's Leadership Intitative committee. She has been the recipient of numerous research grants and awards, including four Graham Foundation Grants, an NEA Challenge America Grant, NEH Collaborative Research Award, a LEF Foundation Grant, a Scottish Cohort Research Grant, and was a university Sustainability Faculty Fellow. Her master’s thesis research exploring music and architecture is published as Pamphlet Architecture 16: Architecture as a Translation of Music. Currently, she is pursuing research at the University of Edinburgh exploring the architecture of alterity using postwar reconstruction in Beirut as a case study.

RESEARCH AREAS: Social and sustainable entrepreneurialship, Architecture of alterity, Curating the city, Tourism and urbanism, Material Exploration and discovery.