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.