330B Swearingen Hall

Joel Kerner is a registered architect and Founding Director of Maketa, an independent creative design practice. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Judson University. He has held prior teaching appointments at Syracuse University, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of North Carolina Charlotte. 

 

Joel has worked at a range of architecture practices, both small and large. He worked under Pritzker-Prize-Winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects in Los Angeles, designing projects in locations such as Hong Kong and Morocco. After Morphosis, Joel worked at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects in Chicago. He worked on numerous projects within Chicago, the United States, and abroad. Notable projects were located in Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan, Korea, China, and Turkey. During this time, he was selected for the Bridge mentorship prize by AIA Chicago, pairing him with Philip Castillo, FAIA of Murphy Jahn Architects for an 8-month mentorship program for distinguished emerging architects in Chicago. Additionally, Joel was recognized nationally by the AIA as an emerging architect, featuring his work in an exhibition in Washington, DC.

 

Joel’s work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions. He was invited to design a solo installation for a pilot project that has since grown into an annual build fest at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the site of the historic 1969 Woodstock Festival. He was invited back to participate in successive years. In addition to his domestic exhibitions, Joel’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, A+D Museum in Los Angeles, Apartment Project in Berlin, and the Viru Centre in Tallinn, Estonia. He has served as a visiting critic and lecturer at more than two dozen institutions, including Cornell University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois, Washington University in St Louis, The University of Southern California, and Woodbury University. He has collaborated with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Hardbakka Ruins Project in Norway, and a One-Night Stand for Art & Architecture. He is a fellow of the I-Park Foundation and his work has been supported by the American Institute of Architects, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. His projects and essays have appeared in PLAT Journal, Revista Engawa, Lunch Journal, POSIT, Archinect, and See/Saw, among others.