Randall Kober

Randall Kober is founding faculty at the McEwen School of Architecture. Appointed as a Master Lecturer in 2013 he has integrated his training as an architect, carpenter, and historian to develop and deliver several classes and programs. Design studios meld conceptual development with tectonics and making. Wood Structures explores First Nations, colonial, and contemporary timber building typologies to experience structural theory through hands on making. Building Case Studies places the material history of exemplary buildings within their larger cultural, social, and political contexts. Fabrication 2 makes students' thought physical in a complimentary course to their thesis work. He has worked with the coop coordinators to develop undergraduate and graduate coop programs. He has accompanied the Laurentian teams to the Bergen International Wood Festival in Norway and lead the spring semester European travel, design build program centered within the medieval heavy timber building fabric of Dinkelsbühl, Germany. 

Kober has lectured nationally and internationally on his academic and professional work. He serves as Architecture Academic Advisor to the Board of the Canadian Wood Council. He organized the International Wood Educators Conference held at MSoA in fall 2019.

Randall holds a Master of Architecture from University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts, concentrating in history, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He worked as a carpenter, design builder in the USA and Germany for a five year interval between undergraduate and graduate studies. After his studies he interned as an architect with Thomas Hammer in Munich, Ken Schroeder and Douglas Garofalo, his graduate school mentor, in Chicago. At Garofalo Architects they created extremely contemporary, internationally published, award winning works. He has taught in Chicago, Rome and Paris for UIC, IIT, and Archeworks. Kober's professional design build practice anarchitectures based in Dinkelsbühl.

Master of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago

Bachelor of Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Visting Assistant Professor 2004-08

Archeworks, Chicago, Facillitator, 2004-07

University of Illinois at Chicago, Adjunct Assistant Professor, 2000-04

Experimental Structures

Wood

Social, Cultural, and Material History

ACSA Here + Now 2019, housing competition, 2nd place: A Millennial Housing type, thesis student project of Theodore Wong, faculty advisor

Middle Franconia Historic Preservation Award, renovation and restoration of ensemble at Kapuzinerweg 9, Dinkelsbühl, Germany, March 2017

Bergen International Wood Festival, Laurentian students awarded 1st place, accompanying consulting timber construction expert, May 2016

Jerome Fellowship, for design and construction of housing “intern crates” at Franconia Sculpture Park, Schafer MN, with Christine Tarkowski, March 2004

Unbuilt Design Award, Chicago Chapter American Institute of Architects; Chicago Housing Authority/ National Endowment for the Arts Design Competition; Garofalo Architects, Chicago, 2002.

Guth Illumination Design Award, Illinois Engineering Society of North America; Time Exhibit, Museum of Science and Industry; Garofalo Architects with Charter Sills Lighting; Chicago, 2002.

AIA Chicago Design Award, Offices of Thornton Tomasetti Engineers; Garofalo Architects, Chicago, 2001.  

Honorable Mention, Chicago Housing Authority/ National Endowment for the Arts Design Competition; Chicago, 2001.

Gold Medal, Bienal 2001 Miami+Beach E-Competition; Florida International university & Miami Chapter AIA; Garofalo Architects/Michael McInturf Architects, Miami, 2001. 

Chicago Architecture Club, Chicago Evolution Competition, 1st prize, Stolon project w/ Doug Garofalo and Julie Flohr, July 1999.

Swanke, Hayden, Connell, Ltd. Award for excellence in interior design, UIC, May 1995

Helen Hano Morgante Award for outstanding academic achievement, UIC, May 1994

Parnham School for Workers in Wood Program Scholarship, UIC, March 1994

American Institute of Architects Scholastic Pursuit Award, UIC, May 1994

School of Architecture Archivist tuition waiver and stipend, UIC, May 1993-May 1999

Building community on frozen lakes, Architecture Connects Proceedings, UK, 2017

Teaching structures 1: wood, hands on in Northern Ontario, World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2016) Proceedings, TU Verlag, Vienna, Austria

Research terrain; text, 2d, 3d ,4d, 1:1. Working Out: Thinking While Building: Project Proceedings. Ted Cavanagh, Ursula Hartig & Sergio Palleroni editors, 2014.

Garofalo Architects in Wisconsin, The Plan Magazine-Architecture and Technologies in Detail, Issue 41, Bologna, Italy, 2010

Don’t you forget about me: Chicago’s anonymous buildings, Proximity Magazine, Issue Number One, 2008