Charles Rudolph
Associate Professor; Director, School of Architecture Practicum Program
Charles Rudolph
Associate Professor; Director, School of Architecture Practicum Program
Education
Rice University Bachelor of Arts / Architecture + Art and Art History, 1981
Rice University, Bachelor of Architecture, 1983
Columbia University, Master of Architecture / Building Design, 1989
Keywords
Construction technology, Tectonics, Foundational Design, Critical Regionalism, Minimalism and Architecture
Biography
Charles Rudolph is an architect and associate professor who began teaching at Georgia Tech in 1993. He moved to Atlanta from New York City, where he worked in the offices of Peter M. Wheelwright, AIA and Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners. Rudolph's experience at Pei, Cobb, Freed included working with partner Michael Flynn, the firm's curtain wall specialist, on the Barcelona, Spain and Ronald Reagan Washington D.C. International Trade Center Projects (1991-93). Rudolph received a MS in Building Design from Columbia in 1989 (studying under Professor Kenneth Frampton) and teaches courses in construction technology and seminars that focus on the current status of tectonics in contemporary architecture and building culture. He has taught architectural design studio at all levels, foremost being the MArch foundational “core” studio, which he has taught since 2004. Currently Rudolph is coordinating the first year B.S. Arch studio. From 1997-2010, he directed the Career Discovery in Architecture summer program for high school students, and he has directed the School’s Practicum Internship Program since 2016. From 2010-14, he was part of an NSF-sponsored interdisciplinary team that investigated the potential for integrating alternative energy technology (bio-fuel from harvested algae / waste stream management) in the design of high-density urban housing.
During his undergraduate years at Rice University, Rudolph studied painting and art history and continues to explore relationships between architecture, the visual arts, and theories of philosophy and aesthetics. From 2000 – 2010 he taught a seminar titled "Minimal Art and Architecture" and has written on the relationship between minimal art's “material and phenomenological structure” and various contemporary works of architecture and landscape. Other research interests have focused on design-for-communities and adaptive reuse in the transitioning neighborhoods of Atlanta. Since the Olympic year of 1996, Rudolph has conducted several studios that engage community groups and design centers in the re-visioning of empty schools, abandoned lots, and underused parks in historic communities bordering downtown Atlanta.
NSF-SEP (Sustainable Energy Pathways): “Sustainable Housing through Holistic Waste Stream Management and Algal Cultivation. The project was a joint venture bringing together faculty from the Schools of Building Construction (Castro-Lacouture, Co-PI) Architecture (C. Rudolph, Co-PI), City and Regional Planning (P. Yang, Co-PI) with Ohio University’s Center for Algal Engineering and Commercialization. As part of the focus on architectural design integration and construction, Rudolph led an undergraduate “algae-powered” housing studio in fall 2016.