KRob Virtual Announcement + Celebration

Dana Cupkova is a Co-Founder and a Design Director of EPIPHYTE Lab, an interdisciplinary architectural design and research collaborative that was recognized in 2018 as the ‘Next Progressives’ design practice by ARCHITECT Magazine. She holds an Associate Professorship at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture, where she serves as a Graduate Chair for the Master of Science in Sustainable Design. Engaging environmental ethics, Dana’s design work is situated at the intersection of built environment and ecology, focused on materiality, embodied energy, and advanced manufacturing frameworks, with a particular interest in thermodynamics, and material waste streams. Dana is a member of the Editorial Board of The International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC), a recipient of the 2019 ACADIA Teaching Award of Excellence, the 2022 ACSA Creative Achievement Award, and a 2022-23 Fulbright US Scholar.

Michael Ford, an award-winning architect and educator, is originally from Highland Park, Michigan, and now based in Dallas, Texas. Ford is making waves in the design world with his pioneering program, The Hip Hop Architecture Camp, which uses Hip Hop culture to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture and design. This unique approach to diversifying the design professions has earned Ford national acclaim, with features in media outlets such as Oprah Winfrey Network’s Super Soul Sunday, The TODAY Show, Rolling Stone Magazine, Architect Magazine, and Interior Design Magazine.

As a sought-after speaker, Ford has keynoted national conferences around the world, including the American Institutes of Architects National Conference on Architecture, American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference, NeoCon, Interior Design Show Toronto, and his TEDx talk, “Hip Hop as Modernism’s Post Occupancy Report.”

Ford is the Founding Principal of BrandNu Design Studio, a full-service architecture and design studio based in Dallas, Texas. Ford’s studio is leading the design of notable projects such as The Universal Hip Hop Museum in The Bronx and the Black Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Newark, New Jersey.

Ford has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the field, including the 2022 Wisconsin Young Architect of the Year and the Spirit of Detroit Award. However, he is most proud of Mike Ford Day, a day dedicated to him at Cass Technical High School in Detroit because of his commitment to youth.

At the heart of it all, Ford is a devoted husband and father to his sons, the late MJ3 and Mason.

Petra Kempf, PhD. is an architect, urban designer, and professor of architecture at Washington University in St Louis. Her creative practice and research speculate on how the assemblage of collective living has been influenced by urbanization.

Prior to pursuing an academic career, Kempf worked for the Department of City Planning in New York City, the Project for Public Space, and Richard Meier and Partners. She has taught at Cornell University, Columbia University, Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, and the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. She has lectured throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, and her drawings have been exhibited at venues such as Architecture Venice Biennale and Chicago Biennale, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pink Comma Gallery in Boston, and Roca Gallery in London, among other galleries and academic institutions in the United States and Europe. She is author of You are the City – Observation, Organization and Transformation of Urban Settings (2009) and (K)ein Ort Nirgends – Der Transitraum im urbanen Netzwerk (2010).

Apart from her research work, she continually explores the concept of line drawings as agents to communicate the creation of place – a process where lines are being drawn, to only be redrawn, to record a journey through space to construct place.

Samuel Ringman is a registered architect and architectural illustrator practicing in Dallas for forty-one years. An internationally recognized artist, he has received numerous awards in ASAI’s Architecture in Perspective competitions, KRob, and others, and has been featured in publications such as “Architectural Rendering”, “The Art of Architectural Drawing”, and the upcoming KRob 50th anniversary book.

Working in a variety of media and techniques, he provides illustration services for an international base of architects, interior designers, and developers. While emphasizing the illustrator’s role as part of the design team, he provides clients with a wide range of options, from loose sketches to finely detailed renderings, and produces images that are both representative and evocative. He is presently producing the illustrations for the upcoming “A Field Guide to American Buildings”.