About John Clark
John Clark
John Clark is a Midwest-based designer and educator working across spatial design, object design, fabrication, project management, planning, computation, photography, design research, and teaching. His work examines how tools and workflows shape who can participate in design, with an emphasis on contemporary hybrid digital/analog practices and accessible methods of making, modeling, and representation. He also develops AI-assisted approaches to visualization and design process that support multiple ways of sensing, learning, and working, broadening the scope and reach of architectural practice.
In addition to teaching at UIUC, he has taught design and fabrication courses at the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture, AIADO (Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago. He enjoys teaching beginning students contemporary 3D literacy and building confidence through curious, iterative, hands-on experimentation in all mediums.
He has practiced with international and Chicago-based teams on projects ranging from large-scale master planning and creative consultancy to hands-on design/build architecture and the fabrication of custom furniture and art objects. His design research expands on this professional foundation to investigate how architecture can operate as an ecological interface, translating material systems and long-term site processes into spatial form.
Education
- Master of Architecture II, University of Illinois-Chicago (2011)
- Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2007)
- Ecole d’Architecture de Versailles Study Abroad Program, France (2005-2006)
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Advising / Research
Blind/Low-Vision Architecture Technologies research and implementation for Undergrad student
Vibrotactile Materiality for Deaf users for Masters of Landscape student Thesis advising
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
- ARCH 171: Concepts and Theories of Architectural Design
- ARCH 172: Drawing and Modeling
- ARCH 273: Fundamentals of Design 1
- ARCH 274: Fundamentals of Design 2
- ARCH 371: Intermediate Design 1
- ARCH 372: Intermediate Design 2
- ARCH 472: Arch Design in Landscape and Cities : March Track 2 Studio
- LA 339: Design Workshop Vertical Studio
- LA 280: Design Communications 1
- LA 281: Design Communication 2