Don Kranbuehl Elevated to the AIA’s College of Fellows
Clark Nexsen is excited to announce that Don Kranbuehl, FAIA, was recently elevated to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows, being awarded for design. Don creates architecture that transforms the ordinary into inspirational spaces. As a design leader within our firm, in the professional community, and in architectural education, he is a model architectural designer for the next generation of architects.
Don’s work fuses constraints of program and economy with order, daylight, materiality and strong connections to site elevating human experience through design. Whether the project is a state research facility such as the Coastal Studies Institute, a community college building such as the Wake Tech Regional Plant Teaching Facility, or the adaptive reuse of a building on a university campus such as NC State’s Park Shops, Don consistently finds design solutions that exceed the expectations of the client.
Don is a remarkably accomplished designer whose built projects and design leadership, lectures and exhibits have influenced many. — J. Patrick Rand, FAIA
Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese, North Carolina.
Don is a principal with Clark Nexsen in the firm’s Raleigh, NC office whose work positions him as one of the leading design architects in the Southeast. Projects in his portfolio have garnered more than 20 AIA design awards on the regional, state, and local levels. National recognition includes two AIA Committee on Architecture for Education Awards, and an American Chicago Athenaeum Award. At the international level, his projects have received two awards in the highly competitive Chicago Athenaeum / European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies juries.
The Regional Plant & Teaching Facility at Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Don leads the firm’s commitment to the 2030 Challenge and the firm’s Integrated Design group which is a network of sustainable designers working to improve the process of creating high-performance buildings.
Don has served as a Professor of Practice at the NC State University College of Design for 12 years, teaching architecture graduate and undergraduate studios that focus on the relationship between environment, site, building form, and tectonics. His passion lies in inspiring others to find design solutions that respond to climate and context, while embracing public space. He is a frequent architectural design critic and lecturer and has been invited to numerous universities including Virginia Tech, the University of North Carolina, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Illinois Institute of Technology.
The AIA Fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession. The 2020 Jury of Fellows from the American Institute of Architects elevated 116 AIA members to its prestigious College of Fellows. Only 3 percent of the AIA members are distinguished with this honor. The 2020 Fellows will be recognized at an investiture ceremony at the AIA Convention 2020 in Los Angelos.
For more information about the 2020 College of Fellows, please click here.
Photographs by Mark Herboth.
