Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (Urban Planner)
Introduction
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, December 20, 1950) is an American architect and urban planner established in Miami, Florida.[1].
Training
A member of the first class of women to graduate from Princeton University, she received her undergraduate degree in architecture and urban planning from Princeton and her master's degree in architecture from the Yale School of Architecture.
Path
In 1977, Plater-Zyberk co-founded the company Arquitectonica (Miami) "Arquitectonica (Miami)"), along with her husband Andrés Duany, Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Laurinda Spear, and Hervin Romney. Arquitectonica gained fame for its typical style, a dramatic, expressive and high-tech modernism#Modernism_Architecture "Modernism (art)". The Atlantis Condominium building, designed by the company, featured prominently in the opening credits of the series Miami Vice.
Duany and Plater-Zyberk founded Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) in 1980, based in Miami. DPZ was at the head of the national movement called New Urbanism, and was distinguished by its design of traditional urban centers and its modernization of the outskirts, creating new habitable centers there. The firm first became internationally recognized in the 1980s as a Seaside, Florida, designer and has produced designs and codes for more than two hundred new urban centers, regional plans and community revitalization projects.
Plater-Zyberk began teaching at the University of Miami School of Architecture in 1979, beginning what became a long and successful association. Having created a degree program in downtown and suburban design in 1988, he continued to explore contemporary themes of urban growth and reconstruction with his faculty and students. She was dean of the university's School of Architecture (1995-2013), and in her position hired architect Léon Krier, who designed her first public building in Florida for the School. Plater-Zyberk has also been director of the university's Center for Urban Community and Design, and as such organized and promoted multiple design exercises to benefit diverse communities throughout South Florida.
Plater-Zyberk served for ten years as a trustee of Princeton, where she chaired the university's Building Committee during a period of intense construction and expansion. Architects hired during his tenure included Princeton graduate Robert Venturi, the internationally famous Frank Gehry, and traditional architect Demetri Porphyrios.