Carie Penabad, associate professor in the School of Architecture, has a weekly, national radio show, "On Cities," where she speaks to architects and other thought leaders about the virtues and challenges of our cities.
When Carie Penabad, associate professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture, and her husband Adib Cúre, also an associate professor in the school, designed a company building in southwest Guatemala, they brought in volcanic stones from a nearby river to pave the adjacent gardens.
Wanting to integrate the spectacular view of a nearby volcano, they fashioned a belvedere, or open space gallery, in the center of the building so workers could enjoy the volcano as one would a piece of art.
Integrating the local history, culture, materiality, and fauna is a trademark to the architecture that Penabad creates. In her many years as an architect and professor, she has pursued projects that have ranged from designing institutional buildings, housing, schools in rural Guatemala, and even mapping shantytowns in Colombia.
Penabad's has a long-standing interest in the study of local traditions. Alongside Cúre, she has led a number of design courses entitled "Vernacularology," an invented word that encompasses the study of vernacular traditions, from individual buildings to large settlements.
"I am passionate about cities, and I do believe that the shaping of our cities influences the quality of our lives," she said.
This passion has led her to design numerous buildings within diverse contexts in both Miami and Latin America, as well as to study how shantytowns near Barranquilla, Colombia, are created and evolve. Working with Cúre, Chris Mader from the Institute for Data Science and Computing, and her students, she has mapped the Las Flores settlement in Barranquilla using drone technology. Her students in upper-level studio courses designed proposals for this settlement including housing, public buildings, infrastructure, and transportation projects. These studios are ongoing at the School of Architecture, she said.
While an undergraduate student enrolled at the School of Architecture, Penabad was greatly influenced by the teachings of Vincent Scully, a respected historian of architecture who was open minded and encouraged students to look for "an architecture that rises and evolves slowly to respond to local conditions," according to Penabad.
"He encouraged us to look at a broad spectrum of architecture from antiquity to the present as well as modest structures to see how they responded in very profound ways to culture and place," she said. This has greatly influenced her professional path.
In 2001, she and her husband created the architecture and design firm CÚRE & PENABAD, which has offices in Miami and Guatemala City. The work of the company has won numerous awards, most recently the prestigious Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York. This competition recognizes a distinct design voice and a significant body of realized work.
Parallel to her professional practice, Penabad has been a faculty member at the School of Architecture since 2000. While on sabbatical in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit and Penabad realized that students were cut off from activities at the school while staying at home.
"I realized that they did not have access to the community of events and lectures that the school provides," she said. "There was no sense of community."
With the support of Rodolphe el-Khoury, dean of the School of Architecture, she launched the online lecture series "Architecture and the Great Confinement," where she talked to urban designers, sociologists, writers, architects, and others about how the pandemic had changed the way they worked and the effects it might have on architecture and the building of cities. The venture was a success, with listeners tuning in from all over the country. "I realized the power of that medium," she said.
El-Khoury was impressed by Penabad's work.
"Almost overnight, Carie emerged as a media personality, with the poise and savviness of a seasoned talk-show host," he said. "More importantly, she had the knack for asking the right questions, always yielding insights from her guests. Clearly, she had the natural charisma and the intellectual finesse for this role.''
That innovative lecture series led her to VoiceAmerica, a leading producer and online broadcaster of original live and on-demand talk radio programming worldwide. They asked her to do a live show, which she titled "On Cities." It airs weekly each Friday at 11 a.m.
"At first I was taken aback," Penabad said. "But then I saw it as an extension of my teaching. With this platform, I could reach thousands of listeners to discuss how the design of our cities shapes the quality of our lives. And in this way I could expand the discussion of architecture beyond the walls of my physical classroom."
In the first four episodes, the associate professor spoke to several prominent architects—including Rahul Mehrotra, who is the chair of the Urban Design department at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and Andres Duany, a co-founder and emeritus board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism—about the challenges facing many cities today including high density, climate change, and the lack of affordable housing.
One issue that concerns Penabad about Miami is the increasing need for affordable housing. She is excited to be designing a project in a small lot in Overtown for Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit group that serves the community. The lot is only 3,500 square feet, she noted. The project will accommodate office space, small retail units, and some affordable housing.
"In Miami we have two predominant housing models, the detached single-family house and the high-rise condominium," she pointed out. "These small lots all throughout the city can be the sites to design alternatives and can offer new and varied models for future housing in the city. There is a lot that can be done to meet the housing demands while maintaining the essence of the place."
Penabad has written or collaborated on three books. Most notably, she co-wrote "Marion Manley: Miami's First Woman Architect" with Catherine Lynn. She also wrote and edited "Call to Order: Sustaining Simplicity in Architecture" with a preface by el-Khoury and an afterword by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, former dean of the School of Architecture. Later this year, she will publish the guidebook "Made in Miami," which she co-authored with Cúre.
"Made in Miami" will serve as a guidebook to spots in the city that have emerged and are influenced by the different cultures that live here.
Listen to episodes of "On Cities" through the VoiceAmerica website or on podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
