Jason Smith is a practitioner, educator, and mentor who promotes the integrative potential of architecture.
In more than two decades leading architectural projects throughout North America, Jason Smith has evolved a wide-ranging and inclusive design process, resulting in a body of work that is collegial, artful, and spontaneous, while also esteemed for longevity and environmental responsiveness. He has led the design and construction of several award-winning projects, including Brockman Hall for Physics at Rice University and Pound Ridge House.
An advocate for collaboration, Jason has embraced novel project delivery paradigms—including at Brown University, where he spearheaded the design of one of the first university projects in the US to use a true Integrated Project Delivery platform for the Engineering Research Center. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, he collaborated with three partner firms to develop a shared vision for the San Joaquin Villages, a 1,000-person academic complex. He has worked with Rice University for over ten years, completing two building projects as well as a dynamic master plan for the entire campus that enables multiple planning scenarios to be modeled in real-time.
Jason's approach to architecture integrates art, research, and new modes of project delivery, yielding sophisticated work that is both rich in meaning and beautiful in craft. His projects have been published in Architect, Architectural Record, and Faith and Form, and have been awarded internationally, including two Architecture Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects. He has completed three LEED Platinum-rated projects and two LEED Gold-rated laboratory buildings, a high achievement for an energy-intense building type.
Jason has long fostered a comprehensive design culture and advanced an exemplary research mission at KieranTimberlake, which today invests in research staff and infrastructure devoted to improving the built environment. Jason's commitment to the broadest spectrum of professional development includes creating and teaching an academic curriculum aimed at an urgent need of our industry—uniting design leadership with practice management. He is a frequent lecturer and serves on academic and professional design juries nationwide, including as a jury chair for AIA New England, AIA DC, and AIA Kansas. His participation in the Centennial Kossman thesis jury at his alma mater, Penn State University, led to the creation of an endowed scholarship fund for aspiring architects.
