Pari Riahi, PhD, AIA
Associate Professor
Office Hours: By Appointment
About Pari
Pari Riahi is Associate Dean of Academic Operations and Infrastructure at the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. She is a Registered Architect and Associate Professor of architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has previously taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. Riahi’s first book, Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Drawings (Routledge, 2015), concerns the systematic inclusion of drawing as a component of architectural design and investigates the treatises of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the Renaissance architect and artist. Riahi is currently working on two book projects: Architectural Drawing in the Post Digital Era: Disjointed Continuity (under contract with Routledge) considers the digital turn in drawing and representation in architecture. Her second project, provisionally titled Architectures of Collectivity: A Study of Urban Form and Public Grounds, is a comparative analysis of public housing projects in the suburbs of Paris, which fuses historical research with visual analytical modes through photographs, drawings, and collages. She is the instigator, cochair and coeditor of a series of symposia and their accompanying edited volumes on contemporary architecture. Exactitude: On Precision and Play in Contemporary Architecture is the first in the series (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022). Multiplicity: On Constraint and Agency in Contemporary Architecture is forthcoming (University of Massachusetts Press, projected date of publication 2024). Her work has been published in Journal of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of Interior Architecture and Adaptive Reuse, and Architecture Boston. She serves as a member of the advisory committee to the Journal of Society of Architectural Historians and an international editor of the Journal of Architecture.
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Multiplicity: On Agency and Constraint in Contemporary Architecture, Edited by Pari Riahi, Laure Katsaros, and Michael Davis, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, Projected Publication date: June 2024
Exactitude: On Precision and Play in Contemporary Architecture, Edited by Pari Riahi, Laure Katsaros, and Michael Davis, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, June 2022
Ars et Ingenium: Embodied Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio’s Drawings, Abingdon: Routledge, January 2015
BOOK PROJECTS
Architectures of Collectivity: Urban Forms and Public Grounds of Affordable Housing, in preparation
Architectural Drawing in the Post-Digital Era: Disjointed Continuity, London and New York: Routledge, in preparation
BOOK CHAPTERS
“In Curiosity We Dwell, In Slowness We Draw” in Approaches to Drawing in Architectural and Urban Design, A Col- lection of Essays, Edited by Fabio Colonese, Nuno Grancho, and Robin Schaeverbeke, Cambridge Scholar Publishing, in production, projected publication date winter 2023
PAPERS IN REFEREED JOURNALS (* Interdisciplinary Work. Students in my research group.)
*P.R. Boersma, E. DeWitt, C. Quinteros, Thurber, T.D. Gurian, P. Riahi, Y. Modarres-Sadeghi, 2022. “On symmetric and alternating- symmetric patterns in the wake of a cylinder undergoing vortex-induced vibrations in the inline or close to the inline direction.” Journal of Fluids and Structures 119, May 2023, pp. 103886
“Holding Ground”, int—AR: Resilience and Adaptability in Building Interventions and Adaptive Reuse, IN BETWEEN [narrative environments] Volume 10, November 2019, pp. 14-21
“Expanding the Boundaries of Architectural Representation”, Invited introductory chapter in “The Medium of Architecture and the Dilemmas of Representation”, 20th Anniversary Anthology, Journal of Architecture, July 2017, pp 815-825
“Rising Measures: Drawing over the Cités HLM in Greater Paris”, Journal of Architectural Education, 69.1, Spring 2015, pp 98-107
“Fostering Resilience in a Vulnerable Terrain”, int—AR: Resilience and Adaptability in Building Interventions and Adaptive Reuse, Volume 5, 2014, pp 40-45
REVIEWS
Book Review: “The Architectural Imagination at the Digital Turn” by Nathalie Bredella”, Journal of Architectural Education, forthcoming
Book Review: “Approaching Architecture: Three Fields, One Discipline”, Edited by Miguel Guitart, Journal of Architecture, forthcoming
Book Review: “X-Ray Architecture” by Beatriz Colomina, Journal of Architecture, 25 (4), 2020, pp 507-511 Book Review:
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
“Grounds in Disarray: Social Housing, and the Open and Public Spaces of Parisian Suburbs”, Photoessay, Platform Space, February 2023
“Retracing Memory: A Reflection on the Work of Anna Schuleit”, Special feature the Boston Society of Architects’ People+ Works, October 2012
EXHIBITIONS
"Chaosmosis: Assigning Rhythm to the Turbulent: the "Travelling Gallery of Fluid Motion” Group Exhibition at the Gallery of the National Academy of Sciences, curated by N. Almonte and N. Economides, coordinated by A. Panah in DC. October 2, 2023 to February 23, 2024.
2023 Bridges Conference Art Exhibition, Group Exhibition, organized by The Bridges Organization, American Mathe- matical Society and Mathematical Association of America, Ralph M. Medjuck Building, Dalhousie University, Halifax, July 26 –31, 2023
In the Wake: Drawing Dynamics of Vortical Structures, Interdisciplinary Research Exhibition, Design Building Gallery, Amherst, February 15 – March 15, 2022
Slow, Group Show, Strauss Gallery at Dartmouth College, Hanover, April 1 – 28th, 2019
Rising Measures, Solo Exhibition, Design Building Gallery, Amherst, August 28 – September 23, 2018, NYPOP Gallery, New York, April 1 – 28, 2018
HONORS AND AWARDS
College Outstanding Teaching Award, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Spring 2021
Reinventing Our Rivers Competition, selected amongst six proposals recommended to the City of Quebec for partial merit, September 2017
Design Competition: small lot — BIG IDEAS, First Prize, Competition organized by the city of Northampton and WMAIA, November 2013
Canadian Centre for Architecture Charette, First Prize Ex-Equo, Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal, October 2001’
COURSES RECENTLY TAUGHT
Philosophy of Architecture and Design (Graduate Seminar)
Cabinets of Curiosity for 21st Century (Graduate Design Studio)
Architectural Analysis and Representation I and II (Undergraduate courses)