picture of James F. Eckler Jr.

James F. Eckler Jr.

Dean, Reap College of Creative & Professional Studies


jeckler@marywood.edu

Reap College Creative/Prof St

570-961-4541

Cntr for Architectural Studies 230

Courses taught:

Design Studio III ARCH-210
Design Studio IV ARCH-220
Design Studio X ARCH-460
Professional Practice ARCH-462
Graduate Studio Observation I IARC-560A
Graduate Studio Observation II IARC-560B
James Eckler is the Interim Dean of the Reap College of Creative and Professional Studies at Marywood University . He is an internationally recognized author having published and presented his research extensively; including two books and numerous papers. He holds an M.ARCH and MSAS with a focus in Architectural Pedagogy from the University of Florida.

Leveraging his background in architecture, he seeks to bring a data-driven and strategic approach to institutional administration. He couples this logic with a leadership model predicated on team building that empowers the membership of the college to act in an interconnected and interdisciplinary way.

Over the course of his career he has sought to find the intersections between architecture, urban space making, and design pedagogies. Specifically, he is interested in the notion of interiority as it exists at the scale of the city. His agenda asks if we can conceptualize shared urban spaces as interior relative to the experiential qualities of dwelling. If so, the roles an individual piece of architecture plays in defining urban interior space are subject to critical scrutiny.

This line of inquiry positions architecture as a principal agent in fostering community. His research is ongoing and operates in parallel with his pedagogical agenda in which he crafts studios and seminars to address these issues with students. Essential to the transition of research into pedagogy is the potential for the student/designer to speculate urban futures and conceive architecture as formative to context.

Presentations and Publications

Selected Publications:

Language of Space and Form: Generative Terms for Architecture
2012 _ John Wiley & Sons

Introduction to Architecture
2012 _ John Wiley & Sons
co-author: Francis D.K. Ching

Immateriality in Design and Pedagogy
“The Hidden School” _ 2019 European Association of Architectural Education General Assembly
August 2019 _ Zagreb, Croatia

Developing an Integrated Curriculum Model for Building Technology
“Learning Through Practice” _ 2019 Association of Architectural Educators Annual Conference
September 2019 _ London, United Kingdom

Passeggiata: Urban Interiority & its Architectural Frame
Spatiality & Temporality Conference _ London Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
June 2019 _ Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

Passeggiata: Architecture that Cheats and Breaks Rules to Make Urban Spaces Interior
ACSA Fall Conference
October 2018 _ Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Inside-Out: The Urban Scale of Interiority
Space 2018 International Conference on Architecture, Culture & Society
September 2018 _ London, United Kingdom