DAVID MECKEL, FAIA

DAVID is Director of Research and Planning, California College of the Arts, and as he describes himself, official "friendraiser" for CCA. As architect and designer, he has an enviable record. David directed all of the design work for the 1984 Olympics, which Time Magazine declared “Not just the year’s, but surely the decade’s most glittering and effective demonstration of the power of creative design.” He was recently given a City Legacy Award in Los Angeles for this work, now 20 years after its completion. He was chosen as one of ID Magazine’s “ID Forty” Design and Technology Innovators in 1997, and was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1998.

David co-founded the Interior Architecture program at Otis Art Institute with Richard Saul Wurman, and founded the Architecture program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. The 120,000 sq. ft. solar-heated facility he converted into CCA’s Campus was named one of the Top Ten Green Buildings in the United States on Earth Day 2001. For the past 10 years he has chaired SFMoMA’s Design and Architecture Accessions Committee. He also serves as a Peer Architect for GSA’s Excellence in Design program, he is involved in architect selection and design critique for a new half-billion dollar federal courthouse for downtown Los Angeles.

He is the Campus Architect for the University of the Pacific in Stockton and Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento directing the efforts of over a dozen firms, including Gensler, SmithGroup, Fisher Friedman, Pfau Architecture and SWA Group. He also serves on the Design Advisory Committee for the selection of architects for the campuses of UCSF in San Francisco where Rafael Vinoly, Ricardo Legorreta, Peter Walker, Cesar Pelli, Stanley Saitowitz, SOM and BohlinCywinskiJackson are executing projects. His work as a professional competition advisor includes recently finished competitions for the Memphis Riverfront and Santa Rosa’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

David received a BS in Architecture from USC and a Master’s in Architecture from Columbia University. He began his career working with Charles and Ray Eames in their Venice, California studio.