Faculty + Staff

René C Davids

Professor of Architecture and Urban Design

Education
M.A. Environmental Design, Royal College of Art, London, U.K.
B.Arch., Universidad de Chile, Santiago
Philosophy Statement

"My other teachers were my students whom I taught to teach me." Bernard Malamud, in Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life

Biography

Rene Davids (FAIA) was educated  at the Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanismo at the Universidad de Chile. After winning  the prestigious National Arts award in Santiago stored in the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, Davids was awarded a fellowship by the British Council to study art and architecture at the Royal College of Art in London UK, After graduating he was invited to teach at the Royal College, UK , the Architectural Association School of Architecture, U.K and the McIntosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art UK. He has also taught at the schools of architecture  University of Illinois at Chicago, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Católica de Chile, the Universidad Católica del Perú, University of California at San Diego, the University of Arizona, the University of New Mexico and has been an invited critic in schools around  the US and the world.

René Davids, was elevated to the colege of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2008 and is, a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at U.C. Berkeley’s Environmental Design’s Department  of Architecture and a principal of Davids Killory Architecture.f Davids Killory Architecture, Based in Oakland , California, the firm has gained national and international recognition for innovative design with projects around the country and overseas. The work has been widely published and recognized with three AIA National Honor Awards for Architecture, two Presidential Design Awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and three Progressive Architecture Awards, among many other local, regional, national, and international awards.  Their Escondido housing project, Daybreak Grove, was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 10 best architectural designs of 1993 and the Los Angeles Times called Davids Killory housing projects ‘small, cheap and brilliant”. Committed to pursuing architecture as a form of design research, Davids Killory proceeds from the belief that each project can achieve a unique design synthesis. Davids has also  developed many theoretical projects. His plug-in project for the city of Valparaiso which he entered with one of his students , Taylor Medlin  won the first prize at  Shinkeshiku-sha Internation Design competition in Tokyo, Japan in 2008. The work of Davids Killory Architecture has been shown in over twenty exhibitions and included in one hundred sixty books, journals and newspapers; Davids has lectured on the work of the firm at over sixty professional, academic, and arts institutions worldwide.

With Christine Killory, Professor Davids co-edited the AsBuilt series published by Princeton Architectural Press which explores interrelationships among architectural forms, materials, and technologies; three volumes have been published: AsBuilt 1: Details in Contemporary Architecture (2007),AsBuilt 2: Detail in Process (2008), and AsBuilt 3: Details Technology and Form (2012); the series was supported in part by a grant from the Graham Foundation.The City Review has qualified the books in the series as ”a non-nonsense books about a lot of sensational and wonderful projects that are  filled with fabulous photographs and drawings and good technical commentary." AsBuilt series

Davids has also edited and substantially contributed to Shaping Terrain: City Building in Latin America (University Press of Florida, Spring 2016). Research for the book was supported in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the Fulbright Specialist Program. The Journal of Latin American Geography in reviewing the book points out that Latin American urban aesthetic in Shaping Terrain: City Building in Latin America adapted to the contours of both natural and social landscapes in the New World sets the stage for  a series of well-crafted essays, each one easily standing alone as a case study of a particular architectural form in a specific urban setting. Collectively, they remind the reader of the very premise of geographical space, of site and situation, and elaborate on topographical and human imperatives influencing the landscape”. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvx1ht3b

Davids has also written articles that have appeared in Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, The International Journal of the Constructed Environment and Places Magazine among other publications.

Professor Davids’s graduate and undergraduate studio courses and seminars feature intensively researched programs based on themes engaging the urban landscape and its infrastructure, architectural form, materials, and technology, often in international settings such as  Mexico City; São Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Santiago de Chile, Seoul, Korea and Dessau and Berlin, Germany all that he has visited with students. Design work produced in Professor Davids’ studios and seminars have been published in books and online, and students have received many design and research awards for his course-related projects.

Galleries

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/arch-201-fall-2019

To see galleries of student course work produced in Davids' design studios, visit:

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/in-detail-arch-262-fall-2019

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/spring-2019-arch-202-the-dessau-effect

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/fall-2019-arch-262-in-detail

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/spring-2018-arch-109-rene-davids

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/spring-2018-arch-100d-constructed-landscapes

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/fall-2018-arch-201-architecture-urbanism-design-studio

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/fall-2017-arch-262-rene-davids

For galleries of studio travel led by Davids, visit:

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/fall-2019-arch-201-rene-davids

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/fall-2018-arch-201-rene-davids

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/arch-202-studio-travel-berlin-dessau-germany

https://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/galleries/#/lima-peru-study-travel

Courses Taught

   ARCH 100A Fundamentals of Architectural Design

ARCH 100B Fundamentals of Architectural Design

ARCH 101 Case Studies in Architecture

ARCH 109X :  Architecture and Landscape Design Built (Undergraduate Seminar)

Arch 200 A (Graduate Design Studio)

ARCH 203  Integrated  Studio (Graduate Studio)

ARCH 205 (ex.202A) Studio Thesis Option

ARCH 262 Seminar in Architectural InDetail (Seminar)

ARCH 204 ( ex-209C) Final Project Preparation Seminar. (Thesis prep)

ARCH 209 Landscape/Architecture/ Infrastructure/Urbanism (Seminar)

ARCH 219X Architecture and Identity: Latin America (Seminar))

ENV DES 201 Urban Design Studio (MUD Program)

ARCH 209  Relating Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Graduate Seminar)

ARCH 201 Architecture in an Urban Context (Graduate Studio)

ARCH 209 Housing as a Design Generator (Seminar)

ARCH 100 C (Undergraduate Studio)

ARCH 100 D (Undergraduate Studio)

ARCH 200 A  Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)

ARCH 200 B  Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)

ARCH 202( ex-Arch 201) Case Studies in Architectural Design (Graduate Studio)

Awards + Recognition
National Awards Elevated to the College of Fellows American Institute of Architects 2008 President's Award Metal Construction Association Annual Design 2004 Metal Construction Association Awards Program Progressive Architecture Citation for