I Started in Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and studied with Professor Laskey for the first two years and for several years after the base course. Laskey’s teaching methods and perspective on the value of design is very much based on the perspective and teaching methods of the Bauhaus from Germany. I did a year out at the Architectural Association and was able to study with three very skilled and talented tutors there — Architects Ingrid Morris, David Greene and Technical Tutor David Toppin. After that I did my Masters in Architecture at Washington University and finished that in 1982. I went to work for Per Knudsen Arkitektkontor and Trond Thomessen Arkitekt in Norway and then began studies toward the Ph.D in Architecture and Archaeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and was able to study with a group of wonderful, talented and welcoming Professors, particularly in the fields of historical ethnography, anthropology and archaeology, including Henrik Thrane, Bente Draiby, Dan Carlsson, Ulf Näsman and Kalle Sognnes. Also the Danish Housing laboratory Director at the time, during the late 80s and the early 90s, Architect Karen Zahle, was kind enough to host a stay for my research of two semesters at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where I had the chance to study directly with Anthropologist Bror Westman, who suggested that I work with the concept of the home for my Ph.D. This concept was extremely important for my getting the Ph.D finished and awarded. My two opponents for the Ph.D defence were Bente Draiby, of Lejre Archaeological Research Centre and Bjørn Myhre of the Stavanger Archaeological Museum. Even though my Ph.D is formally in Architecture, both of my opponents are Archaeologists, while Bente Draiby is also an Architect. During my Ph.D work, I had the opportunity to visit Schloss Gottorf, in Germany and tour the Wadde Sea area with Archaeologist Albert Bantelmann, where he did his original excavations for some of the Northern European Iron Age dwellings and small villages that he found. Visiting the actual site of the excavations, and with one of the original excavator-archaeologists was a really fantastic experience for a Ph.D student!

Since Graduating, I have been mainly involved in buildings heritage conservation, buildings assessment reports, built environment research, especially with regards to low-energy and sustainable buildings, development of research methods in design, architecture and archaeology, and helping groups of other designers, scientists and engineers to work in teams to design performative landscapes and sustainable water flows. I have collaborated with Professor Emerita Inge Vestergaard, of the Aarhus School of Architecture on a couple of papers and the facilitation of a workshop at the Passivhus Norden 2017 conference in Helsinki, a group that I have worked with since collaborating with Nordic colleagues to establish Passivhus Norden from 2007. Here, i have also collaborated informally with the very talented Passivhaus engineer Søren Pedersen, who is now at COWI in Denmark. During my work in Norway and Denmark from 1993 and until today, I have continued to do empirical and theoretical work in buildings and landscape archaeology, including a stint helping to document the work of master carpenters restoring Medieval wooden barns in the Vestfold area of Norway, under the direction of Architect Anders Haslestad, a master of historic and pre-historic building methods and tools. I have also had the chance to collaborate on co creating heritage conservation works and reports with master carpenters in the Nordics, such as Håkon Gøthesen, who is also a teacher, a wood window restorer and the author of one of the major works on wood window restoration in Europe, the book: Gamle vinduer — Historikk, restaurering og vedlikehold, from Gøthesen Forlag, published in 2012. He is planning on writing a new work or revising the original book. The photograph on my Medium page showing a wooden post meeting the white sheetrock is a photo of a bedroom addition that i designed for a family in a historic block of flats in Oslo. The guy who did the drywall and carpentry and all the fire protection work is Byggmester Haukur Hauksson, a really highly skilled carpenter. I found it most enjoyable to work with him. Other master carpenters and Architects that i have worked with in Scandinavia are Henning Krohg Stabell, Finn Kleiva, and Katherine Elverum, all of them very skilled at a full range of Architectural work.

Currently, I am still working on scholarly papers in the fields of built heritage studies and historic architecture restoration, mainly focused on working to transform and repair the relationship between Architects and craftspersons, based on the work, among other authors, of Jonas Holst, at Universidad San Jorge, who has written about the Tekton and Arkitekton, and how this relationship and their respective roles have changed over 1000s of years. I am also a co-owner of the firms Aqua Naturae A/S and John Todd Ecological Design, where we work in teams to do research on, design and build ecological wastewater treatment and habitat restoration systems. This work is focused on the emerging field of research and engineering Nature Based Solutions for infrastructure and heritage management of the built stock and the cultural landscape.