Biographies of NYIT Architecture Professors

JUDITH DIMAIO, R.A.

 Dean, School of Architecture and Design

        Judith DiMaio, dean of the School of Architecture and Design, joined NYIT from Yale University, where she taught in the School of Architecture and was director of undergraduate studies in architecture. DiMaio has earned a world-class reputation as both an architect and an educator. In addition to her position at Yale, she has been a visiting professor at Columbia University, Cornell University, the Rhode Island School of Design and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She has also led a number of international summer programs in architecture. Formerly a senior designer at Kohn, Pedersen, Fox, DiMaio continues to maintain a design practice. She is presently completing a facade/storefront in glass, steel and stone for Urban Outfitters in New Haven, Connecticut. Other projects include a renovation in New York City, a civic structure in Seaside, Florida, and a condominium complex in Australia. Her projects have appeared in various architectural design publications. Dean DiMaio received her master's degree in architecture from Harvard University, as well as a bachelor's degree in architecture from Cornell University and a B.A. from Bennington College. Her honors include winning the Rome Prize in Architecture and being awarded a Fulbright-Hays scholarship in Rome. She resides in New York City.

Matthew J. Dockery

Assistant Professor, School of Architecture and Design

            Matthew Dockery received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Boston College in 1992, with major in History and minor in Fine Art. In 1998, he received a Master of Architecture (MARCH) from Syracuse University, with a concentration in Urban Design. He received the Cutler/Barry Scholarship to study abroad, spending one year in residence in Florence, Italy. Upon graduation, he received a commencement award for the second highest academic ranking. His experience includes:

 - Spent four years as a designer for Michael Graves & Associates in Princeton, NJ and New York, NY.   Extensive work on residential and civic buildings, including the Federal Courthouse annex on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

- His work has been published in City Journal, the Classicist, Architecture Ink, and the New York Post. - Matthew Dockery currently resides in Lower Manhattan, teaching digital media representation and architectural design at Old Westbury and Manhattan.

- He was an adjunct professor in New York City (Digital Media) in 2001, becoming a full-time professor in September of 2002.

Jon Michael Schwarting

Professor of Architecture/Director of the graduate Program in Urban and Regional Design

            Michael Schwarting is an architect, urban designer and professor. He was an Associate at Richard Meier and Associates. He has been a Partner in Design Collaborative and Karahan and Schwarting Architecture Company and principle of Jon Michael Schwarting-Architects and presently Partner in Campani and Schwarting Architects. He has been recognized and placed in several competitions and work has been exhibited and published internationally in journals and books. The public/urban work includes the Master plan and Campus Walk for the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, that received a Progressive Architecture Citation, the Franklin Street IRT Subway Station and Canopy, Bedford Street. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Improvements for NYC PDC, Stuyvesant Cove Waterfront Park Study for NYC CB 6., Bogardus Triangle Garden for NYC DOT, and Mount Sinai Park and Community Center on Long Island. 

            Michael Schwarting is a Professor of Architecture and Director of the graduate Program in Urban and Regional Design at New York Institute of Technology were he has also served as Chair at the Central Islip Campus. He has also taught at Yale, U. of Pennsylvania, Columbia and The Cooper Union. He has lectured internationally, and published numerous articles. He has received private and public grants for architectural and urban research including the Graham Foundation, NEA, three from NYSCA and three NYS grants for the historic reconstruction of the Aluminaire House project.

            Michael Schwarting has served on the Board of the Architectural League and the Van Alan Institute and is a Trustee Emeritus of the American Academy in Rome. Michael Schwarting has a B. Arch. and a M. Arch.in Urban Design from Cornell University and received a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.

Jonathan Block Friedman

Professor of Architecture

            Jonathan Block Friedman is a registered architect who has taught architecture for over 25 years. He was Dean of the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology from 1992 to 2000. During his tenure as Dean, the School added a graduated program leading to the degree of Masters of Architecture in Urban and Regional Design and won accreditation for an additional campus at Central Islip. Successful accreditation visits included Team comments such as "world class" and "the best the committee has seen." Also in this time NYIT acquired and restored the Aluminaire House, Kocher and Frey's Modern landmark, and presented annual Earth Day celebrations in its honor. Featured speakers have included Douglas Cardinal, Jullian de la Fuente, Tod Williams, and Kenneth Frampton. Under his direction, NYIT students helped design and construct the Lakota Sioux Cultural Center at Sinte Gleska University in South Dakota.    

             Dean Friedman played a central role in the development and success of NYIT's Legacy: Our Home Our Children, an Environmental Education Awareness Symposium focusing on Long Island, which attracted international interest. Participants included Dr. John Todd of Ocean Ark, Malcolm Wells, Jay Baldwin, Peter Warshall and Steve Badanes, as well as members of Regional Plan Association of New York, the Mayor of Glen Cove NY, and the Regional Director of the NY State DEC. Friedman holds the rank of Professor of Architecture. He has taught all levels of architectural design as well as the history of architecture. He was Coordinator of the Design Fundamentals Program at NYIT, where he has been responsible in a single semester for as many as 700 students and 35 instructors on three campuses. He holds the President's Service Award from NYIT. 

            His book, Creation in Space, presents the curriculum and documents the work of Design Fundamentals students and instructors at NYIT. Architectonics, Volume 1 of this work, has been described as "the best I've yet encountered for Architectural Design" on Amazon.com and as "superb" by the Prairie Avenue Bookshop, has been adopted or recommended as course text in over 25 schools of architecture, both in the USA and abroad. Volume 2, Dynamics, as well as a Second Edition of Volume 1 were published in 2000. On the basis of this work, he was the Keynote Speaker at the 7th National Conference on The Beginning Design Student, in Santa Fe New Mexico and was a featured Panelist with Frank Ching at the 16th National Conference on The Beginning Design Student in Las Vegas. He has also taught at the University of Kentucky and the New Jersey Institute of Technology and has been a visiting critic in Seattle and Minneapolis, and at Cooper Union, Columbia, and Harvard.

            A MacDowell Fellow and a National Merit Scholar, he was educated at Princeton and Cambridge, studying with George Segal, Shujiro Shimada, Anthony Vidler, Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, and Charles Gwathmey, and has worked with Richard Meier, among other architects. His proposal for a prototype suburban renewal, Home For Generations, was an Honorable Mention in The Architect's Dream House National Competition, sponsored by the Contemporary Arts Center and the Cincinnati Ohio Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He has won a national architectural design competition and a grant from the New York State Council on The Arts and earned Honorable Mention in the National Space Institute's Design Competition for a proposed Earthlight Lodge Lunar Resort and Natural Park. He is a Grant Recipient of the Anna M. Rockefeller Foundation. He has lectured in the US, Central America, Europe, and Australia. His architecture has been exhibited at the Cooper Union and Paul Robeson Rutgers Galleries and in Israel and Japan. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design. 

            Jonathan Friedman has worked with both New York's Mayor Lindsay and Portola Institute, the Whole Earth Catalog group in Palo Alto. He is originator and a principal investigator of Evolution of a Campus: 250 Years of Princeton University, a 4-dimensional interactive model of Princeton University, which is now accessible through Princeton's Home Page. His current research includes continuing studies in theoretical synagogue design. His articles on architecture and a profile on his own designs have appeared in Newsday. He holds several US patents and is listed in Marquis Who's Who in Computer Graphics. He lives with his wife and sons in Glen Cove New York.