Christopher Brokaw

As a founding partner of VUW, Chris has twenty years of professional architectural
experience working on commercial, institutional and mixed-use projects with a
concentration on hi-performance enclosures and sustainable building technologies.
He is a registered Architect and Certified Passive House Designer and loves the idea that buildings
can be designed as sympathetic organs to metabolize environmental inputs – filtering, purifying,
growing net positive effects.
He has been a member of the faculty at Pratt Institute School of Architecture since 2012, teaching
in the undergraduate design and technology sequences.
Prior to founding VUW, he was a Project Architect with Steven Holl Architects for the
Vanke Center; a 1.2 million square foot mixed-use facility located in southern China.
He was directly responsible for the design development and technical integration and of the dynamically
controlled facade, 15 acres of planted roof and a 15,000SF solar panel array. The Vanke
Center is the first LEED Platinum certified project on the mainland and has won
numerous awards.
Before working in China he was Lead Design Architect for a number of mixed use and
technology projects, most notably the Lucida condominiums in New York; The Great
Lakes Technology Accelerator, a green-tech incubator outside of Cleveland, Ohio, as
well as the design of several workspaces for media and technology companies in the
Washington D.C area.
Chris has earned a Bachelors of Environmental Design and Masters of Fine Art Degrees. His personal
work has been exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Raleigh
Industrial Center in Baltimore, Maryland and the Goethe Institute in Washington DC.

B.Environmental Design, Miami University

M.F.A., University of Maryland.