José Gámez
José Gámez
José L.S. Gámez is the Dean of the College of Arts + Architecture. He was previously the Interim Dean for the College of Arts + Architecture and the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs in the College of Arts + Architecture at UNC Charlotte. He has served as the Interim Director of the School of Architecture, as the Associate Director of the School, as a Provost Faculty Fellow, as well as a Research Fellow with both UNC Charlotte’s Institute for Social Capital and Urban Institute. He is currently serving as an advisory board member for the Dean’s Equity and Inclusion Initiative and representing Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and in July 2023 will begin serving as the Second Vice President of the ACSA.
Gámez was the recipient of the 2015 Provost’s Award for Community Engagement, which recognized his action-based research and public scholarship and, in 2006, he was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Alumni Hall of Fame.
His research explores questions of culture in architecture and urbanism through action-based research and public scholarship. His work has been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Places: A Forum of Environmental Design, The Journal of Urbanism, The Journal of Applied Geography, and The Plan Journal. He is also the co-editor of the books Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment and Vertical Urbanism: Designing Compact Cities in China and he has contributed essays to books such as Writing Urbanism: A Design Reader, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, Charlotte, NC: The Global Rise of a New South City, and Latino Urbanism: The Politics of Planning, Policy and Redevelopment. His design contributions to the work of assemblageSTUDIO have been featured in New Museums: Contemporary Museum Architecture Around the World, Models: Architecture and the Miniature and Architectural Record.
Prior to joining the faculty at UNC Charlotte, Gámez taught at Portland State University and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He received his Bachelor of Environmental Design from Texas A&M, his Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of California at Los Angeles.
EXPLORE HIS RECENT WORK
UNC Charlotte Students under the lead of Gámez join students from Florida and the Bahamas to design post-hurricane housing. As North America prepares for another hurricane season, the work of one School of Architecture studio in Fall 2020 is responding to the challenge.
An interdisciplinary team from the College of Arts + Architecture has published an article in the journal Technology|Architecture + Design (TAD) on COVID-Era Design leadership: “DIY in Pandemic Times: Design Leadership During COVID-19“. The article relates their collaborative design process as they used 3D printers to mass produce protective face shields for medical workers in the spring of 2020.
Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment: Using Rio de Janeiro as the case study city, this book highlights and examines issues surrounding the development of mega-cities in Latin America and beyond. Complex dynamics of urbanization such as mega-event-driven development, infrastructure investment, and informal urban expansion are intertwined with changing climatic conditions that demand new approaches to sustainable urbanism.