Heather Woofter

Heather Woofter is the director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also is the Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor. She previously served as chair of graduate architecture. She teaches the Practices course for first-year students, as well as advanced design studios at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Positions prior to her tenure at WashU include assistant professor at Virginia Tech; visiting professor at Konkuk University in Seoul, Korea; and visiting professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. She earned her Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech in 1991 and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University GSD in 1998.

Woofter’s practice converges in the media, arts, and cultural sphere with built and speculative works. Alternative projects explore the relationship between research and practice, reimagining the discipline through related writing, exhibition, and forms of collaboration. She was a project architect with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Marks Barfield in London, UK; and Robert Luchetti Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a registered architect, and since 2003 co-design principal of the practice Axi:Ome with Sung Ho Kim. Projects include St. Louis media and arts public works COCA (Center of Creative Arts), the Nine Network of public media television, and UMSL St. Louis public radio station. Their project Artwalk was supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant. In addition, Woofter collaborated with historians on a Divided City Mellon Foundation grant entitled Citizen Space. She also co-authored an interdisciplinary grant from InCEES (International Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability) entitled Resilient Cities, which supports faculty research projects in St. Louis.

Woofter serves in an architectural advisory role with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Brickline project, a green infrastructure project in the St. Louis region. She also served on the ACSA steering committee annual conference Expanding the View: Prospect(s) for Architectural Education Futures, exploring interconnectedness and innovation in scholarship, teaching, and praxis.