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Alumni Profile

Timothy W. Ventimiglia

Built in 1999 at the peak of the silicon boom, Intel’s museum tells stories of the people and history of computing, and how silicon chips are designed and fabricated. The materials and detailing of the museum are based on high-tolerance construction systems that the company uses to rapidly build chip fabrication facilities around the world. It was a great time to be working in the heart of Silicon Valley.
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"My education at Cornell expanded my sense of how design can communicate and connect ideas across a larger field."

Timothy W. Ventimiglia

B.Arch. 1992, M.Arch. 1994

My education at Cornell instilled in me a rigorous conceptual approach to design. It also expanded my sense of how design can communicate and connect ideas across a larger field.

education

  • B.Arch ’92, Cornell Univeristy College of Architecture, Art and Planning
  • M.Arch ’94, Cornell Univeristy College of Architecture, Art and Planning

work

  • Studio Director and Associate of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, New York City
  • Visiting design studio professor at Cornell University Department of Architecture, Spring 2001
  • Currently adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design, Department of Architecture Interior and Lighting Design

research

I think any great design education contains this essential paradox. On the one hand, it must be very introspective, a kind of disciplined personal journey. It also must be very open to influences beyond the traditional scope of architecture. The M.Arch program was a very interdisciplinary, vertical studio – connecting students with faculty and peers from other colleges and departments. An M.Arch teaching fellowship allowed me to reconnect to the B.Arch program as a studio critic. Summer studios abroad, in particular a European tour of great post-war museums, set me on a professional course that I am still following. More than ten years ago, I joined the firm of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, where I am currently directing the interpretive planning, program development and design of several projects ranging from art, natural history, science and technology, to social and cultural history museums. As a designer and a consultant, my work is redefining what a museum is, can and will be. Designing from the inside out, I am collaborating with some great architects, including David Chipperfield, James Polshek, Michael Maltzan, Rafael Viñoly and Peter Bohlin, among others.

associations

NAME Committee Member for the American Association of Museums.
Scheduled for 2007, this new year-round visitor and discovery center at the Grand Teton National Park's south gate in Jackson Hole, WY, will orient visitors to the country’s first national park. Artifacts, graphics and large format video rivers embedded in the floor interpret diverse natural and cultural landscapes.
In the spirit of transparency, this new museum in Salt Lake City, UT, will foreground processes that are normally hidden way from sight, such as collections storage, conservation, and preparation. Open labs and visible study collections and classrooms embedded in exhibit galleries are redefining how the museum communicates with visitors. This project is scheduled for 2009.