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The Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum believes the design and experience of the built environment can assist the spiritual development of humanity in service of addressing the world’s most pressing issues.
The Mission of the Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum is to provide an international forum for scholarship, education, practice, and advocacy regarding the cultural and spiritual significance of the built environment.
These perennial and complementary core values serve as pillars to cultivate human spirituality in the process of envisioning, planning, designing, and realizing the built environment.
To learn more about ACSF’s worldview and aspirations, read our Declaration of Transcendent Human Habitat.
Interconnected Criteria
Interconnected Criteria
Justice
Participation
Environmental Adaptation
Ecotechnology
Essential Simplicity
for Effecting Change
ACSF was founded in April 2007. It emerged from a number of conferences dating from the early 1990’s, which were dedicated to scholarship on the cultural significance, ritual use and meaning of sacred places and religious architecture.
During the intervening years there also was a remarkable growth in scientific and professional research on mind and spirituality accompanied by a parallel increase in public interest in the subject. At the same time, it was clear that architecture and allied disciplines were not offering enough space or attention to this emerging interest, scholarship, teaching, and practice.
All this indicated a propitious time to engage an international audience through a process that was integrative (interdisciplinary), diverse (ecumenical), cutting-edge (at the forefront of research and practice), rigorous, and open.
During the annual Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) conference in Salt Lake City in March 2006, Thomas Barrie (North Carolina State University), Julio Bermudez (then at the University of Utah, now at the Catholic University of America), Anat Geva (Texas A&M University), and Randall Teal (University of Idaho) met, discussed, and agreed on the need to start a forum that engaged the study, practice, and teaching occurring at the intersection between architecture, culture and spirituality.
During the following months, the four collaborated in the production of a white paper entitled “Architecture, Culture, Spirituality (ACS). Creating a forum for scholarship and discussion of spirituality and meaning in the built environment.” Using this paper as both foundation and rationale, prominent scholars and practitioners in the field were contacted and invited to join the nascent organization, many of whom accepted and became the first members of ACSF.
During the following years the organization grew through a robust program of symposia, partnerships, and publications. In June 2016 ACSF was incorporated as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the state of North Carolina (USA).
Now, ACSF advances research and practice on the intersection of spirituality, the built environment and critical contemporary issues. This includes the capacity to bridge cultural and religious differences, raise human consciousness, address environmental and cultural sustainability, advance social justice, impart beauty, and improve health and wellbeing. It influences academic, professional, cultural, and religious contexts through strategic partnerships, programming, symposia, publications, and awards programs.
Julio Bermudez | President
Julio Bermudez, DPACSA, directed the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies program at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning. His scholarship focuses on architectural phenomenology and neuroscience in relationship to culture and spirituality. He has published three books: “Spirituality in Architectural Education” (CUA Press, 2023), “Architecture, Culture and Spirituality” (with Tom Barrie & Phillip Tabb, Routledge 2015), and “Transcending Architecture” (CUA Press 2015).
Roberto Chiotti | Chair
Roberto Chiotti, OAA, FRAIC, LEED AP, CAHP
In addition to obtaining his professional architectural degree in 1978 from the University of Waterloo, Canada, Roberto Chiotti completed his Master of Theological Studies degree at the University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto in 1998 with a specialty in Theology and Ecology obtained through the Elliott Allen Institute for Theology and Ecology at St. Michael’s. He is founding principal emeritus of Larkin Architect Limited, a Toronto based firm specializing in the design of sustainable sacred space for parishes and religious communities, mostly within the Christian tradition. In addition to his teaching appointments, Roberto has been invited to speak on the topics of liturgical design, sacred space, eco-theology, and the architectural response to the ecological crisis at universities, colleges, and conferences throughout North America and abroad.
Katherine Ambroziak
Katherine Bambrick Ambroziak AIA is the James R. Cox Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Her research and teaching examine how designers and users become conscious of their built and natural environments and what this means to the generation of healthy perceptions and memory. She focuses on spatial theory related to sensory response and body perception, ritual theory, and contemporary memorial theory. Katherine received a Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia.
Reza Assasi
Reza Assasi, PhD, OAA, is a researcher, educator, and licensed architect in Canada whose work bridges design, technology, and cultural heritage. He holds a PhD in Architecture (History and Theory), and an M.Arch II from McGill University. Reza teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University and Centennial College, where he integrates historical, theoretical, cultural, and technological approaches to architecture. His research explores emerging technologies, architectural history and theory, and the symbolic and cosmological dimensions of architecture across cultures.
Sarika Bajoria
Sarika Bajoria is the founder of Contemplative Designer, principal of Sarika Bajoria Unlimited, and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and the University of New Haven. She developed the Contemplative Designer Framework—a pedagogical model integrating the science of human flourishing, neuroaesthetics, and contemplative practices to empower designers to cultivate “inner spaces” of flourishing as the foundation for designing “outer spaces” of flourishing. Sarika regularly provides workshops and lectures on contemplative design to equip practicing designers with design tools of empathic imagination and meaning. A Building Design+Construction 40 under 40 and ENR New York 20 under 40 honoree, she served as the Founding Director of Architecture for Humanity NY and is a Lighthouse Fellow at the Center for Conscious Design. She obtained her Masters in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Physics, Math, and Art from Luther College.
Nooshin Esmaeili
Nooshin is a registered architect in Canada, a certified yoga teacher, a sessional instructor, and a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary. Her research pushes the boundaries of traditional architecture, integrating insights from philosophy, spirituality, environmental psychology, and neuroscience. She explores the spatial poetics of transcendental architecture, focusing on the intersection of architecture, well-being, and self-transcendence through a mystical lens, particularly inspired by Sufism. As the Chair of the Canada Chapter of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), Nooshin also serves as a researcher and President of the Canada Graduate Students in a nationwide project titled “Quality in Canada’s Built Environment: Roadmaps to Equity, Social Value, and Sustainability.” Her achievements have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Lloyd & Florence Cooper Doctoral Scholarship in Mind-Body Connection in Health. In 2023, she was honored with the prestigious OBEL Award Teaching Fellowship, allowing her to spend six months in Bhutan, where she taught a course on “Well-being” in architecture at the Royal University of Bhutan.
Alan Frost
Alan Frost, NOMA, is a Chicago-based licensed architect and Professor of Architecture at Judson University, where he coordinates the undergraduate program and teaches design studios, structures, and graduate electives. His teaching and research examine how architecture cultivates meaning, belonging, and spiritual experience. He leads community-engaged studios with disinvested neighborhoods across the U.S. to advance dignity and flourishing. His current work explores the sacred in everyday places and integrates making, ethics, and emerging AI into design pedagogy. He draws on over twenty-five years in practice, including sacred, educational, and civic work, which continues to inform his teaching.
Nesrine Mansour
Nesrine Mansour, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a PhD in Architecture and a Certificate in the Digital Humanities from Texas A&M University. Her research centers on the convergence of architecture, digital media, and sacred spaces, bridging disciplines like social sciences, digital humanities, and modern technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. She is a national and international published author whose work encompasses book chapters, journal articles, conference presentations, magazines, podcasts, invited lectures, and design juries. She has received an Emerging Faculty Grant by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and a research fellowship from the Center of Theological Inquiry.
Trent Smith
Trent Smith AIA is a practitioner and professor of architecture and interior design, currently practicing in Salt Lake City, Utah. He founded and leads Modern Out West, a small studio composed of wonderful folks nationally and abroad who are doing their best to make a beautiful, small mark on the world, one small intervention at a time, one awesome client at a time… Trent has been involved in various ways with ACSF since the first conference at Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon.
William Storrar
William Storrar, PhD is an Honorary Professor in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, and Director Emeritus of the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) in Princeton NJ. While directing CTI’s interdisciplinary research program, he convened an inquiry on religion and the built environment in collaboration with ACSF. He has written on a spatial approach to the study of religious congregations and on architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s theologically-informed theory of design in the History of Scottish Theology, Volume II (Oxford University Press).
Caitlin Watson
Caitlin Watson, AIA, is an Associate at Sage and Coombe Architects in New York and writes about sacred-public space, focusing on the intersection of art and architecture. In addition, she organizes for progressive change within architectural practice through her work with the Architecture Lobby. Watson’s work has been published in Faith and Form, 2A Magazine, Religions, and the New York Review of Architecture and she has presented at the annual meetings of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Architecture Culture and Spirituality Forum, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. She received a B. Arch. from the University of Tennessee and a Masters of Architecture from McGill University.
Tracey Winton
Tracey Eve Winton is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Waterloo where she teaches design and history theory, and leads design-build studios and a study abroad program in Italy. Her research focusses on urban studies, resilient urban ecologies, sustainable development, materials and resources, natural building, adaptive reuse, and ecotourism. In 2018 she was laureate of the National Conference on the Beginning Design Student) Faculty Award. students.
The ACSF Board of Directors maintains the following Standing Committees:
Membership
Maintains and updates membership list, conducts membership surveys when appropriate, and tracks member profiles, numbers, etc.
Chair: Trent Smith (htsmith@gmail.com)
Publications
Leads efforts to publish ACSF symposia, scholarship, and members’ research and work.
Chair: Michael Crosbie (crosbie@hartford.edu)
Awards and Recognitions
Leads and coordinates all ACSF awards and recognition programs. These include the following, each led by a chair/board liaison: Distinguished Achievement, Lindsay Jones Memorial Research Fund, and Symposia Scholarship Program.
Chairs: Michael Crosbie (crosbie@hartford.edu) and Tomas Barrie (tmbarrie@ncsu.edu)
Communications
Leads ACSF communication strategy and public outreach. This includes maintaining a media list, monitoring all ACSF newsletters, press releases and announcements, and coordinating the MailChimp and Instagram platforms.
Chair: Caitlin Watson
Development
Leads ACSF communication strategy and public outreach. This includes maintaining a media list, monitoring all ACSF newsletters, press releases and announcements, and coordinating the MailChimp and Instagram platforms.
Chairs: Thomas Barrie (tmbarrie@ncsu.edu) and Roberto Chiotti (roberto@larkinarchitect.com)
Website
Works with web designer/server provider, facilitates content updates, and monitors software updates.
Chairs: Julio Bermudez (bermudez@cua.edu) and Thomas Barrie (tmbarrie@ncsu.edu)
