Peter Engel

Faculty, School of Architecture

Peter is a LEED-accredited, licensed architect in Oakland, CA with over three decades of experience in architecture and international development.  He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and master’s degree from Columbia before heading to India to study indigenous architecture and low-cost housing.  His research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Columbia University, the Asian Cultural Council, the Graham Foundation, and other institutions.  Peter’s international work includes serving as Regional Habitat Advisor for South and Southeast Asia for the child-focused NGO Plan International.  For Plan and other organizations, he designed preschools in the Philippines and Japan and a peace center (with Cheryl Perko) in Sri Lanka.  His architectural designs in California include an award-winning renovation of the historic Julia Morgan School in Oakland, the Marine Electric Building childcare and Dogpile Dogs daycare in San Francisco, a YMCA Head Start facility in Berkeley, and a LEED-Platinum affordable housing project in Humboldt County.  He has taught for three years at Academy of Art University, including undergraduate courses in design and drawing and graduate classes in sustainable design, and has contributed two lectures to the Tangents series.  The forms and patterns of the natural world have deeply influenced his work as an architect, educator, and origami designer.  The author of three books of original paperfolding designs, he has exhibited at the Asian Art and de Young Museums in San Francisco and has lectured widely in the U.S. and Japan.