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Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter announces her leave as Woodbury School of Architecture Dean

2021-10-18T15:06:00-04:00

Editor's Note: Details of this article have been updated as of October 20, 2021

After five years as the Dean of Woodbury School of Architecture, architect and academic Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter announced this Monday morning that she will leave her position. Wahlroos-Ritter's appointment as Dean began on June 1, 2017. Since then, she has acted as a force in elevating the program and carry on with its mission to prepare students for careers in architecture.

Along with her experience as a practicing architect and facades specialist, she has also taught at other architecture institutions like SCI-Arc, Yale, Cornell, and the Bartlett. Wahlroos-Ritter joined Woodbury's faculty in 2005. Before her appointment as Dean, she has held several teaching and administrative roles, including Undergraduate and Graduate Architecture Chair and Associate Dean. In addition, Wahlroos-Ritter is the creator and director of the WUHO gallery in Hollywood, has launched graduate programs in architecture and la...

Woodbury University's Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter will speak on housing at UN Headquarters

2020-02-10T16:10:00-05:00

Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, Dean of the School of Architecture at Woodbury University, will present on the topic of affordable housing at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. This comes as part of the UN's 58th Session of the Commission for Social Development. According to Woodbury, Ingalill will be presenting the college's Housing+ Initiative, a year long program of lectures, exhibitions, and studio inquiries focused on the issue of housing. The presentation will include a discussion of three case studies meant to provide examples of the importance of partnerships and how alliances can help fuel impactful design solutions.

The three case studies include practical issues that Woodbury students are currently tackling:

ACE’s (Architecture + Civic Engagement) partnership with the National Health Foundation and NBBJ on the design of spaces for a Recuperative Care Facility in Pico-Union
The HDR-sponsored urban studio that proposes solutions for LA Metro’s West Santa Ana Branch ...

Woodbury's Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter talks ethics and culture with LAT

2017-08-22T18:47:00-04:00

Very rarely does ethics become a selling point for a client or a selling point when you’re talking about a studio project. It’s very rarely the idea generator. I think most practitioners traditionally came from a comfortable or upper-middle-class. It’s the Jeffersonian ideal: the gentleman designer. Architects in this country tend to have clients who are in the upper income level. And I think that has really been a problem. Our students, many of them, come from underserved communities.

Back in July, Archinect featured Woodbury's new dean, Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, as a part of the Deans List series, in an interview about the importance of economic diversity and the school's commitment to egalitarian and practical education. The Los Angeles Times recently conducted a similar interview, in which Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter discusses her priorities as the new head of the school, Woodbury's culture and ethics.

Where do you hope to take the school? What are your priorities?

One of the things I’ve been focusing on over the last 10 years is our institutes. Our civic engagement institute started as Architecture and Civic Engagement. It was incubated in the school of architecture. Now the rest of the university is seeing this conversation as something they want to participate in, and it’s called the Agency for Civic Engagement, with Jeanine Centuori as director. The Julius Shulman Institute [on architectural photography] is another, with Barbara Bestor as the executive direc...

Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter appointed as Dean of Woodbury University's School of Architecture

2017-05-31T13:46:00-04:00

Woodbury University has named Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, AIA, Dean of the School of Architecture. Her appointment is effective June 1st, 2017. [...] Prior to Woodbury, Wahlroos-Ritter taught at Yale University, Cornell University, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, and SCI-Arc. Wahlroos-Ritter is also Director of WUHO, a venue for exhibitions, installations, and public dialogue. She [...] is now serving as Director on the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Advisory Board

“Our school is a role model for the direction in which the profession is heading – improving economic, gender, and ethnic diversity among its members, and reaffirming the importance of ethical conduct and social responsibility,” Wahlroos-Ritter said in a statement, “and I am inspired every day by our students, by my colleagues who are a splendid collection of critical thinkers and distinguished practitioners, by the optimism that infuses our School, and by our shared belief in the power of design to address urgent, contemporary issues. I look forward to working with faculty to cultivate and strengthen our student’s unique design voice that is equally committed to professional practice, theoretical discourse, social equity, and to formal and technological inquiry.”