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Profile:

John Messina, AIA, is a senior lecturer/research architect with a joint full-time appointment shared by the School of Architecture and by the Southwest Center, a department in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences. For the School of Architecture he developed a new General Education Elective course, TRAD 104: Sonora:  A Description of Place in Arid America.  He has taught studios focused on the adaptive re-use of existing buildings as a means toward a renewed urbanism for cities and towns,  as well as adaptive re-use and new housing construction in Marfa, Texas. He also has taught ARC 302: Tectonics and currently teaches ARC 402: Urban Form.

Messina is a registered architect in Arizona and Louisiana, with built work in each state. In 1999 he completed restoration of an 1841 townhouse in the French Quarter of New Orleans as both architect and contractor. For that project he was awarded a "Citation for Historic Preservation" by the New Orleans Vieux Carré Commission. He has been awarded three design citations by the Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for recent Tucson projects. Currently he maintains a one-person practice specializing in neighborhood-scale architecture that involves a continual exploration of appropriate materials, technology, and form for the Sonoran region. He has lectured on architecture in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and has taught graduate design studios in both Monterrey and Tampico, Mexico.

Messina has also taught creative photography at Boston University and Wellesley College. In 1980, he was awarded a Massachusetts Artist Fellowship for his photography.  At that time he was an active exhibiting photographer having had one-person shows in New Orleans, New York, and Boston, and his photographs are included in major museum collections. He received his B.Arch. from Louisiana State University and his M.Arch. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research/Creative Activities:

John Messina's research activities are focused on three interrelated topics.

He has been investigating the colonial and post-colonial era architecture and urbanism of Northwest Mexico and the Southwest United States. This research seeks to develop a clearer understanding of settlement patterns, building typologies, and place determinants in order to provide architects with a knowledge base of meaningful regional precedents. The intention is to create a thoughtful and selective awareness of these traditions that will assist the contemporary designer in deriving relevant strategies for new projects. That research has led to a book, Alamos, Sonora: Architecture and Urbanism in the Dry Tropics, published by the University of Arizona Press.

Currently, he is developing a book length critical study of "The Arizona School," an architecture informed and driven by arid conditions and solar concerns tectonically expressed.

He also has been involved in design-build activity on the neighborhood scale. His projects involve a continual exploration of appropriate materials, technology, and form for the Sonoran region, and at the same time seek design strategies and materials that omit or minimize fossil fuel dependency.

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