Henry Richardson

Henry Richardson is a licensed architect, urban designer, and a nationally certified city and regional planner. Richardson conducts research on low-cost housing and urban settlement in developing countries, energy-conscious design, and the application of CAVE-based Virtual Reality simulation.

Richardson's civic engagements cover service on local planning boards, providing technical advice to government agencies and community groups in the U.S. and abroad, serving as a reviewer for several overseas universities, and board memberships. He was also a regional AIA director.

His leadership experience includes assistant and associate deanships and chair in architecture. He was faculty coordinator for Cornell's Low-Cost Housing and Urban Settlement Group, director of Career Explorations in Architecture, team leader for an AIA Research Foundation project, and the USDOE Solar Cities Program. He teaches in the areas of architecture and urban design, computer graphics, and real estate development. In addition to Cornell, he has taught and lectured in several schools in the U.S. and overseas.

Related Pages

• Real Estate at Cornell

Related News

• Engaging Communities

Classes (Selected)

• ARCH 3308 and CRP 5560/6308 Design in Real Estate Development: Design and value creation in developmentReal estate professionals and city and regional planners play a vital role in creating the built environment. Understanding the physical form of real estate, and the rules that govern that form, is critically important if one is to meaningfully engage in the practice of real estate development. In this course, we examine in detail the physical form of the built environment, and students gain an understanding of the principles and organizing strategies that underlie it. We examine the following building types in depth: residential, retail, hotel and mixed use. Students exit this course with a deeper understanding of why the built environment takes the shape it does and the opportunities for innovations.
• ARCH 5114 Fourth-semester Graduate Design Studio: Architecture and Urban Design in Emerging CountriesFocus on the development of architectural ideas in constructed, material form. The studio explores emergent topics and constructive methods in contemporary architectural practice. Design study includes the creation of a comprehensive set of representations that describes an architectural project in detail. Students work in collaborative groups and in consultation with advisors drawn from professional practice to develop a project that engages a complex range of topical areas, including: structural and environmental systems, building envelope systems, materiality and construction, life-safety planning, and sustainability.
• ARCH 2101 Second-year Undergraduate Design StudioStudents develop an understanding of context and precedent in the construction of architectural form, and are introduced to contextual and programmatic densities in addition to circulatory, spatial, and organizational strategies in the design process.
• ARCH 6114 Low Cost Housing in Developing Countries
• ARCH 4749/6749 CAVE-Based Virtual Reality Applications in Architecture and Urban Design

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

• Faculty-in-Residence, Court-Kay-Bauer House, Cornell (2001–07)
• Faculty Innovation in Teaching Award, Cornell (2001)
• Member of the Review and Selection Committee, U.S. National Academy Of Sciences, University Linkages Program, Washington, DC (1995–99)
• College of AAP Alumni Distinguished Faculty Award (1990)
• Honorary Fellow, University Of Cambridge Biographical Society, Cambridge (1981–present)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

• Master Plan and Urban Design of the New Agro-Industrial City of Bui, Ghana Project for a new city of 250,000 (ongoing)
• Urban Design for Nasco City, Lagos, Nigeria (2004)
• Pedestrian Movement System for Radisson New Town, NYS Urban Development Corporation, Richardson Associates, and Trowbridge and Trowbridge (1990)

Publications (Selected)

• Planning and Designing New Industrial Cities in Africa: the Case of Tema, Ghana, with V. Adegbite and V. Dzidzinyo (forthcoming)
• "Transparency and Iridescence in Artistic and Architectural Creativity," Proceedings on Creativity, Council for the Creative and Performing Arts, Cornell (1997)
• Energy Conscious Design, with D. Bremer and D. Watson for Washington, DC, AIA Research Corporation (1980)