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Louise Harpman is a partner at Specht Harpman. With 19 years of experience, Louise has led teams in programming, project development, and design for public, institutional, and private residential projects. Before founding Specht Harpman, she worked as a designer at Eisenman Architects and Buttrick White & Burtis Architects. She also worked as a project manager for the City of New York in its Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development.

Louise maintains a commitment to teaching as well as practice. As an award-winning architectural educator, Louise has a national and international reputation as a passionate advocate for design excellence and sustainability. She is Associate Professor of Practice in the areas of Architectural Design, Urban Design and Sustainability at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, Director of the Professional Residency Program, Director of the DesignBuildTexas project, and Fellow of the Harwell Hamilton Harris Regents Professorship in Architecture. Before joining the faculty at the University of Texas, she taught for eight years at the Yale School of Architecture and five years at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Architecture and Planning. Throughout her teaching career, she has led many community-based public design projects, including work with the Brooklyn Public Library, the Alley Flat Initiative, the Blanco Library, the Austin Children's Museum, the Downtown Austin Alliance, and the Austin Fire Department.

Louise received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University. She holds a Master of Philosophy degree from Cambridge University and received her Master of Architecture degree from Yale University, where she was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Certificate and the Janet Cain Sielaff Prize.

Louise is the author of the Brooklyn Public Library Design Guidelines. She is the co-editor of Perspecta 30: Settlement Patterns. She is an Associate of the American Institute of Architects, a Senior Fellow of the Design Trust for Public Space, Inc., a member of the Architectural League of New York, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Read Less