Elizabeth Whittaker is an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture and has been teaching Core Studios since 2009.

Elizabeth is founder and principal of MERGE architects, based in Boston since 2003. Their work addresses multiple scales including commercial, institutional, retail, private residential, multi-family housing, as well as graphic and furniture design. The office works side-by-side with the client and teams of fabricators, artists, craftsmen and engineers to produce an architecture that embraces the art of making within a larger agenda: to re-define the urban and social boundaries in and around the city. The work combines both digital fabrication and the hand made by working through a cross-disciplinary as well a cross-production process.

The work of MERGE architects has been widely published both nationally and internationally and has received multiple awards including eight AIA/BSA awards, a citation for the international Harbor Park Pavilion Competition, and second place for the new AIA/BSA Headquarters in Boston. Elizabeth has lectured extensively within the US and abroad and was just recently nominated for the National American Institute of Architects, Young Architect’s Award.

In 2012 Residential Architect magazine awarded Elizabeth’s office MERGE one of the “15 Young Firms to Watch.” A few of her current projects include Social Liner, a project at Northeastern University, Pod, a project for MIT Lincoln Laboratory and MIT School of Engineering, and Marginal Lofts, a multi-family housing project in Boston. Merge Architects is also currently a finalist for Interior Design Magazine’s ‘Best of the Year Award’ for Lightwell.

Elizabeth graduated from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with Distinction where she received numerous awards during her graduate studies including the Araldo A. Cossutta Prize/core studio prize, the Faculty Design Award, and the John E. Thayer Award for overall academic achievement. Elizabeth approaches architecture as a discipline embedded in both practice and academia. She has taught design studios in several Architecture programs including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Northeastern University, and the Boston Architectural College. She is also a regular guest critic at several institutions including Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture, MIT, Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University.