Danny Samuels

Danny Samuels, FAIA, is a professor in the practice of architecture at the Rice University School of Architecture. After apprenticing with Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente in Paris and Venice, he founded, with partners John J. Casbarian and Robert H. Timme, the design firm, Taft Architects, in 1973. The work of this Houston-based office has received over 60 major design awards and has appeared in over 200 articles in books and journals worldwide. Samuels, with his partners, has lectured at over 100 professional and educational forums, nationally and internationally. Together they are recipients of the Houston AIA Educator Award and the Houston AIA Firm Award. Samuels is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and in 1991 was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects.

Samuels' work—through the Rice Building Workshop (RBW) with then associate director Nonya Grenader and through Construct with director Andrew Colopy—has resulted in a stream of realized projects. Over the past 25 years, more than 700 students have designed and built projects at various scales in the community from exhibition venues in Houston museums to affordable housing at Project Row Houses in Houston's Third Ward. The RBW received the 2004 National Council of Architectural Registration Boards Prize for the "Integration of Practice and Education" and the "Collaborative Practice Award" in 2005 from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. In 2015–16, the RBW collaboration with Project Row Houses was the subject of exhibitions at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, American Institute of Architects New York, and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.