James Skalla

Adjunct Assistant Professor

jskalla@uic.edu

I was born and raised in Chicago. And I have always had an interest in buildings. Coincidence? I don't know... At two years old I was enjoying the ride on the El to the Loop with my grandmother to scour the State Street stores for sales. Being amid the density of Chicago has always felt delightful to me.

Watching This Old House with my family as a kid, I started drawing plans.

While attending the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, I spent time abroad in the fantastic Versailles program. I started to draw sketches.

After graduating, I headed to the west coast, where I would spend the next eight years.

The first of those years were spent at the University of California, Berkeley focusing on affordable housing design and finance.

After graduating, I worked for five years at Backen, Arrigoni and Ross, a San Francisco firm specializing in multifamily housing. There, I started to learn construction.

I returned to Chicago in 2000 to escape the heated California housing market. For the next five years I worked at Perkins+Will, focusing on the design and construction of schools.

In 2005 I decided to pursue an interest in the technical, structural and political complexity of healthcare architecture with a move to OWP/P architects.

It's 2006 and I am joining the optimistic academic environment that is Architecture at UIC. I am very happy to be here.