Rate My Professor Francisco Gomes

Francisco Gomes, known professionally as Cisco Gomes, is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a thesis titled The Phenomenology of the Architect: Representation and the Anatomical Theater, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia with a thesis Heterotopic Systems: Architectures of Specificity. A registered architect (AIA) and LEED AP BD+C, Gomes is principal of the firm Gomes+Staub, whose portfolio includes public buildings, commercial projects, state park structures, and single-family houses. The firm's work has received awards from the American Institute of Architects, Architect magazine, Texas Society of Architects, City of Raleigh, Art Interactive, and AUDI AG. It has been featured in 1000x Architecture of the Americas (Verlaghaus Braun) and published in periodicals including Architect, Architecture, Residential Architect, Umran, and Texas Architecture.

Gomes' scholarship focuses on design conceptualization and building construction, the extremes that disproportionately determine a building's quality and meaning. His early research on embodied energy, sponsored by The Meadows Foundation, revealed durability's critical role in reducing embodied energy in the built environment. This led to further NSF-funded work on innovations in masonry construction and four US patents. He is currently developing Lineland Voices, positing hazards of penetrating projections in design drawing and modeling for building character. Gomes teaches the Representation and Architectural Conception seminar, Designing the Way We Build seminar, Advanced Integrative Studio, construction materials and methods survey course, and Architectures of Building Performance. He has been honored with the UT Board of Regents Outstanding Teaching Award, School of Architecture Outstanding Studio Teacher Award, Texas Exes Teaching Award, and membership in the UT Society for Teaching Excellence. In 2014, DesignIntelligence named him one of the '30 Most Admired Educators' in the nation. Key publications include Critical Mass (Centerline 11), Academic Practice (Centerline 5), “Analysis of Architectural Representation as a Research Method: National Library Competitions,” “Resisting the Monolithic: The Influence of Construction Innovation on Single-Family House Spatialities,” “Ralph Rapson’s Greenbelt: The Evolution of a Prototype,” “Integrating Design-Build in the Building Technology Curriculum as an Alternative to the Studio Model,” and “Cars, Commerce, and the Contemporary City.”