Chris Benedict
Chris Benedict started her own Architecture firm in 1995 and has enjoyed exciting and diverse commissions ever since, creating innovative buildings that have set standards for excellence and energy performance. She is an early pioneer in energy efficiency in apartment buildings and one of the first to adopt Passive House protocols in the US.
Chris graduated from the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union in 1986. She worked for several years in four different architecture offices before starting her own firm. A year into her practice, with her goal of designing environmentally sound buildings, she discovered the field of building science and a world of amazing teachers and mentors that set her imagination on fire and fed her soul.
Currently Chris has completed twelve apartment buildings designed to meet the Passive House Standard, and more are under construction or on the boards. While creating iconic buildings, Chris’ goals include economy, reproducibility and driving change in the design and construction of sustainable buildings. With her partner Henry Gifford she has sought to understand what challenges need to be met in the field of buildings and energy and to meet those challenges with creative and economical solutions. She has influenced, students, teachers, builders, bankers, government officials, contractors, architects, engineers and manufacturers through her practice.
Chris was a keynote speaker for Eco Build 2008 in Sao Paulo, Brazil and for Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) in Boston in 2012. She has been a faculty member at Pratt Institute, she also frequently serves as an instructor, critic and guest lecturer at many institutions including Columbia University, Harvard, Cornell, New York University, Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons/The New School, New York Academy of Science, and the Cooper Union. She is Chair Emeritus and co-founder of the Building Enclosure Council of New York (BEC-NY) and served as chair for NESEA’s 2005 Building Energy Conference. Chris has also served as a board member of Passive House US (PHIUS). She has held many public teach-ins at her job sites and served on the Mayor’s Taskforce for “greening” the New York City Building Code, where she developed new code measures that set the stage for substantial energy efficiency improvements for NYC buildings. Her work has been featured by The New York Times, CNN, New York 1, National Public Radio, New York Newsday, New York Post, Designer Builder Magazine, Metropolitan Home, Environmental Building News, The Real Deal, Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest, Passive House Accelerator, and United Nations News among many other popular and trade publications, and many online venues.
In May 2005 Chris was the honored alumna of the Irwin S Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union and was given the President’s Citation for her work in green building. In 2009 she was inducted into the Cooper Union Hall of Fame.
