Ila Berman speaks at the 2009 University of Michigan Future of Design Conference. She is the Director of the Architecture Program at CCA and pincipal of studioMatrixx, and is an architect and architectural theorist who hols a doctorate in architectural history, theory, and criticism from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Berman is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Medal for Design, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada fellowship, and the J.P. Herndon Traveling Fellowship where she conducted research on contemporary urban and architectural landscapes in Paris and Barcelona. She was the 2005 recipient of the President’s Award at Tulane University, where she was associate dean of the Tulane School of Architecture until December 2007. She also was the founding director and principal investigator of URBANbuild–and outreach architectural and urban design program for which she received a $300,000 HUD/URAP grant, as well as the author of URBANbuild Local/Global, a publication about the work of this program. In addition to her design installations at the Contemporary Art Center, the Ogden Museum, and the Perloff Gallery, among others, Berman also created New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City, an exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2006 International Architectural Biennale in Venice.