Taeg Nishimoto teaches graduate level design studios at UTSA. His interests include all aspects of architectural design and the mechanism that encompasses design technique from the artistic to the technological, the spatial to the material, and the digital to complete tactile spontaneity. He is also interested in the idea of descriptive programming — the process of using narrative text and structure as a viable strategy for architectural programming.
He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Waseda University in Tokyo and a Master of Architecture degree from Cornell University. He has worked for Architektenburo Herman Hertzberger in Amsterdam and Kunihiko Hayakawa & Associates in Tokyo. In New York he had his own practice, Taeg Nishimoto + Allied Architects, while he was also an adjunct design faculty member at Columbia University GSAPP and the Pratt Institute. He also taught as a visiting critic at Temple University in Philadelphia and the University of Texas at Arlington. In 2001 he moved to Texas as a tenured faculty member of Texas A&M University and in 2007 he joined UTSA. He is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Architecture.
His built work, un-built work, theoretical projects and installations have been widely published in various journals such as GA Houses, l’ARCA, Japan Architect, Architecture Record, JA House, A+U, Space Design, Urban Design International, Metropolis, Sites, and Texas Architect.
He is a recipient of many grants and fellowships, including two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. He was twice selected to participate in the Young Architects’ Forum organized by The Architectural League in New York City.
His “Three-Parts” project, which is based on his theoretical idea of descriptive programming and titled “House of PLOT,” is in the permanent collection of Fonds Regional Architecture Contemporain (FRAC) in Orleans, France and has been exhibited widely in the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, ArchiLab in Orleans, and the France and Mori Museum in Tokyo, among others. His “Super-Pier” project was awarded a New York City AIA Design Award and exhibited in the Tepia Gallery in Tokyo and at the Jewish Museum in New York.
His site-specific installations using bent wood have been exhibited in the Rotunda Gallery in New York, La Galerie d’Architecture in Paris, and CAPC in Bordeaux, France. His permanent installation using 100 stainless steel expanded metal panels can be found in the passenger lobby of Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas. His “War on Terror Memorial,” featuring a metal column from New York’s World Trade Center is located in the Veteran’s Memorial Park in College Station, Texas.
He has lectured widely on his on his work and research nationally and internationally, in Tokyo, New York, Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, Rome, and other cities.
He is a licensed architect in Japan and in the state of New York.