Jacob Brillhart has built his career as an architect, painter and professor of architecture. Having earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Tulane University, and his Masters from Columbia University, Brillhart has been influenced by both institutions. He is a full-time Lecturer at the University of Miami School of Architecture where he has taught all levels of Design Studio, and Freehand Drawing. He is also an integral teacher of the Rome program and leads students in drawing and design studios throughout Italy, where he created many of these works. Currently he is the acting Favrot Visiting Professor at the Tulane School of Architecture.
He is the founder of Jacob Brillhart Architect, P.A. - A design office formed around the interchange of research, exploration and progressive design. A LEED AP, he is also engaged in sustainable building practices and was honored with the 2008 AIA Miami Design Merit Award for his Mechanical House. Recently Brillhart was nominated as a finalist for the 2010 Rome Prize in Architecture and he has won other awards in design and drawing including being a Gabriel Prize finalist in 2006 and 2007 and received first prize in the Miami Beach Life Guard Tower Design Competition, for which he was featured in the New York Times.
The creative work attempts to develop an understanding and facility with a dynamic building vocabulary to form a contemporary, non-sentimental, pragmatic universal language for an American Vernacular juxtaposing the ancient and the modern in architecture as Edward Hopper and Thomas Eakins did in painting.
Beginning in New York City and working in Miami the Design work for small buildings stands in an ebb and flow between the edge of the city and the beginning of the sea. Projects such as the Urban Urchin, Grass House, The mechanical house, Bay Architectures and the Lifetower are all intimately tied to water. My interest in a subtle yet powerful aqueous nature is carried through to the watercolor drawings with an emphasis on fluid light and morphic energy. This way of working becomes a means for questioning and answering by juxtaposing ideas and feelings constantly through drawing and building.