James Wines is the founder and president of SITE, an environmental art and architecture organization chartered in New York City in 1970. He is the former Chairman of Environmental Design at Parsons School of Design and a Professor of Architecture at Penn State University. His architecture, landscape and public space projects are based on a site-specific response to surrounding contexts. Wines’ educational philosophy advocates ‘integrative thinking’ as a means of including multi-disciplinary ideas from outside the design professions. He has written seven books on art and design, including On Site-On Energy (Scribners & Sons, 1974), De-Architecture (Rizzoli International, 1987) and Green Architecture (Taschen Verlag, 2000). He has designed more than one hundred and fifty buildings and environmental art works for private and municipal clients in eleven countries.
Wines received the Smithsonian Institution’s 2013 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, the ANCE Annual Award for an International Architect (Italy, 2011) and the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation (USA, 1995). He has also received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kress Foundation, American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Graham Foundation and Ford Foundation. Wines’ ongoing writings, lectures and design projects are based on environmental initiatives.