, director of graduate studies at the , delivered the commencement address May 22 (Saturday) at the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, S.C.
A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2004, Bess received his master of architecture degree from the University of Virginia in 1981 after receiving a master鈥檚 degree in church history from Harvard and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in philosophy from Whittier College.
He has directed the 91视频 of Architecture鈥檚 graduate program since his arrival at Notre Dame, in addition to teaching graduate courses in urban design and urban theory. In recent years his graduate urban design studio has produced detailed proposals for Lewis University in Romeoville, Ill.; and master plans and town plans for Cooperstown, N.Y.; Northampton, Mass.; and most recently, Ventura, Calif.
Bess also works as a design consultant for municipalities, architects and community development corporations, working through the office of Thursday Associates. From 1987 to 1988 he was the director and principal designer of the Urban Baseball Park Design Project of the Society for American Baseball Research. In August 2000 he directed and coordinated the ultimately successful 鈥淪ave Fenway Park!鈥� design charrette in Boston.
He lectures widely, and is the author of numerous articles as well as three books: 鈥淐ity Baseball Magic: Plain Talk and Uncommon Sense About Cities and Baseball Parks鈥� (1989); 鈥淚nland Architecture: Subterranean Essays on Moral Order and Formal Order in Chicago鈥� (2000); and most recently 鈥淭ill We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred鈥� (2007).