Michael A Berk

Michael A. Berk, AIA, is the former director (2009-2019) of the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University and former faculty member (29 years) where he held the F.L. Crane Endowed Professorship. In 2019 Berk was named director emeritus and professor emeritus by the MSU Provost’s Office and currently maintains an office in the Carl Small Town Center at the MSU School of Architecture. Berk was recently nominated and appointed to the Gulf Scholars Program in the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine (in 2021; and reappointed in 2025). He is a registered architect (California & Florida) with an extensive practice as a design partner prior to his academic career. Berk taught and researched in the areas of digital media + information design and factory-built housing (GreenMobile®). He is considered by many to be a leading expert in ecological design and planning and is often invited nationally to lecture on this topic. Past invitations include the U.S. Oak Ridge Nat’l Laboratory at Oak Ridge; the Hearst Lecture Series at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; Auburn’s Rural Studio Lecture Series; the Texas A+M College of Architecture; and the National Building Museum in the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s “Building in the 21st Century” Lecture Series.

Under Berk’s guidance (1992) MSU was the first professional architecture program to require its students to purchase laptop computers for use in the design studios (thus abandoning the computer lab), forever changing the paradigm of architectural education. This ‘Digital Nomads’ initiative brought significant attention to the program and was cited in the seminal Carnegie Foundation ‘Boyer Report’ as a future model for architectural education. Berk was named Emeritus Chair (2025) for the Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club, having served in that position from 2006 to 2023.

In spring 2014, Berk received the University of Florida ‘Distinguished Architecture Alumni Award’. Berk has been responsible (as P.I. or Co-P.I.) for over $7 million in funded research at MSU and the state of Mississippi.  His most significant project with the Carl Small Town Center (including USDA, HUD, DOE and FEMA funding) involved the design and manufacture of the ecologically-minded, low-cost, pre-fab GreenMobile® home unit for the Southeast and the Delta regions. In 2006, the GreenMobile® was awarded $5.8 million by FEMA and ranked No.1 (by HUD) in the Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHHP) for post-Katrina disaster-relief housing on the Gulf Coast. This same project was also awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2007 US EPA + AIA sponsored Life Cycle Building Challenge Competition in the Professional: Unbuilt category.

Over the years Berk received numerous awards for his teaching and research at MSU. At the national level (2005), Berk’s ‘Passive Systems’ lecture course on ‘ecological design’ was awarded ‘special recognition’ by the American Institute of Architects Eco-Literacy in Education Program.

Education:

• Master of Arts Architecture (M.A.Arch), University of Florida, 1982
• Bachelor of Design Architecture ( B.Des.Arch), University of Florida, 1979

Professional Practice:

• Designer: Anstis-Vass-Ornstein (AVO) Architects. W. Palm Bch, FL    1979-80
• Designer:  Kaplan/McLaughlin/Diaz (KMD) Architects. San Fran. CA   1982-85 
• Partner:  Anstis-Ornstein Architects (AOA). W. Palm Bch, FL    1985-90                   

Research interests:

• Digital Media + Information Design & Theory
• Ecological Design & Theory
• Factory-built modular housing (GreenMobile®)
• Design/build fabrication

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