PROFILE
Michael Ra is a co-founding partner of Front. Prior to founding Front he worked as a facade design consultant at Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners, a New York and London based structural glass & facade group. With a small team of engineers he developed the cable shell and glass shingling system for the Mori Art Center Entry Pavilion and the suspended atrium facade. He was also deeply engaged with the development of the newest innovations in structural glass applied for the first Apple stores in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
As a systems design principal at Front his experience includes complex day-lighting envelopes, structural glass systems, innovative building facades and other high performance envelope systems for projects like the Walker Art Center, the Toledo Museum of Art, World Trade Center Pavilion, Broad Art Museum, St Louis Art Museum, Highline 23 Condominiums, CMA Tower and KAUST, the world’s largest LEED Platinum certified project. Ra lectures widely on the subject of building skin systems, materiality and the exploration in ways to better the process of designing, making, and building.
EDUCATION
B.Arch. - Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago
STUDIO
Front Inc.
