DONALD RATTNER (modularscholar.com) received a B.A. in art history cum laude from Columbia in 1979 and an M.Arch. from Princeton in 1985. Three years later he joined Ferguson Murray Architects as an intern, and eventually rose to partnership there before founding Studio for Civil Architecture with Andrew Friedman in 2002. The firm now operates as Studio for A.R.T. and Architecture. Rattner’s architectural portfolio has garnered over a dozen awards for design excellence in the course of his career and has been widely published.
Studio’s practice comprises a range of services and building types. For private clients the firm has designed custom single-family residences and refurbished existing homes in urban, rural, and suburban settings. For resort developers it has designed amenity buildings, planned neighborhoods, produced residential prototypes, created architectural pattern books, formulated design guidelines, and generated renderings and authored printed materials for marketing purposes. The firm has also forayed into fine art, having exhibited work in several gallery environments and won a competition award in the 2010 Philagrafika art festival.
In addition to advancing his practice, Rattner has sought to share his knowledge and experience with the profession and public through teaching, writing, and speaking at such venues as New York University, New York Academy of Art, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Parsons School of Design. Published writings have appeared in Architectural Record, The International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, Design Professionals and the Built Environment, and Residential Architect.
His professional and academic activities have been featured on CNN and in The New York Times, Town & Country, House & Garden, Robb Report, Residential Architect, Builder, Progressive Architecture, and numerous blogs and online channels.
In 2010 Rattner launched MODULE R, a retail design store offering customizable, interactive, reconfigurable, and modular products by contemporary designers and brands from around the world. This eventually morphed into THE CREATIVE HOME (thecreativehome.com), a forum for people to learn about personal and professional creativity, find techniques and things to nurture creativity at home, and share examples of what people are doing to make themselves, their families, and their homes more creative places.