Maurice K. Smith


Maurice K. Smith is a New Zealand born architect and architectural educator. Smith's work and teaching builds upon the idea of creating "habitable three-dimensional fields" as a working method for his projects. Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Architecture at MIT and lives in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Early life

Smith left New Zealand to study at MIT in the USA on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1952. During this time Smith studied under, and worked for, various MIT faculty and visiting faculty, including Carl Koch, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Buckminster Fuller, and György Kepes.

Career

Back in New Zealand in the mid-1950s, Smith designed a number of small buildings, including individual houses in Auckland and the Firth Offices in Hastings, before returning to the US in 1958. There he taught from 1958 to 1996 at the School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He returned to New Zealand to teach at the Auckland University School of Architecture for one term in 1968.
Smith's notable buildings include: