Desk Crits
Looking for feedback?
Each month, a Guild Fellow will host 30-minute office hour sessions where participants can ask questions and receive expert feedback. Come prepared with up to three questions to make the most of your time. All information is confidential and will not be shared in any way.
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Step 1: Make sure you’re a member!
This is a benefit to full members-only. If you’re interested in becoming a full member, click here!
Step 2: Click the link(s) below.
Complete the form for the Fellow you’d like to receive feedback from.
Desk Crits are organized by month.
Step 3: Receive a video conference link.
We review each request and if your request is confirmed, you’ll receive additional details via the email address provided.
Upcoming
July Desk Crit
7/14/2026 • 2:00 PM or 2:30 PM ET
Sara Bega
Bega Design Studio
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Sara Bega’s work is dedicated to the creation of enduring built environments that celebrate valued traditions and cultures. Her design and consulting projects with Bega Design Studio explore pedestrian-priority urbanism and timeless local architecture.
Bega is former Town Architect of Las Catalinas, a hilltown on Costa Rica’s Guanacaste coast. For over a decade she led architectural and urban design efforts, developing strategies for car-free urbanism filled with vernacular architecture. Throughout her tenure, Bega’s design work focused on fabric buildings, public spaces, and micro-phased neighborhood plans. Las Catalinas received a CNU Charter Award (2022) and Urban Guild Design Excellence Awards (2020).
Bega is also an Adjunct Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, where she teaches studio classes on contextual design process.escription text goes here
Past Desk Crits
June Desk Crit
6/2/2026 • 1:00 PM or 1:30 PM ET
Marieanne Khoury-Vogt
Khoury & Vogt Architects
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Khoury & Vogt Architects (KVA) was formed in 2001 in Miami by Erik Vogt and Marieanne Khoury as a practice in architecture, urban design, and town planning. Vogt received his
Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and Master of Architecture from Yale University. Khoury received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin (after studying for 3 years at L’Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, France) and has a Master of
Architecture and Master of Urban Planning from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Both are licensed architects in Florida.
The practice, currently based in Alys Beach, Florida, engages projects in a variety of scales, programs, and locales. Each is strongly rooted in enduring types and forms that have developed over time to serve both the individual inhabitant at the scale of the building and shape the individual building at the scale of the city. This grounding in typological tradition allows for an exploration of architectural character and language that, while deploying the principles of classical composition, offers a synthesis of modern and vernacular styles, often inflected by the influence of the tropics and Mediterranean. In all cases, the work strives to partake in equal parts both tradition and invention and to instill in the inhabitant a sense of comfort and delight.
Their work has received numerous regional and national awards as well as publication in multiple books and magazines.
March Desk Crit
3/3/2026 • 1:00 PM or 1:30 PM ET
Dhiru Thadani
Thadani Architects + Urbanists
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Dhiru A. Thadani is an architect and urbanist who has been in practice since 1980. He has worked to disseminate principles and techniques of traditional town planning in all five continents, by sharing research, lecturing, mentorship, and working on projects. In addition to architectural projects, he has been principal designer of new towns and cities, transit oriented developments, urban regeneration, neighborhood revitalization, academic campuses, and infill densification projects.
Dhiru was born in Bombay, India and moved to Washington, D.C., in 1972 to study architecture. During his forty-nine years in Washington, D.C. he has taught, practiced, and has strived to place traditional architecture and urbanism in the public eye. Since its formation in 1993, Dhiru has been a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), and served as Task Force Chair and Board Member from 1997 to 2013. He is the recipient of seven CNU Charter Awards for master plans that he has been lead designer.
In 2016 he was elected to be Vice President of Membership and Treasurer for the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP). In 2015 he was appointed to the inaugural CNU College of Fellows, and received ISOCARP’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the recipient of the 2011 Seaside Prize, and was a Knight Foundation Community Builder Fellow in 2001.
January Desk Crit
1/13/2025 • 2:00 PM or 2:30 PM ET
Steve Mouzon
Mouzon Design
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Steve has led or contributed to many advances in sustainable place-making and building design. He co-founded the Urban Guild, which is a group of architects, designers, and other New Urbanists dedicated to sustainable buildings and places native to and inspired by the regions in which they are built. The Guild was instrumental in the creation of the Katrina Cottages concept. Steve’s Katrina Cottage VIII, which opened the second generation of Katrina Cottages, was awarded a Charter Award by the Congress for the New Urbanism. The Project:SmartDwelling initiative sets out to redefine the American home much smaller, smarter, and more sustainable. Steve’s SmartDwelling I was featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Green House of the Future story alongside designs by three other notable green architects.
Steve is also a principal of Mouzon Design, which produces a number of town-building tools and services. His house plans have been featured repeatedly as Home of the Month in Southern Living and Coastal Living. Steve is Town Architect at several new hamlets, villages and neighborhoods around the country, using a unique face-to-face method of design review he developed that many agree is the most effective in use today. Several of his projects are award-winners.
December Desk Crit
12/2/2025 • 2-3pm ET
Jennifer Griffin
J Griffin Design, LLC
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Jennifer Griffin is the founding principal of J Griffin Design, LLC, a woman-owned architecture and urban design practice based in Tulsa, OK, that focuses on creating spaces and places for communities to flourish. Jennifer has worked throughout the US, Europe, and Central America on a variety of projects, from small-scale urban infill projects, to city-wide form-based codes, to master plans at both the neighborhood and regional scales. In recent years, Jennifer has collaborated with a number of cities to develop their pre-approved building programs. Her work has received both national and international accolades, including multiple Congress for the New Urbanism Charter and Merit Awards, a Driehaus Form-Based Code Award, and an INTBAU Excellence in Urban Design Award. Within her local community, Jennifer serves as a trustee of the Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity as well as a commissioner of the Tulsa Development Authority.
Master plans by Oliver are designed with each community’s values, local vernacular, and climate in mind. He focuses on the pedestrian experience in each of his site plans, ensuring that physiological and psychological wellness of residents is paramount. Each of his plans considers how to enrich the landscape, how to accommodate many lifestyles, and multi-modal transportation.
Oliver is a preferred design consultant of renowned Duany Plater-Zyberk, having undertaken over 40 charrettes internationally, including the Scottish Sustainable Community Initiative, where he helped plan the first extension of Edinburgh since 1805.
When he is not master planning and designing housing product for places like Trilith in Atlanta, he is advancing the systems-built housing collections that combine his proficiency in making flourishing places with innovative construction methods.
November Desk Crit
11/4/2025 • 1-2pm ET
Geoffrey Mouen
Geoffrey Mouen Architects
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Geoffrey Mouen, AIA, NCARB, is the founder of Geoffrey Mouen Architect, LLC, providing architecture and urban design services worldwide. With over 25 years of experience, his award-winning work includes residences, civic buildings, and new urban communities such as Celebration, FL, where he served as Town Architect for the Walt Disney Corporation.
A former designer with Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Geoffrey has led major projects including the Aspen Highlands Ski Village and the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. His firm has earned multiple SEBC Aurora, BALA, and Palladio awards.
He also founded the Architecture Charrette Team (ACT), a collaborative design group known for efficient, high-quality development processes. Geoffrey teaches and lectures nationally on sustainable architecture and New Urbanism, and serves as an elder and community leader in Celebration, Florida.
September Desk Crit
9/2/2025 • 12-1pm ET
Lew Oliver
Lew Oliver Inc.
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Lew is a Georgia-based urbanist, master planner, and designer with more than three decades of experience in advancing New Urbanism and residential design. He envisions, designs, and implements whole towns using methodical land planning techniques and global expertise in building design.
Master plans by Oliver are designed with each community’s values, local vernacular, and climate in mind. He focuses on the pedestrian experience in each of his site plans, ensuring that physiological and psychological wellness of residents is paramount. Each of his plans considers how to enrich the landscape, how to accommodate many lifestyles, and multi-modal transportation.
Oliver is a preferred design consultant of renowned Duany Plater-Zyberk, having undertaken over 40 charrettes internationally, including the Scottish Sustainable Community Initiative, where he helped plan the first extension of Edinburgh since 1805.
When he is not master planning and designing housing product for places like Trilith in Atlanta, he is advancing the systems-built housing collections that combine his proficiency in making flourishing places with innovative construction methods.
August Desk Crit
8/3/2025 • 12-1pm ET
