Rob Birch is a recent Master of Architecture graduate of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. He also holds a B.Sc. in geophysics and a Master of Environmental Design from the University of Calgary. He has studied architecture in both Buenos Aires, Argentina and Berlin, Germany and has held architectural internships in both St. Louis and Berlin. Rob's M.E.Des. thesis research focused on the intersection of spirituality and place taken through the lens of both traditional and contemporary Japanese architecture. His geoscience career has taken him from the Mayan pyramids of the Belize jungle, to the frigid landscape of the Canadian Arctic, to the rocky cliffs of Northern Ireland, and the central highlands of Madagascar. Growing up farming on the Canadian prairies, Rob comes from a place where landscape and memory intersect, where craft and conservation go hand in hand, and where your hands, your eyes and your mind work as one.