People

Zann Gill, registered Architect (B.A. Wellesley, M.Arch., Harvard), first became interested in innovation while working for Buckminster Fuller through Fuller and Sadao Architects Inc. She later pursued this research on a DAAD research fellowship at the Institute for Lightweight Structures, University of Stuttgart, Germany where she developed formats to promote cross-disciplinary innovation. She evolved Fuller's principles of "anticipatory design science" into the guided desyn method she uses.

Most recently she worked at NASA Ames Research Center and wrote the program plan for BEACON (Bio-Evolutionary Advanced Concepts), a Think Tank, and was Director of Program Development for IASC (Institute for Advanced Space Concepts), a proposed cross-institutional facility for the NASA Research Park where NASA, universities, and industry can collaborate.

Previous government contracts have included: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts from the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She developed preliminary plans and frameworks for multi-sector participation in Master Planning for large scale projects including a concept for a "Superpark" along the Boston, MA Route 128 High Tech corridor (the first corporate office park to have telecommunications links to the major university networks); strategic plans for university high tech parks, consulting to the National Museum of Australia, Optus Telecommunications, and on the development of new university academic programs. She won a Progressive Architecture Citation for research, awards in two national design competitions, and a Women in Design International award in architecture.

In 1986 Zann Gill prepared a first-phase submission to Japan's international competition, Kawasaki: Information City of the 21st Century, sponsored by the Japan Association for Planning Administration and the Mainichi Newspapers with collaboration of ten ministries and three agencies of the Japanese government. Out of 213 entries from 25 countries, hers was one of fourteen finalists invited to participate in the invitational second phase of the competition, and in the second phase tied for first place with Matsushita in joint venture with Nohmura Research and with the Mozuna Group. Her entry won the Award of the Mayor of Kawasaki.

Zann Gill currently lives and works in the Bay Area, California. While a former resident of Massachusetts, she was appointed to the Massachusetts Governor's Advisory Board on Women's Business Enterprise.

For more information, visit her website.

to top