BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI.- The debut of American House 08, the first in a series of ten prefabricated houses designed and constructed by William E. Massie — the award-winning Architect-in-Residence and Head of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art — took place on March 7, 2008, at Cranbrook Art Museum.

American House 08 embodies Massie's drastically divergent practice from traditional architecture through his use of computer-based fabrication technology for efficient, precise, and customized fabrication.

William E. Massie received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Architectural Studies from Parsons School of Design, New York, NY. He subsequently received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. Upon graduation he worked for Robertson + McAnulty Architects and James Stewart Polshek and Partners. In 1993 he started his own company while simultaneously accepting a teaching position in the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University where he was appointed as the Coordinator for Building Technologies Research.

William is currently the Architect-in Residence / Head of Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He has taught at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana and Parsons School of Design in New York City. He has participated as a visiting critic at many institutions nationally including, Harvard, Yale, California Polytechnic Institute and Lawrence Technological University.

William Massie’s work utilizes computer applications and digital information as a way of redefining “formal architectural construct” - a synthesis of ideas linked to construction in conjunction with the development of a theoretical position, all in support of an attempt to redefine architectural practice and making.

His research in computer applications in architectural construction has been recognized by Architecture Magazine in back-to-back Research Awards - “Augmented Reality in Architectural Construction” in association with Tony Webster, Steve Feiner and Ted Kreuger and “Virtual Model to Actual Construct.” Massie has also received Progressive Architecture awards from Architecture Magazine for the design of the “Big Belt House” located in the foothills of the Big Belt Mountains in Montana and for the design of “A House for a Photographer.” He has been an invited lecturer at over 50 national and international institutions, most recently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Massie was selected as the winner of the Museum of Modern Art’s Young Architects Program Competition for his project “Playa Urbana / Urban Beach” which was installed in the courtyard of the P.S.1 Museum located in Long Island City, New York. His work has been, exhibited at Parsons School of Design, MoMA/Qns and the Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China. Recently, a scaled model of the “Big Belt House” was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art as part of their permanent collection. Massie’s work was included in several exhibitions: “Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete” at The National Building Museum in Washington, DC., “P.S. 1 Young Architects Competition from 2000-2004” at KW – Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Germany and, most notably, the “Big Belt House” was included in the “re-opening” show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.