Frano Violich founded Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx) in partnership with Sheila Kennedy in 1990. As a Founding Principal at KVA MATx, he has created an interdisciplinary design practice that engages material fabrication, digital technology and the conservation of natural resources to expand the public life of buildings and cities.

He has directed the winning competition projects for the University of Pennsylvania Law School (2012); Clemson School of Architecture, Charleston, SC (2007); and the Internationale Bauaustellung’s (IBA) Smart Materials Housing Program in Hamburg, Germany (2012). He was a co-recipient of the Emerging Architects Award and Young Architects Award from the Architectural League of New York with Sheila Kennedy and has had his work exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum; International Rotterdam Biennale; Vitra Design Museum in Germany; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MoMA); and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

He obtained a Bachelor or Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley; and a Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University (1985) where he graduated with Distinction, the School’s highest academic honor. He received the Julia Appleton Travelling Fellowship Award from Harvard University, and studied the fusion of traditional construction and contemporary design in Japan.

Frano Violich has taught on the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design. He has been a Freidman Visiting Professor Chair at the University of California, Berkeley; the Shur Visiting Professorship at the University of Virginia; and the Saarinen Professorship for Distinguished Practitioners of Architecture at the University of Michigan. He has served on design thesis reviews at the University of Toronto, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and the University of California at Berkeley.

He has been a lecturer and keynote speaker at international conferences including the Centro Metropolitana de Diseño Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Plastics Electronics Conference (2008), Berlin, Germany; Royal Australian Institute of Architects (2008), Sydney, Australia; World Sustainability Conference, Melbourne, Australia; Society for College & University Planners, Montreal, Canada; and Design & Innovations Conference (2010), São Paolo, Brazil. He has served as Design Commissioner of the Boston Society of Architects and is Chair of the Executive Committee for the Design & Industry Group of Massachusetts (DIGMA) working with leaders in government, business, and education to advance design as an integral part of the Massachusetts innovation economy.

He was elected to the American Institute of Architects National College of Fellows (2008), and has held private shows at MassMoca, North Adams, MA; Max Protech Gallery, New York City; Phillip Bonafont Gallery, San Francisco; and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Merida, Mexico.

He was a Lab Operator in S-Lab dedicated to small-scale projects at the 1st Next Generation Awards Lab held in New York City in September 2015. He won a Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize in 2014 for “Chrysanthemum Building: Affordable residential urban infill development, Boston, USA” which offers a viable solution to the housing question – promoting an affordable model for residential development in a dense urban neighborhood. He won a Holcim Awards Bronze in 2017 for “Global Flora: Net-zero greenhouse for Wellesley College, Boston, USA” – a re-imagination of the greenhouse as a locally-sourced, low-energy building linking Wellesley College to the local community of Wellesley in Massachusetts, USA.

Frano Violich was a workshop respondent at the 6th International Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction in Cairo, April 4-6, 2019.