Darren Azdell, AIA, NCARB, LEED BD+C is an active architect, architecture firm owner, university professor, developer and farmer. A native to Florida, Mr. Azdell has over 35 years of architecture, construction, and development experience. He is currently an active principal for OutsideIn Architecture, Pi Architects, and owns and manages Appono Consulting and Development specializing in Sustainable Senior Living, Urban Mixed-Use Development, and Construction Monitoring. He has taught Real Estate and Development for Architecture at the University of South Florida School of Architecture for the past 27 years as an Adjunct Associate Professor and Lecturer.
His Architecture/Development experience includes sustainable mixed-use office, retail and multi-family housing high-rise, senior living, Federal Government Sector Lease-Back, Education, Lab, Higher-Ed, Charter Schools, Healthcare, Warehouse/Distribution, Affordable Housing, and Agrihoods. Notable Tampa Bay award winning projects include: multiple high-rise mixed-use multi-family, office and retail projects in Downtown St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Senior Living Campus Communities throughout Florida and the first Live-Local Affordable Housing Project located in St. Petersburg, which was the impetus for the YIGBY state house bill advancing affordable housing in the State of Florida and several sustainable well communities. Darren lectures internationally on affordable housing, intergenerational communities, wellness, and economically and environmentally sustainable community design, planning, and development.
Michael Halflants, FAIA is a full professor at the University of South Florida’s graduate school of architecture and a principal at Halflants + Pichette Architects with offices in Tampa and Sarasota. After studying architecture in Brussels, he earned his masters at the University of Florida, where he was awarded the Henry Adams Gold Medal, the architecture school’s highest design honor. Upon graduation, Halflants practiced as a project designer with the Polshek Partnership in New York City. In that capacity, he drew designs for theaters and offices in Manhattan and for the Spencer Museum in Kansas. Working in a joint venture with Arata Isozaki’s Tokyo office, he was on the design team for the Brooklyn Museum addition.
In 2006, he cofounded Halflants + Pichette Architects, a design-build practice. The firm was the recipient of over fifty American Institute of Architects awards including the National AIA Young Architect Award. The practice also garnered five national medals from the Association of Licensed Architects. On three occasions, Halflants’ designs graced the cover of Florida / Caribbean Architect, the quarterly regional publication of the AIA. The work has been illustrated nationally in Dwell, AIArchitect, and ArchDaily. In recognition of his lifetime achievements, Halflants was awarded the 2018 AIA Florida Medal of Honor for Design, the highest award for design that AIA Florida can bestow upon an architect.
Michael Halflants has lectured on the topic of tropical design and housing in Bogota, Singapore, Jakarta, and Bangkok. At the University of South Florida, he teaches graduate design studios as well as seminars on tropical architecture and modern housing. He has led students abroad to Mexico City, the Yucatan, Brazil, Japan, Berlin, the Netherlands, and Spain. In all of his endeavors, Michael Halflants strives to build and maintain deliberately parallel and mutually reinforcing creative professional activities and educational responsibilities.