Fredric (Rick) Bell most recently served (2015-2018) as Executive Director of Design and Construction Excellence at the New York City Department of Design and Construction. Among his responsibilities at DDC were strategic planning for design and construction excellence initiatives, including the creation of the agency’s Guiding Principles for Design and Construction Excellence. At DDC since its creation over twenty years ago, Rick previously was Director of In-House Design, supervising a team of 50 engineers and architects, and was Assistant Commissioner of Architecture and Engineering.
On leave from DDC, Rick served as Executive Director of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Center for Architecture (2001-2015). He was instrumental in establishing and animating the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place. At AIANY he created programs, publications, and exhibitions on diverse topics including active design, affordable housing, building material innovation, sustainable buildings and infrastructure, and transit-oriented development.
Rick also was an architect and partner at Warner Burns Toan Lunde Architects & Planners (1979-1994) where he was chief of the studio designing libraries, public schools and university structures nationwide.
He is a graduate of Yale College (B.A., 1973) and Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (M.Arch., 1976). A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and of the Urban Design Forum, Rick currently serves as Board Secretary of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization. A frequent lecturer, moderator, and visiting critic, Rick has also taught at the New Jersey Institute of Technology School of Architecture in Newark.