Dean Sakamoto, FAIA, LEED AP Mr. Sakamoto is a practicing architect and educator with a national presence. His Connecticut and Hawai'i based firm, Dean Sakamoto Architects (DSA) is known for its environmentally sensitive and culturally specific designs of buildings, communities and urban spaces. DSA is responsible for the LEED Gold certified and hurricane resilient Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center (BRC) at the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kaua'i, Hawai´i. In New Haven, Connecticut, he is the architect of the Farmington Canal Greenway Phase IV, a 21st century multi-use recreational trail and historical interpretive site. He began his architectural career designing resort and residential communities with the firms of Chapman Desai Sakata (CDS) and WATG in Honolulu. In 2010, Mr. Sakamoto was elevated to Fellowship by the American Institute of Architects for his contribution to public education in the built environment nation-wide.

As an educator, he served on the faculty of the Yale School of Architecture, Pratt institute in Brooklyn, New York, University of Hawai´i at Manoa School of Architecture and the Chaminade University of Honolulu Institute of Fine Art. His research on tropical architecture resulted in the book and exhibition, Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, produced in association with the Yale University Press and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Ossipoff (1907-1998) was Hawaii’s premier modern architect during the post-war era. The Hawaiian Modern project has had profound influence on the contemporary architecture in Hawaii and its reputation abroad. Mr. Sakamoto is now faculty affiliate at the University of Hawai´i at Manoa, Department of Urban and Regional Planning where he developed HURRIPLAN: Resilient Building Design for Coastal Communities, a DHS-FEMA certified professional training course for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC). In addition to his design practice and teaching, Mr. Sakamoto is the founding president of Docomomo US Hawaii – a national modern architecture preservation volunteer organization – and serves on the AIA National Disaster Assistance Committee.