Derek Hoeferlin installed as Raymond E. Maritz Professor of Architecture

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis installed Derek Hoeferlin as the Raymond E. Maritz Professor of Architecture Sept. 29, 2026.

Charlie White, the school’s Ralph J. Nagel Dean, shared welcoming remarks celebrating Hoeferlin’s achievements and expressing his own excitement at his first installation ceremony as dean. White called Hoeferlin “a brilliant polymath, a proven researcher and practitioner, a committed administrator, a really thoughtful educator, and just an incredibly nice person,” White said. “We are all extremely fortunate to benefit from Derek’s strengths and talents.”

Aki Ishida, director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, praised Hoeferlin’s intimate knowledge of the Mississippi River and his expertise on building sustainably with water — noting the importance of his position at the confluence of the two longest rivers in the U.S. She also noted his commitment to sharing “his curiosity and discoveries with students by taking them on rivers, dams, levees, and barges,” including her own introduction to the Missouri River via a canoe trip he led.

Hoeferlin gave a presentation of his research, connecting his deep roots in the St. Louis region and Mississippi River watershed to his career exploring water and watershed architecture. He also shared selections from his recent book, “Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture,” which brings years of research, drawings, maps, and images of the Mississippi, Mekong, and Rhine River systems into one volume that proposes a adaptations and templates for working across entire watersheds. He also thanked the Maritz family, sharing that previous Maritz Professor, the late Adrian Luchini, is the reason Hoeferlin began teaching at WashU more than two decades ago.

In addition to the Maritz Professor, Hoeferlin is chair of landscape architecture, a licensed architect, and founding principal of [dhd] derek hoeferlin design, an award-winning architecture, landscape, urban and design-research practice based in St. Louis. He is the principal investigator and author of Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture (Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2023), where he collaboratively researches integrated water-based design strategies comparatively across the Mekong, Mississippi, and Rhine River basins.

Raymond E. Maritz was a noted architect in St. Louis who studied at WashU. He established a leading firm, Maritz & Young, which designed a number of residences just west of WashU’s Danforth campus. Maritz was also involved in large projects such as Clayton City Hall, Westwood Country Club, and the United Hebrew Congregation on Skinker Boulevard.

Jackie and William Maritz endowed this professorship in 1997 in honor of Mrs. William H. Danforth and named for his uncle, Raymond E. Maritz.