Josie Holden Bulla is a practicing architect with 505 Design in Charlotte. She has taught design studios as a part-time lecturer in the School of Architecture intermittently over the course of more than 10 years, teaching second year, third year, and graduate thesis studios, as well as topical studios on subjects such as post-Katrina redevelopment norms and patterns on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and transformational connections across the I-277 freeway barrier on sites around Center City Charlotte. She holds a B.Arch with Honors from Mississippi State University, where her thesis explored the architectural and social typology of the southern courthouse square and its connection to and portrayal as a character in the writings of William Faulkner. She also studied at the University of Pennsylvania.
In combining a professional practice with continuing forays into the academic design studio, she brings an appreciation for the rich design opportunities of a rigorous, practical approach to students, values the design project as an inherently collaborative exercise, and encourages appropriate independent exploration and self-criticism in anticipation of the world of professional practice that students enter after graduation. She believes that a simple humane architecture allows people to inhabit the built environment in ways that will accommodate change over time as lives, technology, and culture continue to evolve in the 21st century.