Anthony (Tony) Joseph Atkin, adjunct associate professor in PennDesign’s graduate architecture department for more than 30 years, died on May 21 in Santa Fe, New Mexico after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 64 years old.

Mr. Atkin was a distinguished architect and teacher whose firm, Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, has offices in Philadelphia and Santa Fe. He was the coordinator and course leader for Penn’s Japan and China summer courses. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, then received his bachelor of arts in anthropology from the University of Utah and his master of architecture from Penn in 1975.

His firm has been honored with numerous awards for its design and preservation efforts, including awards from Progressive Architecture, Architecture Magazine, the AIA, the American Planning Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The firm’s most significant projects include buildings at the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the Rhode Island School of Design and numerous houses of worship across the country. After the opening of  the Santa Fe office, there was a focus on work serving American Indian populations, including multiple projects at the Pueblos of Ohkay Owingeh and Santo Domingo. He authored and edited three books, including Structure and Meaning in Human Settlements.

At Penn, his firm was responsible for planning and design projects that have deeply enriched the campus and its surroundings, including the University Campus Development Plan  (with Laurie Olin; Almanac February 27, 2001), the Mainwaring Wing of the University Museum (Almanac April 30, 2002), the addition to the Jaffe History of Art Building (Almanac October 18, 1994) and the Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School (Almanac October 15, 2002). The Penn Alexander School developed out of a collaborative studio jointly taught by Mr. Atkin and Mr. Olin for architectural and landscape architecture students at PennDesign.

Mr. Atkin is survived by five sisters, Linda Lytle, Ilona (Fenton) Terry, Barbara Atkin, Alice (Virgil) Steel and Ester (Lester) West, and many nieces and nephews.

He wished memorial gifts to be made to the Atkin Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design: pdalumni@design.upenn.edu or (215) 746-3167.

A memorial will be held on October 25 at 3 p.m. in the Stoner Courtyard at the University of Pennsylvania Museum; rain location is the Museum’s Widener Lecture Room.