Brett Steele, director of the Architectural Association in London, has been appointed as the new head of the arts school at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Steele will leave his post at the AA next year, after serving as academic leader and chief executive of the prestigious institution since 2005.
As dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, he will oversee its programmes encompassing art; architecture and urban design; design and media arts; and world arts and cultures and dance.
Steele will also take charge of the school's Fowler Museum and Hammer Museum, as well as the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA.
His leadership will commence in August 2017 when he takes over from David Roussève, who has served as interim dean since July 2015.
"I am honoured and excited to be appointed dean and to join the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture," said Steele, who grew up in Oregon and Idaho but is a naturalised British citizen.
"I look forward to working with everyone across all four of the brilliant departments in the school and with the inspiring directors and their teams at each of the incredible public arts units."
During his 11 years as AA director, Steele launched the AA Visiting School in Dubai, and a worldwide network of short courses and design research workshops.
He also initiated the AA Interprofessional Studio – an MA/MFA programme that explores alternative forms of interdisciplinary collaboration through the research, conception, design and production of genre-defying construction and spatial performance.
Steele first began working at the school in 1996, when he co-founded the AA Design Research Lab – the institution's first-ever full-time Master of Architecture program, which he led for eight years.
Before joining the staff at the AA, which has a reputation as one of the world's most prestigious architecture schools, he worked as a project architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, founded London firm desArchLab, and practised as an architect and planner in New York.
He received his diploma in architecture from the AA, and also studied at the University of Oregon and the San Francisco Art Institute.
Steele's move to California provides evidence for former UK government advisor Rohan Silva's theory that London could be losing its creative class.
Silva's London-based company Second Home also set its sights on Los Angeles "because that's where the artists and the creatives are going, and we want to support that community", Silva told Dezeen last year.
Portrait of Brett Steele is by Tim Brotherton.
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