James Wines founded the firm Sculpture in the Environment (SITE) in 1970, a design practice that challenged conventional boundaries between the fine arts, architecture, and landscape. Wines trained as an artist and art historian, and practiced as a sculptor before turning to architecture in the late 1960s. He is best known for advancing an approach to design called "De-Architecture" that sought to problematize assumptions about buildings, materials, and structure through a process of dismantling rather than construction. Facades peel off buildings; corners are notched or split to create gaping holes; bricks appear to be falling from walls; trees and plants infiltrate buildings as if they were ruins. SITE is renowned for introducing these terms – peel, notch, split, fragment, and tilt – into architectural discourse. The second phase of SITE's evolution as a firm concerned itself with Green Architecture. Responding to the mounting environmental crisis of the late twentieth century, SITE became increasingly involved in challenges of energy conservation, sustainability, and the integration of landscape with architecture. Iconic projects include a series of stores for Best Products, Ghost Parking Lot, and High Rise of Homes. SITE's work has been widely published and exhibited, and James Wines' drawings can be found in major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art. Wines lectures regularly and is also an educator. He taught at numerous institutions before becoming chair of the Environmental Design department at Parsons School of Design from 1984 to 1990, and later professor of architecture at Pennsylvania State University in 1999.