The Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture (SoA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Laura Garófalo to the position of Associate Professor. In this role, she will teach graduate and undergraduate studios and seminars focused on material production and ecologically centered design. Her research, pedagogy, and practice focuses on the conjunction of natural and architectural systems.
The role of architecture as an active environmental steward defines her work in lightweight structures, architectural ceramics, and hydrologically centered buildings. She has received many recognitions for her design work including a design commission at the 13th International Garden Festival of the Jardins de Métis/Redford Gardens in Canada; First Place in the d3 Housing Tomorrow (with O. Khan); First Place in the Charleston Transit Hub Design Competition by Architecture for Humanity, Charleston; ACSA Faculty Design Award; the What if New York City Post-Disaster Housing Design Competition (with D. Hill); Finalist in the Jardins Ephemeres Design Competition, Canada; and a Gold Spark Award. Her research has been supported by the University at Buffalo Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotics (SMART) Community of Excellence and the Boston Valley Terracotta Advance Ceramics Assemblies Workshop. She was a Visiting Scholar at the School of Architecture and Design/Creative Exchange Institute, Tasmanian College of Arts University of Tasmania, and a resident artist at the European Ceramic Work Center.
Her work has been published in Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production (Borden and Meredith eds.), The Interior Architecture Reader (G. Marinic, ed.), the Technology | Architecture + Design (TAD) Journal, and she is a co-editor of the Bioclimatic Ceramic Assemblies series (Oro/ AR+D) which features a series of chapters on her architectural ceramics design research.
Prior to joining the SoA, Garófalo was an Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) where she was a member of the Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group, and she was an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University before that. She received her first professional degree from the University of Miami School of Architecture and her Masters of Architecture degree from Yale University. Her firm Liminal Projects, co-founded with SoA Professor and Head Omar Khan, has been exhibited at the Architectural League of New York and the National Building Museum, and was selected by the Architectural League of New York as Notable Young Architects.