Catherine Chen

Catherine Chen is an architectural designer whose work and research focus on the intersections between public space, infrastructure, and collective life. She is interested in questions of publicness and the socio-spatial reciprocity that architecture can enable. Catherine holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was the recipient of the Alpha Rho Chi medal, and a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Physics from Colgate University.

Catherine is currently an Architecture Visiting Critic at Cornell AAP, where she teaches studios and seminars, and advises on design thesis projects. In both practice and teaching, her work posits architecture as a civic project shaped by surplus, circular economies, and infrastructural entanglements. Previously, Catherine has held teaching positions in the Undergraduate Architecture Studies program at Harvard University and at Harvard GSD. She has practiced in Zürich, Boston, Princeton, and New York, with the offices of Karamuk Kuo Architekten, Höweler + Yoon, JaJa Co, and Studio Sean Canty, among others. She has worked on a wide range of projects and competitions, from housing and exhibitions to civic infrastructure and education.