David Costanza

David Costanza is the principal of David Costanza Studio (DCS), a design-build practice based in Ithaca, New York. Costanza is also an assistant professor at Cornell AAP and director of the Building Construction Lab (BCL). Through practice, research, and teaching, his work questions how architects can operate as engaged participants in the act of making. His work questions the linearity of design processes defining new terrains for architectural interventions across scales while establishing a dialogue between representation, computational design tools, digital manufacturing, building science, building materials, construction, labor, and the environment.

Costanza was awarded the 2024–25 Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome, the 2023 Emerging Faculty Award from the Building Technology Educators’ Society (BTES), and the 2020 Rotch Traveling Scholarship.

Currently, he is working on a book project with Routledge publishers titled Curious Constructions: Around Materials, Labor, and the Environment, a deep-energy, low-carbon reconstruction in Ithaca, New York, as well as material research in the reuse and recycling of plastic as a building construction material. His academic research has been published at ACADIA, ACSA, and ICSA, among others. Costanza received his Master of Architecture with a concentration in Computation and a Master of Science in Architecture Building Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.