David Costanza

David Costanza is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and the director of the Building Construction Lab (BCL) at Cornell University, as well as the principal of David Costanza Studio (DCS), a design-build practice based in Ithaca, New York. His work foregrounds construction methods, material culture, and labor practices through the lens of decarbonization. Across practice, research, and teaching, Costanza investigates the nonlinearity of design processes, opening new terrains for architectural intervention while cultivating an expanded dialogue among representation, computational design, digital fabrication, building science, materials, construction, labor, and the environment.

Costanza is the author of Building Constructions: Around Materials, Labor, and the Environment (Routledge, 2026). The book advocates for a fundamental shift in how we design and build architecture, placing construction knowledge at the core of the design process. It explores how a deeper understanding of materials, labor, and the environment can yield architecture better attuned to its environmental, social, and cultural impacts.

Costanza was awarded the 2025 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, 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.