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Florian Idenburg

  • Professor of the Practice

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Academic Research Areas

  • Adaptive reuse
  • Architectural design
  • Architectural practice
  • Collaborative practice
  • Housing
  • Landscape architecture
  • Real estate development
  • Structures in architecture

Florian Idenburg is a leading figure in contemporary architecture, recognized for advancing experimental and socially engaged design. As a founding partner of Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu (SO – IL), he has realized award-winning cultural and residential projects globally, including the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art and the Williams College Museum of Art. A commitment to material innovation, participatory processes, and a sensitivity to the relationship between architecture, community, and landscape distinguishes his work. At Cornell, Idenburg contributes to the academic community through teaching, mentoring, and expanding the discourse around sustainability and new forms of domesticity. His seminars and studios challenge students to rethink conventional models, empowering the next generation of architects to design with care, clarity, and creativity. Idenburg holds a Master of Architecture degree from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Man in a dark jacket standing against a grey brick wall

Academic Research Areas

  • Adaptive reuse
  • Architectural design
  • Architectural practice
  • Collaborative practice
  • Housing
  • Landscape architecture
  • Real estate development
  • Structures in architecture
  • Curved metal sculpture creating a tunnel
  • aerial view of a dense urban area
  • aerial view of factory campus
  • contemporary concrete building
  • windowless concrete building
  • Urban street corner featuring a multistory pink building
  • aerial view of contemporary building
  • Rendering of building nestled between trees

Common Thread – Bruges Triennale, Bruges, Belgium
An immersive textile installation that transforms a hidden monastery courtyard into a dynamic public space, celebrating Bruges’s lace-making heritage.

Las Américas Social Housing Study, León, Mexico
A visionary social housing study in León, Mexico, exploring flexible, community-focused design for future urban growth.

Site Verrier Cultural Center, Meisenthal, France
The transformation of a historic glass factory into a vibrant cultural center that celebrates craft, community, and contemporary design.

Kukje Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
A softly reflective stainless-steel mesh façade envelops this contemporary gallery, blending traditional courtyard architecture with modern art presentation.

Amant Art Campus, Brooklyn, New York
A flexible art campus designed to nurture artists and audiences, integrating exhibition spaces, studios, and a public courtyard in Brooklyn.

144 Vanderbilt, Brooklyn, New York
A residential project with an open, porous structure and an innovative approach to circulation and living spaces.

Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis
A permeable canopy of interconnected forms creates a welcoming, open museum that dissolves boundaries between campus, community, and art.

Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) Expansion, Williamstown, Massachusetts
A new museum designed to foster engagement, experimentation, and community, expanding WCMA’s role as a cultural hub on campus and beyond.

I seek to create spaces that are deeply attuned to the evolving relationships between people, materials, and the environment.

Books

  • SO–IL: In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today

    Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu. Lars Müller Publishers, 2025.

  • AMAG Long Book 17: SO–IL / Amant

    SO–IL. AMAG Publisher, 2024.

  • The Office of Good Intentions: Human(s) Work

    Florian Idenburg, LeeAnn Suen. Taschen, 2022.

  • A+U: Architecture and Urbanism — SO–IL Issue

    SO–IL. A+U Publishing, 2019.

  • Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow

    Justin McGuirk, Florian Idenburg, Edwin Heathcote, Eszter Steierhoffer. Rizzoli Electa, 2018.

  • Solid Objectives: Order, Edge, Aura

    Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu, Ilias Papageorgiou. Lars Müller Publishers, 2017.

  • The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism

    Florian Idenburg (editor). Lars Müller Publishers, 2009.

Publications

  • A Space for Deep Work

    in A Section of Now: Social Norms and Rituals as Sites for Architectural Intervention, G. Borasi (editor). Spector Books, 2022.

  • Bastard Typologies

    in Lineament: Material, Representation, and The Physical Figure in Architectural Production, G. Borden (editor). Routledge, 2017.

  • LA's Not so Distant Future

    in Social Transparency: Projects on Housing, J. Graham (editor). Columbia University Press, 2016.

  • Landscapes of the Hyperreal

    in AP 164: ABALOS AND HERREROS, G. Borasi (editor). Park Books, 2015.

  • Allusions

    in Under the Influence, A. Miljacki and I Hwang (editors). SA+P Press, 2014.

  • Workspheres

    in A-Typical Plan, Projects, and Essays on Identity, Flexibility, and Atmosphere in the Office Building, J. Kuo, D. Rodet and I. Concherio (editors). Park Books, 2013.

  • Nebula Macula

    in Matter: Material, Processes in Architectural Production, G. Borden and M. Meredith (editors). Routledge, 2011.

Selected Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

  • American Academy for Arts and Letters Awards in Architecture

    2022

  • United States Artist Fellow

    2022

  • Prix de Rome, the Netherlands

    2014

  • Charlotte Kohler Prize, Royal Cultural Fund, the Netherlands

    2010

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