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Jenny Sabin

  • Professor
  • Chair of the Department of Design Tech
  • Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture
  • Director of Graduate Studies in Design Technology
  • Codirector of the M.S. in Design Technology
Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Contact

Academic Research Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Architectural installations
  • Architectural practice
  • Architectural technology
  • Collaborative practice
  • Ecological practice
  • Sustainability

Jenny E. Sabin is an architectural designer whose work is at the forefront of a new direction for 21st-century architectural practice — one that investigates the intersections of architecture and science and applies insights and theories from biology and mathematics to the design of material structures. Sabin is Chair of the Department of Design Tech and the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture.

Sabin is principal of Jenny Sabin Studio, an experimental architectural design studio based in Ithaca, and director of the Sabin Lab at Cornell AAP. She holds degrees in ceramics and interdisciplinary visual art from the University of Washington and a master of architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Her book LabStudio: Design Research Between Architecture and Biology, coauthored with Peter Lloyd Jones, was published in 2017. Sabin won MoMA and MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program in 2017 with her submission, Lumen.

A woman with short spiked hair wearing glasses and a black suit jacket with a grey shirt underneath.

Academic Research Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Architectural installations
  • Architectural practice
  • Architectural technology
  • Collaborative practice
  • Ecological practice
  • Sustainability
  • Outdoor exhibition with futuristic cityscape backdrops and center structure with oval holes to view through it.
  • Book cover featuring a bright red background, light beige patterns on the front, and white text throughout.
  • Purple floor and lighting with a curved white mesh sculpture that spans floor to ceiling.

Lumen (2017), Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. image / Pablo Enriquez

Jenny E. Sabin and Peter Lloyd Jones. LabStudio: Design Research between Architecture and Biology (2017). London and New York: Routledge, Taylor, and Francis. image / provided

PolyThread Knitted Textile Pavilion (2016), Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City. Minding the Digital Design Society / Zhang Chao

Publications

  • LabStudio: Design Research between Architecture and Biology

    Sabin, Jenny E. and Peter Lloyd Jones. 2017. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor, and Francis.

  • Transformative Research Practice: Architectural Affordances and Crisis

    2015. Journal of Architectural Education.

  • Meander, Variegating Architecture

    Kolatan, Ferda and Jenny E. Sabin. 2010. Exton: Bentley Publications.

Classes

  • Option Studio: Digital Ceramics: Clay Tectonics

    ARCH 4101/4102/5101/5116/8913

  • Option Studio: Biosynthetic Robotic Fabrication: Digital Handcraft and Weird Tectonics

    ARCH 4101/4102/5101/5116/8913

  • Special Topics in Construction: Digital Ceramics

    ARCH 4605/6605

  • Special Topics in Construction: Matter Design Computation

    ARCH 4605/6605

  • M.Arch. I: Core Design Studio 3: Bike and Station

    ARCH 5113

Selected Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

  • National Science Foundation EFRI ODISSEI

    “Cutting and Pasting: Kirigami in Architecture, Technology, and Science” with Randell Kamien, Shu Yang, Dan Luo, and Jenny E. Sabin.
    2013–18

  • National Science Foundation EFRI SEED

    “Energy Minimization via Multi-Scalar Architectures” with Shu Yang, Jenny E. Sabin, Nader Angheta, Jan Van der Spiegel, Peter Lloyd Jones, and Andrew Lucia.
    2010–14

  • Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Philadelphia

    2010

  • Graham Grant for Individual Collaborate Projects

    Production and publication of LabBook by Jenny E. Sabin and Peter Lloyd Jones.
    2009–10

  • USA Knight Fellow

    2011

Selected Exhibitions and Presentations

  • Applications of Insights from Biology and Mathematics to the Design of Material Structures

    Invited and nominated keynote speaker, U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, National Academy of Engineering, United Technological Research Center, 2017.

  • Mutations-Créations / Imprimer le Monde (Printing the World)

    Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2017.

  • PolyThread Knitted Textile Pavilion

    Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City, 2016.

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