Marta H. Wisniewska

Marta H. Wisniewska is an architect and urban planner whose research and teaching promote alternative building materials and investigate their applications in local building sectors in developed and developing territories. 

Wisniewska is a Lecturer and the Director of the Regenerative Architecture Lab at Cornell AAP. The lab is primarily a space for research and hands-on experimentation with cultivated and regenerative alternative building materials that positively impact the natural environment as well as the health of users, manufacturers, and builders. The lab supports their production and testing, as well as familiarization and data collection.

Wisniewska is also a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and a member of the graduate faculty in the field of architecture.

Influenced by her experiences researching and teaching in different contexts such as Ethiopia, Singapore, Switzerland, Germany, and the United States, she aims to activate new and alternative resources for unique and context-specific applications, aspiring to widen the architectural palette and support a circular economy paradigm for the building industry. 

Wisniewska's work has been published in several books such as Building from Waste: Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction (Birkhäuser, 2014); Addis Ababa: a Manifesto on African Progress (Ruby Press, 2018); and City in Your Hands, ETH Zurich (2019). She holds an M.Sc. in Architecture and Urban Planning from ZUT Szczecin, Poland.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Architectural installations
  • Architectural technology
  • Circular economies
  • Collaborative practice
  • Structures in architecture
  • Sustainability
  • Innovative Materials
  • Regenerative Materials
  • Healthy Materials
  • Carbon Neutral Materials
  • Local Waste Streams
  • Local Resources
  • Design for Developing Nations

Related Links

Related News

Classes (Selected)

  • ARCH 2102 Core Design Studio IV, Integrative Design
  • ARCH 5111 Core Design Studio I, Co-Habitat      
  • ARCH 4101/4102/5101/5115/5116 Engaged Practices Option Studio
  • Urban-Ruralism: A Training Center for the Rural Migrants in Addis Ababa
  • ARCH 4605/6605 Fantastic Materials and Where to Find Them
  • ARCH 4605/6605 Home:Grown

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • Daring Growth, 15th International Architecture Exhibition Biennale di Venezia, Palazzo Mora, Venice (2016)
  • Waste Vault, at the IdeasCity Festival, New Museum, New York City, USA (2015)
  • Building from Waste, Swissnex San Francisco, San Francisco, USA (2015)

Publications (Selected)

  • Wisniewska, Marta H. with Dirk E. Hebel, Felix Heisel, and Sophie Nash: "Addis Ababa: A Manifesto on African Progress," Ruby Press (2019)
  • Wisniewska, Marta H. with Gerhard Schmitt, and Estefania Tapias: "City in Your Hands," ETH Zurich Information Architecture (2019)
  • Wisniewska, Marta H. with Dirk E. Hebel, and Felix Heisel: "Building from Waste: Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction," Birkhäuser (2014)

Selected Work

  • A rectangle of graduated gray-blue from dark to light, white text.

    Building from Waste: Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction (2014), coauthored with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel.

  • Two rectangles with colorful images on red background, white text.

    Addis Ababa: A Manifesto on African Progress, Ruby Press (2019), coauthored with Dirk E. Hebel, Felix Heisel and Sophie Nash.

  • Wavy brown lines stacked above each other.

    Waste Vault ( 2015), at the IdeasCity Festival, New Museum, New York City. photo / Albert Vecerka

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