Naomi Frangos

Naomi Frangos is an architect and principal of her own design-research practice operating at the intersection of architecture, art, technology, structure, and phenomenological thought. She was senior design architect for international award-winning firms and projects, including Montreal's Wilder Espace Danse at Lapointe Magne, which was nominated for a Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize in 2018; and also worked at Brian Mackay-Lyons, Saia Barbarese Topouzanov, and Tom Balaban, all published in Canadian Architect.

Frangos is cocurator of In Search of Contoured Playground, with Dakin Hart at The Noguchi Museum (August 2019–February 2020) to be featured in her book provisionally titled Scalar Play, for which she received a Design History Society Research Exhibition Grant. She has received other research-creation grants for projects studying variable interscalar systems of design and techno-poetic aspects of critical making.

Frangos has taught undergraduate and graduate studios and seminars at McGill University, Université de Montréal, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and was associate professor and lectures and exhibitions coordinator at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). She holds a post-professional M.Arch. in history and theory (awarded Provost Graduate Fellowship) and B.Arch. from McGill, and a professional diploma in welding/assembly.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Architectural practice 
  • Architectural technology
  • Architectural theory
  • Sculpture
  • Analog and digital blended modalities of fabrication, tools and processes informed by material experiments in metal, concrete, and ceramics through casting and flexible and transformable molds

Related Pages

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Classes (Selected)

  • ARCH 4101/4102/5101/7112 Option Studio: Coevolutionary ArchetypesAdvanced programs in architectural design, with options in, but not limited to, urban design, architectural technology, computational design, ecology, culture, and representation.
  • ARCH 4509/6509-105 Visualization and Representation Elective: Urban FluxusThis course addresses pertinent issues relative to the subject of Visual Representation. The instructor(s) of the course are drawn from the permanent and visiting faculty who may either broadly or narrowly define the course's scope and content. For precise content, please see the Architecture Department webpage.

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • Design History Society Exhibition Research Grant: Scalar Play: In Search of Contoured Playground (2019)
  • Institutional Support for Research and Creativity Grant (NYIT): Bio-Informed Structural Joint System Design: From Biological Morphologies to Variable Assemblies. Principal Investigator: Naomi Frangos (2018)
  • School of Architecture and Design (NYIT) Design-Build Grant: Inhabiting Surface: Play-scapes for Learned Environments (2017)
  • Institutional Support for Research and Creativity Grant (NYIT): Fabricating Intuitive Innovation in Digital Design. Principal Investigator: Naomi Frangos (2016)
  • McGill University Provost Graduate Fellowship (2010)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • In Search of Contoured Playground, cocurated with senior curator Dakin Hart, The Noguchi Museum, New York City (2019–20)
  • "Material Codes of an Analog Mind," (un)PROGRAMMING Computational Processes Symposium, NYIT, New York City (2019)
  • "Generative Misbehavior at Play," Play with the Rules ACSA Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2018)

Publications (Selected)

  • Frangos, Naomi. Inhabiting Surface: Studies in Variable Formwork Design. Exhibition catalog, Center Gallery, NYIT. New York: Self-published, ISBN: 978-1-38-880024-6 (2018)
  • Frangos, Naomi. "Modular Variable Flexible Formwork Design." International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) "Creativity in Structural Design." Abbreviated Proceedings: Ed. By S. Adriaenssens and C. Mueller, p 252 (2018)
  • Frangos, Naomi. "Sempering: To Craft A Detail, Or Not?" Journal of Architectural Education (2016)

Selected Work

  • Portrait of woman presenting to and holding an image up to a group of viewers, whose backs are facing the camera.

    In Search of Contoured Playground (2019). Exhibition by Naomi Frangos, cocurator, and Dakin Hart, senior curator at The Noguchi Museum. Exhibition opening event gallery talk by Frangos and Hart, and drawing System of Spheres. photo / Roger Yu

  • Photograph of the interior of a gallery space, occupied by an elevated 10'x10' model of a playground.

    In Search of Contoured Playground (2019). Exhibition by Naomi Frangos, cocurator, and Dakin Hart, senior curator at The Noguchi Museum. 10'x10' model of Contoured Playground. photo / Nicholas Knight. ©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS).

  • Black and white photograph situated at the end of a long hallway, which is occupied by a series of demountable self-supporting display systems constructed from steel rods.

    Apparatus City: Micro Worlds/Macro Fields (2017), modular serial demountable self-supporting display system, Accreditation Exhibitions, School of Architecture and Design, NYIT, New York.

  • Wide angle photograph of the interior of an open room, whose windows stretch the entire span of the room, from the ceiling to the floor. The center of the room is occupied by a concrete, freestanding sheer wall design.

    Le Wilder Espace Danse, Montreal (2017). Concrete shear wall by Naomi Frangos, design architect at Lapointe Magne and Associates. Published in Canadian Architect Magazine and nominated for Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, 2018.

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