Anna Renken is a PhD candidate in Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the Daniels Faculty with a collaborative specialization in environmental studies. Her research explores concepts of nature and approaches to the environment in the design fields since the mid-twentieth century. In particular, she is interested in tracking how designers have engaged with science and technology through their use of material and representational techniques. Her dissertation project examines the practices of environmentally focused designers and laboratories at North American architecture schools in the late twentieth century, seeking to contribute to new histories of ecological design.

Anna received an MArch from Princeton University and a BA in Architecture and Art from Yale University. She has worked on curatorial and editorial projects at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Walker Art Center, and Log, and her writing has been included in associated publications as well as Drawing Matter, Places, and Pidgin.

Advisor

Mary Louise Lobsinger

• “Design with Marine Ecology: The Development and Legacies of 1980s Proposals for Ocean Structures,” presentation at EAHN conference, “The Third Ecology,” organized by MoMA and Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavík, October 2023.
• “From ‘Natural Objects’ to Environmental Systems: Transformations of the Design Laboratory,” presentation at workshop, “The Architectural Laboratory: Amulet or Shibboleth?,” organized by ARP research group – KU Leuven, New York, March 2023.
• “Seattle Freeway Park Illustrative Site Plan,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, March 2020, https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/72236/seattle-freeway-park-illustrative-site-plan

• Email: anna.renken@mail.utoronto.ca