Catty Dan Zhang joins the UIC School of Architecture as the Herbert S. Greenwald Distinguished Professor in Architecture for Fall 2026.
Zhang is an associate professor of architecture at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the founder of Temporary Office—a practice that concerns architecture, culture, and environment through design and digital media. Using smoke, images, and objects as generative mediums, Zhang explores architecture’s mobile relationships with its users and with the planet. Her recent work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at 'T' Space, DesignTO, A+D Museum, A83, UC Berkeley, Florida Atlantic University, London Design Festival, Carnegie Museum of Art, Harvard GSD, among others. She was a finalist for the Harvard GSD’s Wheelwright Prize in 2018 and 2021. She authored Pamphlet Architecture 37, Active Atmospheres: On Instruments and Protocols for Medium Hybrids and Architectural Voids (Steven Myron Holl Foundation, 2023).
Prior to UTK, Zhang has taught at University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Washington University in St Louis. She has practiced in the US and Asia. She received a BArch from Tsinghua University, and MArch with Honors from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MDes in Technology from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she was the 2017 recipient of the Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology and Sustainability.
We look forward to Catty Dan Zhang’s presence in the School of Architecture community this fall, and to the conversations, teaching, and work she will bring to the school.