Dr. Andrew Saunders

Biography

Andrew Saunders is an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the director of the Master of Architecture program. He is the founding principal of Andrew Saunders Architecture + Design, an internationally published and award-winning architecture and design research practice. His work is committed to tailoring innovative digital methodologies to provoke novel exchanges and reassessments within the broader cultural context, innovating at various scales from product design and exhibition design to large-scale civic and cultural institutional design. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arkansas and a Masters in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His current research interests lie in computational geometry, exploring its relationship to aesthetics, emerging technology, and fabrication performance. He has significant professional experience with project design firms such as Eisenman Architects, Leeser Architecture, and Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., and has taught and guest lectured at institutions including Cooper Union and Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2004, he was awarded the SOM Research Traveling Fellowship to pursue research on the relationship of equation-based geometries pioneered by early 20th-century figures in reinforced concrete. Saunders is also currently working on a book that utilizes parametric modeling as an analytical tool for 17th-century Italian Baroque architecture. His design work has gained recognition, having won the ACADIA international fabrication competition for the production of Luminescent Limacon, a lighting fixture inspired by Flemish baroque portraits.

Research Interests

Courses