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Biography
Michelle Laboy is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Northeastern University, with an affiliate appointment with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. As a designer with degrees in architecture, engineering and urban planning, she is interested in interdisciplinary design approaches that create productive connections between architecture and the urban landscape. Her research and teaching examines how ecological thinking influences architectural theory and practice to drive its aesthetic and performance agendas; and how the grounding of buildings on sites enables adaptation to changing environments. Her current work with colleagues David Fannon and Peter Wiederspahn, titled Future-Use Architecture: Design for Persistent Change, received the 2017 Latrobe Prize of the AIA College of Fellows
Michelle has Master degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, where she received the AIA Henry Adams Medal and Thesis Award; and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, where she received the Etienne Totti Award. Michelle co-founded FieLDworkshop, a research-based design practice in Boston, to explore how smaller scale design contributes to conditions of urban resilience and sustainability at larger scales. Her primary focus is the design of spaces that engage us with the natural environment, through public installations and building systems that improve, actively engage and heighten our experience of sustainable urban ecosystems.
Prior to coming to Boston, Michelle worked as a licensed engineer and architectural designer in San Juan, Detroit, Chicago, and Barcelona. Her professional experience includes transportation and urban design, high-rise envelopes, and building design for commercial, educational and residential projects. Michelle’s collaboration with renowned architect and landscape architect Maryann Thompson has been very formative and influential. As a Senior Associate at MTA in Cambridge, a practice dedicated to architecture that is sustainable, site driven and deeply connected to the landscape, Michelle worked for ten years in many award-winning projects in the Northeast and West coasts.
Areas of Expertise (4)
Grounding site strategies for persistence
Socio Ecological
Sustainable and Resilient Urban Landscape
Resilient Buildings
Education (3)
University of Michigan: Master of Urban Planning, Urban Planning 2005
University of Michigan: Master of Architecture, Architecture 2004
Universidad de Puerto Rico: B.S., Civil Engineering 2001
Links (1)
Media Appearances (2)
Exhibition sheds light on environmental impacts
The Huntington News
2017-11-01
Matthew Eckelman, a professor from Northeastern’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, partnered with Professor Michelle Laboy of Northeastern’s School of Architecture to create the exhibition, which consists of photographs that portray the impacts students have on the environment by doing simple, everyday things. Eckelman and Laboy said they wanted to find a way to visually represent their research in a creative way so a person with no background knowledge of the subject could understand it. They also said they hoped their research would reach a broader audience through the exhibition than if it was simply written on paper...
Architecture professor leads effort to make water visible
News @ Northeastern
2017-09-15
The well caps are the brainchild of Michelle Laboy, assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern, and they’re helping to make groundwater perpetually visible to city officials and residents alike. “I’ve always been interested in water’s role in the urban landscape,” said Laboy, a member of Northeastern’s Resilient Cities Lab, “and maintaining groundwater levels in Boston is critical to the preservation of old buildings in some of the city’s most historic neighborhoods.”...
Research Grants (3)
2017 Latrobe Prize by the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects
AIA College of Fellows $100,000
Today the AIA College of Fellows announced the winner of its 2017 Latrobe Prize as Northeastern University's School of Architecture and Resilient Cities Laboratory for their work on the future adaptability and use of existing structures. The researchers include Peter Wiederspahn, AIA, associate professor of architecture, and principal of Somerville, Mass–based Wiederspahn Architecture; Michelle Laboy, assistant professor of architecture and co-founder of design firm FieLDworkshop in Boston; and David Fannon, AIA, assistant professor of architecture and of civil and environmental engineering. They will receive $100,000 for their work on "[identifying] design attributes contributing to future adaptability, [demonstrating] future-use design strategies for buildings using words and graphics, and [documenting] and [analyzing] architectural precedents that exemplify future-use design," according to AIA's press release.
2015 AIA Upjohn Research Initiative Grant
AIA
With pressure from the outdoor environment such as swells in temperature/humidity/precipitation and demands from the interior to achieve variable comfort standards and evolving uses, buildings need to adjust with an attitude of zero-energy use. By incorporating new, smart materials and creative assemblies, building skins now have the potential to modulate changes throughout the day. Smart materials, by definition, require no added energy or computer controls. Thermobimetal is one of those smart materials that automatically curls when heated and, when utilized strategically, can help liminal building surfaces automatically and optimally respond to temperature changes and direct sunlight. This proposal seeks funding to build a window prototype that will automatically block up to 90 percent of the sunlight entering a building while retaining a high level of visibility and view throughout the day. The net effect of this zero-energy system is energy and cost savings.
Northeastern Collaborative on Resilient Energy (N-CORE)
Global Resilence Institute
The goal of the Northeastern Collaborative on Resilient Energy (N-CORE) is to facilitate new collaborative energy-related research across campus and catalyze the impact of university innovations. Despite a strong track-record of extensive research capacity in energy system resilience at Northeastern, mechanisms to connect, communicate, and coordinate energy related research and education among different departments and schools, and outside institutions, have been minimal. Establishing N-CORE will provide a campus-wide structure to facilitate collaborations and strengthen productive and impactful relationships among energy resilience researchers. This initial initiative involves co-PIs from five colleges, but the structure is inclusive and open with a goal of expanding the network of energy researchers so we expect the group to grow over time. Given the diversity of energy research expertise at Northeastern, seed funding is requested to support a series of events, meetings, and activities to catalyze a sustainable community of researchers to share ideas that will lead to the development of large, new collaborations and novel transdisciplinary research proposals. N-CORE will also actively explore the potential for establishing an externally funded Northeastern Energy Institute. N-CORE will also work to support interdisciplinary educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students that focus on energy.
Articles (2)
Resilience Theory and Praxis: a Critical Framework for Architecture
Enquiry: The ARCC Journal
Michelle Laboy, David Fannon
2018 The growing use of resilience as a goal of architectural practice presents a new challenge in architects’ responsibility for health, safety, welfare and poetic expression of human-building interaction. With roots in disaster response, resilience in the building industry emphasizes the preservation and rapid restoration of the physical environment’s normal function in the face of shocks and disturbances of limited duration. The focus on maintaining function, and/or rapidly returning to the status quo ante necessarily affords a narrow understanding of architecture and a limited view of the concept of resilience...
On Groundwater: Invisible Architectural Environments
Journal of Architectural Education
Michelle Laboy
2017
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