Places, an interdisciplinary journal of contemporary architecture, landscape, and urbanism, recently featured an essay authored by Architecture Professor Deborah Gans on hospitality and the spatial and political dimensions of being a stranger — particularly an immigrant or refugee.
Gans is the principal of Gans Studio and an editor of Bridging the Gap: Rethinking the Relation of Architecture and Engineering (honored by the AIA International Book Awards), The Organic Approach, and Extreme Sites: The ‘Greening’ of Brownfield. She is also the author of The Le Corbusier Guide, now in its third edition.
Many of Gans Studio’s projects in industrial design and architecture explore forms of social engagement, ranging in scale from a school desk for the New York School Construction Authority to alternative housing and settlements for Kosovo and New Orleans. The work was featured in the United States Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Bienniale. Since 2005 the studio has worked in collaboration with James Dart Architects on housing for New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward, a project that began with a HUD grant.