Dr. Mona El Khafif is an associate professor of Architecture and urban design and project coordinator of the new CCA URBANlab. She holds a professional architecture degree from the RWTH in Aachen, Germany, and a doctorate in urban design from the TU in Vienna. El Khafif worked in architectural offices in Cologne before settling in Vienna 1997, where she was involved in several important Viennese design projects: the BUSarchitecture pilot Homeworkers project, which received the Otto Wagner Urban Development Prize in 1998; and the Ortner & Ortner Museumsquartier Vienna, one of the world´s 10 largest cultural urban districts.
In 2001 El Khafif founded the interdisciplinary architectural design studio phase 1 Fox_El Khafif_Nuhsbaumer. She also is a founding member of IG architecture, a platform for the development of contemporary architecture in Vienna. She has extensive experience in the organization and direction of international urban workshops, and in developing collaborative cooperation programs with universities in such countries as Germany, Turkey, Iran, and the United States.
After teaching in the core studios for the urban design program at the Institute of Urban Design/TU Vienna from 2000–6, El Khafif joined the URBANbuild program at Tulane University in New Orleans in 2006 to support studios at the urban and architectural scales in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She is also a coauthor of URBANbuild: Local/Global and has recently published Staged Urbanism: Urban Spaces for Art, Culture and Consumption in the Age of Leisure Society in Germany.
Her current research operates at multiple scales, examining the interdisciplinary aspects of urban regeneration strategies and urban ecologies. At CCA El Khafif leads the urban design curriculum and teaches urban research seminars, large-scale urban and architectural design studios, and international programs.
Her recent projects completed through the research courses at the CCA URBANlab include the research and design projects (and forthcoming publications): Transformative Land: Envisioning Baylink Pier 70; Jerusalem: Divided City/Common Ground; and Agropolis as well as the two exhibitions 10x10 Cities: Green Facts Challenges, Futures and (OP)space: an installation designed for the reactivation of empty storefront, which was presented at the 2010 ZERO1 San Jose Biennial.
Associate Professor, Architecture
Website: www.urbanbuild.net
Selected Work
