Skip to main content
Close
Vilcek Foundation
  • About
    • About

      The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences.

    • Our Mission
    • Board & Staff
    • Press Center
    • Contact
  • Prizes
    • Prizes

      The Vilcek Foundation Prizes are awarded to foreign-born individuals for extraordinary achievement in the arts and sciences.

    • About the Prizes

      Learn more about the Vilcek Foundation Prizes and the prizewinners.

    • Vilcek Prizes

      Awarded to immigrants with a legacy of major accomplishments.

    • Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise

      Awarded to young immigrant professionals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement early in their careers.

    • Vilcek Prize for Excellence

      Awarded to immigrants who have had a significant impact on American society, or to individuals who are dedicated champions of immigrant causes.

    • Prize Recipients
    • Grants for Organizations
  • Art
  • Events
  • News
Sign Up Search
Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Mona Ghandi

Mona Ghandi

2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Architecture

Location

Pullman, WA

Title

Professor of architecture, Washington State University

Area(s) of Research

Architecture; the relationship between architecture and psychology

Education

University of California, Berkeley (MArch);
Esfahan University of Art (MArch);
University of Tehran (BArch)

Country of Birth

Iran

Follow Mona Ghandi
Instagram
Tags
architect architecture computational design design designer Iran neuroscience psychology robotics
Share this page
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Great architecture can transform people. But Iranian-born architect Mona Ghandi is flipping that equation — she’s designing spaces that people can transform.

At the University of Tehran, her perspectives broadened thanks to the diverse cosmopolitanism of the student body. But she also recognized that opportunities in Iran were limited by her gender.

Mona Ghandi teaching an architecture design class at Washington State University

“I wanted to…pursue my goals in a more equitable context,” she says. So she moved to the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley — where she first met experts in computational design. Ghandi’s mind has always been drawn to the creative arts and analytics, and at Berkeley she dug into both.

Now a professor at Washington State University, she’s still exploring the relationship applying advanced computational technologies to architecture in the hopes of creating work that is psychologically reactive to its users. She is currently focusing on neurological and biofeedback data — brainwaves, heart rates, etc. — to create built environments that can detect users’ behavior and respond to their emotional state.

Mona Ghandi looking at architectural design materials with students.

The hope is to create “compassionate spaces” that react to users through a unification of materials, form, structure, and interactive systems of control. She is part of an emerging school of design thinking, exploring what has come to be called “adaptive architecture”; she refers to architecture not as an inert object but as a “living organism.”

To do this, she creates mock-ups of architectural elements and links them with biofeedback and neurological data. She is currently working with a full-scale wall that can change in shape, lighting, opening, and skin depending on the emotional and psychological profile of its users. “I’m trying to heighten the level of intimacy between the mind, body, and the environment to the point of dissolving the boundaries and making a single entity,” she says.

 

Awards and Accomplishments

  • IAAC and Autodesk on Joint Research Grant, Boston, MA and Barcelona, Spain (2017)
  • SEED Grant, WSU New Faculty Grant (2017)
  • Honorable mention, “Transiting cities, low carbon future,” Latrobe, Australia (2013)
  • First place, “Tehran Stock Exchange,” Tehran, Iran (2013)
  • First Place, “Abou Nasr Landscape,” Shiraz, Iran (2011)

Follow Mona Ghandi

Instagram
Tags
architect architecture computational design design designer Iran neuroscience psychology robotics

Jury Members

2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Architecture

Fred Bernstein

Writer

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher

Curator of Architecture and Design, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Rosalie Genevro

Executive Director, The Architectural League of New York

Cathy Lang Ho

Editor and Curator

Adam Yarinsky

Principal, Architecture Research Office
Share this page
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Related Prize Recipients

James Leng

James Leng receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Architecture for his investigations into the role of defunct buildings and his vision for public, social uses of infrastructure.
Portrait of James Leng

Jing Liu

Jing Liu receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Architecture for her innovative interdisciplinary work and for developing new approaches to urban housing.
Portrait of Jing Liu

Teddy Cruz

Teddy Cruz receives the Vilcek Prize in Architecture for creating designs and concepts that make border communities more inclusive and equitable.
Portrait of Teddy Cruz

You may also be interested in

May 4, 2021

Vilcek Foundation receives 2021 AIA Interior Architecture Award

The Vilcek Foundation headquarters, designed by ARO, are honored for outstanding interior architecture and design.
The first floor gallery space within the Vilcek Foundation NYC headquarters.
January 27, 2021

Postmodern pioneer: Manga biography celebrates Denise Scott Brown

Denise Scott Brown leads off manga series, illustrated by Japanese-born Hiroki Otsuka, saluting Vilcek Foundation Prizewinners.
A black and white manga illustration of Denise Scott Brown.
October 18, 2022

Vilcek Foundation honors immigrant scientists with $250,000 in prizes

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Edward Chouchani, Biyu J. He, and Shixin Liu receive the 2023 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science.
The 2023 Vilcek Prizewinners in biomedical science from left to right: Edward Chouchani, Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Biyu J. He, & Shixin Liu.

Join our mailing list

Sign Up
Vilcek Foundation
21 East 70th Street
New York, New York 10021

Phone: 212.472.2500

Email: info@vilcek.org

  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board and Staff
    • Press Center
    • Contact
  • Prizes
    • Vilcek Prizes
    • Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise
    • Vilcek Prize for Excellence
    • Prize Recipients
    • Grants for Organizations
  • Art
  • Events
  • News
  • Careers
Connect with us
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Vimeo
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility Statement
© 2023   Vilcek Foundation