Joyce Hwang, AIA, NCARB, NOMA

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies - Department of Architecture
jh96@buffalo.edu - 324 Hayes Hall - (716) 829-5906

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies - Department of Architecture

Hwang engaged in a freshman studio critique.

Joyce Hwang stands with “Habitat Wall,” a prototype wall structure that accommodates humans and urban animals such as bats, raccoons and birds. Says Hwang: "I am interested in exploring how a wall can act not only as a facade, but also as an inhabitable, living membrane." Photo by Scott Gable

Joyce Hwang is associate professor and director of graduate studies with the Department of Architecture at UB. She is also founder of Ants of the Prairie, an office of architectural practice and research that focuses on confronting contemporary ecological conditions through creative means. 

For over a decade, Hwang has been developing a series of projects that incorporate wildlife habitats into constructed environments. She is a recipient of the Exhibit Columbus University Research Design Fellowship (2020-21), the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award (2014), the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship (2013), the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Independent Project Grant (2013, 2008), and the MacDowell Fellowship (2016, 2011). Her work has been exhibited at Matadero Madrid, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and the Rotterdam International Architecture Biennale, among other venues. 

Hwang’s projects and writing have been featured in publications including Curbed, Good, Praxis, Azure Magazine, Architect Magazine, Architectural Review, AV Proyectos, Bracket, MONU, Biophilic Cities Journal, Volume Magazine, and Next Nature. She is a co-organizer of the Hive City Habitat Design Competition and a co-editor of Beyond Patronage: Reconsidering Models of Practice, published by Actar. Hwang is on the Steering Committee for US Architects Declare, and serves as a Core Organizer for Dark Matter University.

Hwang is a registered architect in New York State, and has practiced professionally with offices in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Barcelona. She received a post-professional Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University, where she was awarded the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Bronze Medal.

"My work is dedicated to developing creative approaches in confronting the pleasures and horrors of our contemporary ecologies."

 - Joyce Hwang

Recent News

Joyce Hwang.

Hwang's "Bat Cloud" is a hanging canopy of vessels designed and constructed to support bat habitation. It is installed in Buffalo's Tifft Nature Preserve. Photo by Joyce Hwang

Selected Work

  • Hidden in plain sight
    5/30/19
    Hidden in Plain Sight is Joyce Hwang and Nerea Feliz's proposal for a series of urban furnishings that aim to amplify and bring awareness to various forms of urban “life” through visual, tactile and ecological means. The project is designed to support an inclusive web of interdependent species, both human and non-human.
  • Elevator B
    5/30/12
    Elevator B is a 22 -foot-tall, free-standing steel, glass and cypress tower that was raised in "Silo City," an area along the Buffalo River where several massive abandoned grain elevators are located. The bee colony that now inhabits the tower was living in the walls of a long unused outbuilding destined for rehabilitation.
  • Beyond patronage: reconsidering models of practice
    4/8/15
    Assistant professor of architecture Martha Bohm, MArch graduate Gabrielle Printz & associate professor of architecture Joyce Hwang examine the shifting landscape of patronage within the field of architecture.