About CFA Lab 

Center for Architecture Lab is a multi-month, multi-disciplinary residency program that offers new voices in architecture and design full authorship over dedicated areas of the Center for Architecture's platforms, allowing them to develop and share compelling and provocative content meant to elevate underrepresented perspectives. The Center for Architecture, inaugurated in 2003 as the American Institute of Architect (AIA)’s first-ever cultural institution, engages local and international audiences with the value, impact, and wonder of architecture. 

Created in 2021 in response to the destabilizing forces of the global COVID-19 pandemic and reinvigorated racial justice movement in the United States, Center for Architecture Lab invites a greater diversity of professionals to participate in the fields of architecture and design and encourages our community to consider new perspectives, critical questions, and innovative solutions to systemic problems.  

The Center for Architecture will pursue opportunities to collaborate with participants even after the residency period has concluded, supporting public programs that continue the conversations brought up during the length of the program. Residents will also be invited to join the Center for Architecture advisory committee and take part in the selection process for future cohorts.  

Past Residents 

CFA Lab: Seeking Refuge and Making Home in NYC featured Center for Architecture Lab’s 2023 residents. The residents were selected from over 50 applicants who responded to the idea of “Home,” a concept that can take on many different meanings, especially in post-COVID New York City. Each resident explored the domestic sphere through their own unique lens and installed their work at the Center for Architecture. The projects by CFA Lab residents were Making Home: Affirming Black Diasporic Agency
by Kholisile Dhliwayo, NCARB, ARBV, NSWARB; Queeries: Designing Reality Equitably and Madly (Q:DREAM)
by A.L. Hu, NOMA, AIA, NCARB, EcoDistricts AP; and Undocumented
by Karla Andrea Pérez. Read more about the residents here.  

In 2021, the inaugural residents of Center for Architecture Lab were the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning and Design (formerly the Indigenous Scholars of Architecture, Planning, and Design) and the Community Design Collaborative. Working during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic when the Center for Architecture building was closed, the final product created by the residents took the form of a digital exhibition. 

Explore the digital exhibitions of ISAPD and Community Design Collaborative.