Leen Katrib joins the School of Architecture at Syracuse University as the Harry der Boghosian Fellow. During the 2021–22 school year, Katrib will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, “Decolonizing Architecture’s Debris.” Building upon her thesis, “Rubble Archive,” which reimagines the afterlife of architecture’s debris and its decisive role in historical erasures and knowledge production, Katrib will use the typology of the university campus—both historical and contemporary cases—as a design research case study to investigate the destruction and mis/management of material afterlife and its social and cultural implications on impacted communities.
Katrib will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. Her research will culminate in an interdisciplinary symposium that convenes architects, artists, historians, anthropologists, preservationists and technologists who are addressing the implications of destruction and are decolonizing debris as an expanded mode of agency and resistance.
Prior to joining Syracuse University, Katrib practiced at the New York-based architecture and landscape firm, Marvel. Prior to joining Marvel, she practiced at LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis), McEwen Studio, Peter Marino Architect and OMA.
Previously, Katrib completed her master of architecture degree from Princeton University, where she received the prestigious Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a merit-based fellowship exclusively for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States and are poised to make significant contributions to the nation through their work.
At Princeton, Katrib was editor of the architectural journal, Pidgin, and was awarded the Howard Crosby Butler Travel Fellowship to track culture-specific practices at Zaatari refugee camp and to engage with local organizations in the development of a pilot program at the camp.
Katrib also holds a bachelor of architecture degree with honors from the University of Southern California (USC), where she was awarded the A. Quincy Jones Memorial Scholarship for Exceptional Promise in Architecture and the Robert Allen Rogaff Memorial Award for Excellence in Delineation and was designated a Discovery Scholar and Global Scholar for her independent research on the built environments of marginalized communities.
During her time at USC, Katrib was awarded the George H. Mayr Travel Fellowship to study the future of immigrants in Parisian suburbs, as well as the William and Neoma Timme Travel Fellowship to examine mimetic practices in China’s countryside developments.
