Chandler Ahrens

Chandler Ahrens is the chair of the Graduate School of Architecture and an associate professor at WashU, as well as a co-founder of AVV A architecture firm. His research and teaching focus is on the intersection of material investigations, environmental phenomena, and computational design processes. His teaching has been recognized with an Emerging Faculty Award from the Building Technology Educators Society. He is a co-editor of “Instabilities and Potentialities, Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture” (2019), co-curator and editor of the Gen(h)ome Project (2006), and co-chair and editor for the exhibition, “Evolutive Means, ACADIA2010.” He was a University Design Research Fellow for Exhibit Columbus (2025). He serves on the governing committee for the Steedman Fellowship and was previously on the board of directors for ACADIA.

As a partner in AVV A, he has worked on projects ranging from commercial creative office building renovations, galleries, retail environments, multi-family housing, individual houses, and academic institutions. To date, his work has received international, national, and local design awards from the American Institute of Architects, Chicago Athenaeum New American Architecture Awards, a Chicago Athenaeum Good Green, Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design, Muse Design award, Eduwik, ARCHITECT Light & Architecture Award, Architizer A+ finalist, and is part of the permanent collection at the Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) in Orleans, France, and the 21c Museum Hotel. Prior to AVV A, Ahrens was a co-founder of OSA and also worked for several large international architectural firms including nine years as a senior project designer at Morphosis Architects. He was a visiting professor at the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Lyon, France, from 2014-2018 and previously taught at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. He has taught workshops in Mexico, Israel, France, and in the U.S.

Prior to OSA, Ahrens worked for several large international architectural firms, including nine years as a senior project designer at Morphosis Architects, where he was responsible for notable builds such as the New Academic Building at Cooper Union in New York; Hypo-Alpe Adria bank in Udine, Italy; Emerson College in Los Angeles; the U.S. Embassy in London; and Phare Tower in Paris, France. He has been a visiting professor at the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Lyon, France, since its inception in 2014.