Virginia Architecture Fellows Showcase

Virginia architecture FELLOWS showcase
MON, APR 6 – SUN, APR 26, 2026
CAMPBELL EAST WING GALLERY

GALLERY TALK & RECEPTION 
MON, APR 6, 2026
5PM
CAMPBELL VAN LENGEN LOBBY

The Virginia Architecture Fellowship is awarded to emerging designer/practitioners or educators with promising design experience across scales and typologies. In Fall 2025, the UVA School of Architecture welcomed its second cohort of Fellows—Ozan Şen and Tuomas Siitonen—who began as full-time Assistant Professors with a focus on developing a 1-year creative research project and pedagogy at UVA. Șen and Siitonen were selected for the fellowship based on their exceptional design teaching capacity, compelling research proposals, and ability to serve as collaborators.

^{Paris Street, Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte, 1877 / Cyborg Flaneur, Today. © Ozan Șen}

Invasive Species: Networks, Gadgets, Commons in the Digitized Landscape
by Ozan Sen 

As the technology becomes ubiquitous and the pursuit of greater comfort and control intensifies, the environment is increasingly saturated by digital infrastructures of screens, sensors, and cameras. What once appeared as peripheral technical apparatuses has grown into a dense machinic layer that regulates the environment. Invasive Species examines how these systems are transforming our cities, homes, and bodies, culminating in a public exhibition that renders the hidden operations of monitoring, sensing, and optimization visible.

Student Research Assistants: Isabela Rasmussen, Noah Depeyrot, Abigail Alton, Skye Spencer
Contributors: Zeynep Kuheylan and Tugce Topada

Funding Support: UVA School of Architecture, Department of Architecture; UVA Center for Global Inquiry & Innovation; UVA Vice Provost for the Arts Grant

^{Model Kit, in-progress. © Tuomas Siitonen}

A Pedagogical Toolkit
by Tuomas Siitonen

While sustainable design requires long-term, systemic thinking, architectural education often operates within short studio cycles, focused on form, aesthetics, and immediate deliverables. The tension lies in integrating complex environmental, social, and material considerations into teaching methods and assessment frameworks, without overwhelming students or compromising creativity.

In this exhibition, Tuomas Siitonen presents an exploration of sustainability as both an architectural and pedagogical question. Through a pedagogical tool kit including a constructed scale model and an accompanying wall diagram based on his on-going doctoral research, the work investigates how ecological thinking can be translated into architectural representation and design methods.

Student Research Assistant: Logan R. Amey

Funding Support: UVA School of Architecture, Department of Architecture