2024–25 Banham Fellow Tiffany Xu Explores Construction Through Lens of Contemporary Fiction

 

Tiffany Xu, a designer at David Jaehning Architect in San Francisco, is the 2024-25 Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning. Xu comes to UB with an expansive spirit of experimentation and a proposal to explore construction systems through the dimensions of materiality and the surprising context of contemporary fiction. As the Banham Fellow, Xu will engage students through a graduate seminar and studio and conclude her research project with an exhibition in the Spring. A graduate of UC Berkeley and Rice Architecture, where she was co-editor of PLAT Journal and received the William D. Darden Thesis Award, Xu operates at the intersection of making and critical inquiry.

The search committee for this fellowship consisted of UB architecture faculty members Joyce Hwang and Jin Young Song, and 2023-24 Banham Fellow Kearon Roy Taylor. “We were drawn to Tiffany’s proposal to explore building materials and systems of construction in novel ways, while also considering representational strategies including working through contemporary fiction,” says Hwang. “Her portfolio of both speculative and realized design work – in addition to her professional experience – demonstrates incredible promise as an emerging creative practitioner and design scholar. We are thrilled to welcome Tiffany to Buffalo.”