Director
UCLA faculty
Ph.D Architecture (UC Berkeley)
BA Psychology and Design (UC Santa Cruz)
Dana Cuff is a professor, author, and practitioner in architecture. Her work focuses on affordable housing, modernism, suburban studies, the politics of place, and the spatial implications of new computer technologies. Cuff's research on postwar urbanism was published in a book titled The Provisional City (MIT 2000), she edited Fast Forward Urbanism with Roger Sherman (Princeton Architectural Press 2011), coauthored Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City with her colleagues from the Urban Humanities Initiative (MIT 2020), and she recently authored Architectures of Spatial Justice (MIT 2023). She founded cityLAB in 2006, and has since concentrated her efforts around issues of spatial justice in the emerging metropolis. Dr. Cuff is widely published, the recipient of numerous fellowships, and lectures internationally. Three recent awards describe the arc of her career: Women in Architecture Activist of the Year (2019, Architectural Record), Researcher of the Year (2019, Architectural Research Centers Consortium), and Educator of the Year (2020, AIALA). (Photo Credit: Emelie Asplund)