Experiments, Prototypes, Utopias
Future Cities Lab is an experimental design studio, workshop, and architectural think tank operating globally out of San Francisco. Since 2002, founding principals Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno have collaborated on a range of award-winning projects exploring the intersections of art and design with advanced fabrication technologies, robotics, responsive building systems, and public space. Future Cities Lab is an interdisciplinary studio employing an adventurous team of interaction designers, architects, technologists, digital craftspeople, urban ecologists, and more.
While we are deeply rooted in this community of vanguard innovators, makers, and thinkers, we also practice, teach, and exhibit our work internationally. Over the past ten years we have carefully crafted a company that is deliberately nimble, experimental, and independent. For each project we assemble a unique team of experts to address the specific needs of our clients. Every year we take on only a few select projects that interest us most. This allows us to work with clients one-on-one and focus our design and research efforts on projects that matter most to us.
Associate Professor and Chair, Architecture
California College of the Arts
Nataly Gattegno is chair of the graduate Architecture Program (MArch) at California College of the Arts. She is also a founding design partner of Future Cities Lab, an interdisciplinary design and research collaborative that has developed a range of award-winning projects exploring the intersections of design with advanced fabrication technologies, responsive building systems, and urban space.
Gattegno’s work has explored notions of territory—terrestrial, arctic, urban, and suburban—by speculating on the design opportunities and inhabitation of extreme climatic environments. FCL was awarded the 2011 Architectural League of New York NY Prize and the Van Alen NY Prize in Systems and Ecology in 2009.
Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Gattegno was the Muschenheim Fellow at the University of Michigan from 2008–9. She has previously taught at University of California, Berkeley; the University of Michigan; and the University of Virginia.
Associate Professor, Architecture
California College of the Arts
Jason Kelly Johnson is a founding design partner of Future Cities Lab, an experimental design and research office based in San Francisco and Athens, Greece. Working in collaboration with his partner Nataly Gattegno, Johnson has produced a range of award-winning projects exploring the intersections of design with advanced fabrication technologies, robotics, responsive building systems, and public space.
Johnson’s work has been published and exhibited worldwide. Most recently he was awarded the 2011 Architectural League of New York Young Architects Prize, the 2008–09 Oberdick Fellowship at the University of Michigan TCAUP, and the 2009 New York Prize Fellowship at the Van Alen Institute. He currently teaches at the California College of the Arts. His design work has been awarded an Unbuilt Architecture Award from the Boston AIA and an ACSA Faculty Design award in 2010.
