Salmaan Craig appointed Associate Professor

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design (AUD) is pleased to announce the appointment of Salmaan Craig as associate professor, effective July 1, 2024.

Craig is a building scientist and architectural educator. He was previously an assistant professor then associate professor at McGill University School of Architecture and, before that, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Craig also spent several years in practice, first as a façade engineer at Buro Happold and then in the Specialist Modelling Group at Foster + Partners, contributing to Masdar Institute, Apple Campus, and Bloomberg Headquarters.

Craig’s research program develops new concepts for solar architecture with biogenic materials. He asks how to compose and shape these materials as part of natural thermal and ventilation cycles, so they can one day replace mechanical systems for air-conditioning. He derives most of his insights about these thermal flow cycles from physical experiments in the lab and out in the field.

His architectural interest in these cycles is as a catalyst for building form, spatial seduction, and new patterns for living and working. Meanwhile, his ecological interest lies in understanding if these new biomaterials can not only replace air-conditioning but also help reconcile construction with natural climate solutions at the regional scale.

This fall, Craig will teach Building Climates, a new general education cluster program. In Winter 2025, he will teach a technology seminar on how to organize space in thermal knots as well as a critical studies seminar on the history of ventilation and failures of the modern solar movement.

Craig holds a Bachelor of Science in product design and a Doctor of Engineering in environmental technology from Brunel University London.