Bio

Margaret Kirk is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at North Carolina State University. She is a licensed architect and Certified Passive House Consultant whose research, teaching, and professional practice examine how design technologies can expand architecture’s capacity to mediate relationships between people, environment, and space.

Her research explores the intersection of interdisciplinary collaboration, computational design, digital fabrication, building technology, and responsive systems to investigate new modes of architectural inquiry and spatial experience. Rather than viewing technology solely as a means of optimization or performance enhancements, she treats design technologies as creative media that generate spatial complexity, reveal hidden relationships, and broaden architecture’s potential for agency. Currently, her work focuses on façade-integrated micro wind energy harvesters, responsive building envelopes, and computational workflows that translate local environmental data into customized architectural elements. Through this approach, architecture functions as an interface that renders environmental processes perceptible as spatial experience. Kirk’s scholarship has been published in domestic and international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

Alongside her academic work, Kirk has maintained an architectural practice and worked on domestic and international projects. This experience informs a teaching philosophy grounded in design inquiry, encouraging students to approach technology as a creative design medium for exploration, spatial discovery, and architectural expression.

Prior to joining North Carolina State University, Kirk taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Cornell University, California Polytechnic State University, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts. She earned a Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University, a Master of Architecture from Pratt Institute, and a Doctor of Design from Florida International University.

Area(s) of Expertise

Interdisciplinary Design Research, Building Technology, Design Technologies, Computational Design, Architecture and Ecological Interfaces, Responsive Building Envelopes