Joris Komen

Joris Komen is a PhD student in the Department of Architecture’s Design and Computation Group.

Joris's research focuses on human-wildlife interactions in the architectural space, adaptive behavioral wildlife biology, ecological literacy and the critical role wildlife will play in defining the future city. His work explores how computational design and human settlement practices intersect with wildlife habitat adaptation. His work evaluates the convergence of behavioral wildlife ecology and urban development practices in postcolonial communities of sub Saharan Africa in an effort to understand the socio-spatial influence of wildlife populations on emergent human settlement practices.

Joris holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He has worked for Architects, Design Researchers, National Parks and Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers in Namibia, Ghana, Brazil and the U.S.A. In 2017, Joris founded humaneLABS, a wildlife architecture praxis with ongoing projects in Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique, Colombia and the U.S.A.