Elisa Renouard

Lecturer

Elisa Renouard is a practicing designer and a Lecturer in the Department of Architecture. She holds an M.Arch from the University of Washington. Her background in literature, art history, and the humanities —she holds bachelor degrees in these subjects—informs her work, as she is interested in representation and the ways that architecture is shaped by its relationship to place, time, and narrative.

Elisa practices as a Senior Architect/Project Manager with Olson Kundig. Since joining the award-winning firm in 2014, she has worked across a broad range of project types and scales, from private residential to commercial projects. This professional experience is brought to her design studios, where she emphasizes process and the role of both conceptual and technical design development.

The focus of Elisa’s independent research is the layered experience of cities and the elusive landscapes of memory. Her work studies the connections between architecture and socio-cultural contexts, patterns of urban morphology, and the fleeting but meaningful stories that define place. At a broader scale, this research considers socially and politically charged space as a critical shaper of experience.

Elisa teaches design studio, architectural representation, and research seminars in the Department of Architecture.