Aleksandra Jaeschke is an architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at The University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in Poland, she holds a Doctor of Design degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association in London. Prior to joining the faculty at the UT School of Architecture, she taught at the Woodbury School of Architecture in Los Angeles.

Aleksandra holds a professional license in Italy where she practiced at AION, an architectural firm she co-founded and co-directed with Andrea Di Stefano until her move to the U.S. Most of her research and professional work as partner of AION focused on the integrative approach to design of material organizations, performative potential of material systems, material form-finding, and the role of digital design tools in the integration of environmentally-driven agendas. As part of AION, she managed numerous design workshops and contributed to various publications. She participated in the 27/37 Exhibition of Young Italian Architecture at the Italian Pavilion, Shanghai Expo 2010, and was part of the ARCHITEKTUR! conference series held at the MAXXI Museum in Rome in 2012. In 2013, AION held a solo exhibition Eco-Machines in the Wroclaw Museum of Architecture in Poland. In recognition of the work developed by AION, she received the Europe 40 Under 40 Award for 2011 conferred by the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design & Urban Studies and Chicago Athenaeum.

While studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, she coordinated the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians Housing Research and Prototype Design Project, exploring aspects of embodied energy, transportation, and sourcing of materials. She also co-organized the 2016 Doctor of Design Conference #decoding, which investigated the impact of codes in mapping of environments, demarcation of legal territories, operational protocols of logistics and control of built environment, highlighting the interconnections between design techniques, economic processes, and regulatory mechanisms. While at the GSD, she was awarded the 2014 Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship.

Aleksandra’s interests range from different approaches to sustainability and notions of ecology, to cross-scalar integrative design strategies and the role of architects in transdisciplinary projects. Her doctoral dissertation Green Apparatus: Ecology of the American House According to Building Codes investigated how building regulations coupled with green building technologies and incentives shape environmentally-driven design and environmental awareness. A book based on her dissertation is forthcoming from Princeton Architectural Press in 2021.

Jaeschke was the winner of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s 2019 Wheelwright Prize, a travel-based grant to support investigative approaches to contemporary architecture. Jaeschke’s winning proposal and ongoing research, UNDER WRAPS: Architecture and Culture of Greenhouses, addresses the culture and architecture of greenhouses around the world, focusing on the spatiality of horticultural operations, as well as the interactions between plants and humans across a spectrum of contexts and cultures.

Aleksandra Jaeschke

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