Caroline O'Donnell facts for kids
Caroline O'Donnell is a talented architect, writer, and teacher. She started her own architecture company called CODA (which stands for Caroline O'Donnell Architecture). Her company is based in Ithaca, New York, USA. In 2013, CODA won a big award called the PS1 MoMA Young Architects Program. They built a cool project called "Party Wall" in Long Island City, New York. Today, Caroline O'Donnell is a professor and leads the Department of Architecture at Cornell University. She has also taught at other famous schools like Cooper Union and Harvard.
Life and Career
Caroline O'Donnell was born and grew up in Athlone, Ireland and later in Derry, N.Ireland. She studied architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture in England. She graduated in 2000 and won a special award for being the best student.
After college, she worked as an architect in Sydney, Australia, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She then earned her Master of Architecture degree from Princeton School of Architecture in 2006. She won another award there for her amazing talent in architectural design. She also worked at Eisenman Architects, helping design projects like the Hamburg Library.
In 2008, O'Donnell moved to Ithaca to teach at Cornell University. There, she started CODA, her own architecture firm. CODA focuses on making buildings that are good for the environment.
In 2010, she won second prize in a competition called Europan 10. Her project, Urban Punc., was about making cities better in Leisnig, Germany. In 2012, she won first prize in the Europan 11 competition with her project Counterspace, designed for a place in the Dublin Docklands.
A big moment for CODA was in 2013 when they won the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. Their project, Party Wall, was built using recycled materials like leftover steel and parts from skateboard manufacturing. This project also won the Royal Hibernian Academy’s Arthur Gibney Award.
In 2016, CODA created a pavilion called ‘Urchin’. This unique structure was made entirely from plastic chairs. It was built for the Cornell Council of the Arts Biennial event.
Since 2014, Caroline O'Donnell has also worked with Martin Miller under the name OMG. They have created several interesting projects together. These include Art Dock, a design for the Helsinki Guggenheim Museum, and Zimmer, which was a walking house idea. They were also finalists for a competition with their Rickshaw project.
In 2017, OMG built their first project, a pavilion called Primitive Hut at Art Omi in Ghent. This pavilion was designed to slowly decompose over time. In 2018, they opened a second pavilion, Evitim, which was made from the waste materials of the Primitive Hut.
Besides OMG, O’Donnell also leads the Ecological Action Lab (EAL) at Cornell. This lab explores new ways to use materials and reduce waste in architecture. They experiment with things like potato starch, manure, and different types of metal and wood. Caroline O'Donnell continues to lead CODA, working on projects like an addition to the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts and various housing projects in Ithaca, NY.
In 2017, Azure Magazine recognized O'Donnell as one of the top 30 female architects in the world.
Books
Caroline O’Donnell has written and helped create several books about architecture.
Her first book, Niche Tactics: Generative Relationships between Architecture and Site, came out in 2015. This book talks about how buildings can fit into their surroundings, much like living things fit into their environment. It was later translated into Chinese.
She also edited a book of short stories called "This is Not A Wall: Collected Short Stories on CODA's Party Wall at MoMA PS1". This book shares 75 different stories about CODA's famous "Party Wall" project.
In 2020, O’Donnell co-edited and co-wrote The Architecture of Waste: Design for a Circular Economy. This book explores how design can help reduce waste and create a more circular economy.
Another book she co-wrote and co-edited is Werewolf: The Architecture of Lunacy, Shapeshifting, and Material Metamorphosis, published in 2021. This book looks at how architecture can change and adapt, like a shapeshifting creature. A Chinese translation of this book is also being made.
