Cyrus Peñarroyo

Cyrus Peñarroyo is an assistant professor at University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning where he teaches design studios, representation workshops, and seminars. His research and creative practice examines the urbanity of the internet, namely, the material, spatial, and social dimensions of urban life continually transformed by the internet’s pervasiveness. Trained as an architect, he rethinks formats for critical engagement, coexistence, and collaboration in order to design architecture for an ever-changing, digitally mediated world. Peñarroyo works creatively through different formats, including publications, multimedia installations, speculative design proposals and competition entries. His work has been featured in Ardeth, The Architect’s Newspaper, the edited volume Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, and other publications. He has exhibited at international venues and received several awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers (2019) and two ACSA Faculty Design Awards (2019, 2020). Peñarroyo was also awarded residency fellowships at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2023) and Art Omi: Architecture (2024). In addition to his research and teaching, he is an editorial advisor for DISC, an experimental publication that explores media, technology, and environments through themed books, events, and products.

Peñarroyo received a bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master of architecture from Princeton University. He has taught at other US institutions, including Syracuse University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia University. Prior to arriving at Taubman College, he worked at Bureau Spectacular in Chicago and Office for Metropolitan Architecture and LTL Architects in New York. He is a partner in the Ann Arbor-based design practice EXTENTS.

Portrait by Tommy Kha.