Cyrus Peñarroyo

Cyrus Peñarroyo is an associate professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Trained as an architect, he develops installations and urban design fictions that reimagine spaces for critical engagement, coexistence, and collaboration within an ever-changing, digitally mediated world. These spatial interventions strive to disrupt contemporary media habits and cultivate alternative relationships to technology. Peñarroyo’s writing and design work has been featured in Ardeth, The Architect’s Newspaper, the edited volume Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, and other publications. He has exhibited in international venues and received several awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers (2019). Peñarroyo was also awarded residency fellowships at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2023), Art Omi: Architecture (2024), and Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (2026).

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 held visiting appointments from other US institutions, including Columbia University, Syracuse University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to arriving at Taubman College, he practiced in offices in Chicago and New York, working primarily on institutional and mixed-use projects. He is a partner in the Ann Arbor-based design practice EXTENTS, with McLain Clutter.

Portrait by Tommy Kha.