Behnaz Farahi is a designer, creative technologist and critical maker. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Critical Matter Research Group. Trained as an architect, she explores how to foster an empathetic relationship between the human body and the space around it through the implementation of emerging technologies. Her goal is to enhance the interaction between human beings and the built environment by following morphological, and behavioral principles inspired by natural systems. Her work addresses critical issues such as feminism, emotion, bodily perception and social interaction. She specializes in computational design, interactive technologies, additive manufacturing and digital fabrication technologies.
Farahi has won several awards including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Digital Design Award, Fast Company Innovation By Design Linda Tischler Award, World Technology Award (WTN) and is the recipient of the BASA and Madworkshop Grants and the Rock Hudson Fellowship. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Ars Electronica, Linz and Context Art Miami, SIGGRAPH, La Piscine Museum in France and A+D Architecture and Design Museum in LA and has been featured in several magazines and online websites including WIRED, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Frame Magazine, and many more.
She is a co-editor of 'Interactive Design: Towards a Responsive Environment' (Birkhäuser Verlag, 2023), an issue of AD, ‘3D Printed Body Architecture’ (Wiley, 2017) and author of Emotive Design (Routledge, forthcoming).
Farahi has worked with leading firms such as Adidas, Autodesk, Fuksas Studio, and 3DSystems / will-i-am. She has also collaborated with Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis on two NASA funded research projects developing a robotic fabrication technology to 3D print structures on the Moon and Mars. She has been an Artist in Residence at Autodesk Pier 9.
She received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts and Practice from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She also holds a Bachelor's degree and two Master's degrees in architecture. Previously, she taught at CSULB.