Lola Ben-Alon is a professor at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where she directs the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Tech curriculum. She specializes in socially and environmentally sustainable building materials, construction practices, and engineering-architecture collaborations.
Her work focuses on natural, earth- and bio-based building materials, their manual and digital fabrication, life cycle, supply chains, and policy. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate the embodied and operational impacts of low-carbon assemblies such as cob, rammed earth, and light straw clay.
Ben-Alon is particularly passionate about fostering connections between academia and local communities by using participatory design and social hands-on engagement in the production of the built environment. Through sharing skills and…
