
John McMorrough
Associate Professor of ArchitectureJohn McMorrough is an architect and writer who works on the relationship between design methods and culture, focusing on architecture’s extended field (buildings, but also complementary media such as images, installations, and other structured narratives). As a partner of studioAPT, he designs through situation (comedies) and (mediatic) formats. His writing and design work has appeared in books and publications such as Log, Volume, Praxis, Threshold Perspecta, MAS Context, and Flat Out. He has taught theory and design at the Yale School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Ohio State University, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and is now an associate professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
Features + Awards
Courses
Winter 2023
Fall 2022
Winter 2022
Winter 2021
Fall 2020
Selected Articles
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Evolving ‘Situation’ [Curriculum / Change] (March, 2021)
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“Funny, Crazy, Silly: Lyrics for the Suspension of Architectural Disbelief” Log (37: The Architectural Imagination cataLog).
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“In Media Res,” Possible Mediums (2018) (November, 2018)
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“Architectural Rocks: Real and Imagined” Flat Out 3 (2018) (November, 2018)
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“’I like complexity and contradiction in architecture.’ Me too...I think. At least I used to, but now I’m not so sure anymore.” Paprika! (vol. 3 no.3, September 28, 2017).
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“Mood Swings: Architectural Affective Disorder” Architecture Design (Volume 86, Issue 6, November/December 2016 – “Special Issue: Evoking Through Design: Contemporary Moods in Architecture”).
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McMorrough, John and Julia, “The Second City, or, Studying Chicago’s Funny Urbanism in Relation to Improvisation,” 103rd Annual ACSA Meeting Paper Proceedings, The Expanding Periphery and the Migrating Center (ACSA Annual Meeting Toronto 2015)
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“Architecture, Organization, Repetition, & Laughter” Log 22 (Absurd), 2011.