Jason Johnson and Nataly Gattegno initiated Future Cities Lab in 2004. Future Cities Lab is an interdisciplinary design and research collaborative bridging architecture and landscape urbanism with material sciences, robotics, and engineering. Currently in residence at Van Alen Institute in New York as New York Prize Fellows, Johnson and Gattegno served as the 2008-9 Oberdick and Muschenheim Architecture Research Fellows at the University of Michigan. Both Johnson and Gattegno graduated from Princeton University. They hold full-time faculty positions at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco and have taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania, leading studios and research seminars in design, ecology, landscape urbanism, and advanced technologies. Their work received Second Prize in the 2005 Seoul Performing Arts International Competition and an Unbuilt Architecture Award from the Boston AIA. In 2008 they were finalists in the History Channel’s “City of the Future” competition in Washington, D.C. They have exhibited their work in a number of venues, recently including a solo show of their design and interactive work at the Extension Gallery for Architecture, Chicago. Their work will appear in two forthcoming publications: Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments, by David Gissen; and Interactive Architecture, by Michael Fox and Miles Kemp.

The Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellowship is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. THE AURORA PROJECT was made possible with additional support from The University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning (Research Through Making Grant, Dean Monica Ponce de Leon), The University of Michigan Map Library, The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Columbia University Avery CNC Fabrication Lab (David Kwon, Christo Logan, Nicole Seekely, Philip Anzalone–Assistant Director of Avery Fabrication), NYC College of Technology (Carmen Trudell, Joseph Lim, Felix Baez), and Future Cities Lab (Jason Kelly Johnson, Nataly Gattegno, Carrie Norman, Thomas Kelly). Project collaborators and assistants include Troy Rogers (sound and interaction), Noah Keating, mathbeat industries (interactive and programming consultation), Dayoung Shin (poster/pamphlet design), Kezia Ofiesh, Paul Fromm, Sarah Fugate, Hank Byron, Taylor Burgess, Ed Yung, and Ben Fey. The assistance of Kyle Kugler, Jim Staddon, Gin Harr, Yuki Staddon, Sunmi Moon, Katie Hilton, Matt Young, and Brad DeVries is also gratefully acknowledged.