Artist Biography
Anna Petro is an architectural designer interested in how space can support community, care, and everyday experience. Her work prioritizes listening, collaboration, and adaptability, viewing architecture not as a singular act of authorship but as a shared process shaped by the people who inhabit it. She is particularly drawn to creating environments that feel accessible, flexible, and responsive, where design serves as a framework for connection rather than a fixed or imposed object.
Theater, performance and storytelling has had a large impact on her life and work in the design space, and she hopes to continue telling stories with her architecture, and allow space for others to tell theirs.
Thesis Abstract
This thesis examines how elitist, top-down architecture has failed the communities it is meant to serve and offers alternative routes of spatial awareness dependent on an integrated design process that involves occupants from schematic design all the way through post-occupancy procedures. Through case studies of architectural shortcomings and triumphs, this research demonstrates the ways in which architecture directly affects the biases of a population and how communities that find themselves shunned by these biases have reclaimed their architecture. This thesis argues for a reframing of design from product to process, reconfiguring design authorship and allowing for the recreation of the urban landscape into a direct representation of its occupants, creating an iterative, culturally resonant built environment.