Ryan Roark Ryan Roark

Ryan Roark, Ph.D., AIA, is an architect, writer, biochemist, and assistant professor at the IIT College of Architecture, where her research focuses on radical adaptive reuse as a strategy for urban and ecological sustainability. She studies and writes about the history of reuse, urbanism, and philosophies of (im)permanence and (im)permeability from the 16th century through to today.

At IIT, Roark directs the second-year B.Arch. design studios, which are focused on housing, and teaches electives on experimental representation of change over time. She also runs the Novel Biomaterials Lab, where she develops a range of new materials, primarily from seafood industry waste, for use in retrofits. For her research on the potential role of biomaterials in adaptive reuse, she was a finalist for the Wheelwright Prize in 2024.

Roark’s writing about changing attitudes to time, history, and life cycles over the past five centuries has been published in JSAH, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, Pidgin, and the books Ruskin’s Ecologies (Courtauld Books Online) and Life Forms (Snoeck Publishing), among others.

In addition, Roark is a member of the board of Docomomo Chicago and faculty advisor to NOMASiit, as well as to the NOMASiit Student Design Competition team.