Esther Lorenz

Education

Dipl. Ing. (TU Graz)
Licensed Architect (ZT, Austria)

Biography

Esther Lorenz is a licensed architect and academic with education from TU Graz and TU Delft. She brings to her research and teaching extensive experience from practicing architecture and urban design in Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia. Most recently, she designed a multi-unit housing project in Austria, which was completed in 2024. 

Esther Lorenz's research explores density in architecture and urbanism through design, representation, embodied spatial narratives and theorization in relation to different cultural contexts, with outputs in design, exhibition, and writing. Her work has been exhibited in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and repeatedly at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, with contributions in both venue locations, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. She has presented and published peer-reviewed papers in various venues, most recently in the academic journal Architecture Philosophy, and through a chapter in the forthcoming edited book Watch this Space: Exploring Cinematic Intersections Between the Body, Architecture and the City. She is co-editor of Kowloon Cultural District: An Investigation into Spatial Capabilities in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: mccm creations, 2014) and co-author of Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China (Applied Research and Design Publishing, 2022). Her research and teaching within the framework of her project Kinesthetic Montage Hong Kong have been recognized with the ACSA Creative Achievement Award. Currently, Esther Lorenz is working on a book project that describes and theorizes the unique morphology and the specific architectural, urban and infrastructural typologies of Hong Kong in relation to the moving human body. It further analyses the embodied and aesthetic experience that result from these environments. Through the Asian Urban Collaborative (AUC), which she co-founded in 2022, Lorenz develops and curates innovative scholarship and professional insights focused on the complexities and breadth of Asian urbanization. She is an affiliated faculty member with the East Asia Center and was a 2021-22 Fellow of the Institute of the Humanities & Global Cultures (IHGC).

Prior to joining UVA in 2012, Lorenz was an assistant professor at The Chinese University in Hong Kong, and a lecturer at TU Graz. At UVA School of Architecture, Lorenz has served as the undergraduate architecture program director for close to a decade. She has made notable contributions to the core design curriculum through her teaching and studio coordination in foundation studios at both undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as graduate comprehensive studios. She has taught innovative design research in her advanced research studios with site locations in Hong Kong and Vienna, in her courses on urban design and cinematic space, and as graduate thesis advisor and studio instructor. Since 2015 she co-directs the UVA Architecture in China program. Her extensive and innovative contributions to study abroad education have been supported by several grants and have been recognized with a university-wide Excellence in Education Abroad Award by the UVA Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.