Laura Lubniewski

Clinical Assistant Professor - Department of Architecture
lschmitz@buffalo.edu

Pounding earth into tires to build walls during an internship at Earthship Biotecture in Taos, New Mexico in 2013.

Pounding earth into tires to build walls during an internship at Earthship Biotecture in Taos, New Mexico in 2013

Laura Lubniewski.

Laura Lubniewski holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture (2011) from the University at Buffalo and a Masters in Architecture (2015) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her passion for low-tech sustainable vernacular occupant-built housing led Lubniewski to work at some non-traditional companies including Earthship Biotecture and Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.  In 2016, her built prototype tiny house was showcased at the National Tiny House Jamboree, a gathering of over 60,000 people in Colorado Springs. She has enjoyed seeing also these alternative business models in which the scope of work between the owner of the architecture and the designer of the architecture is negotiable and collaborative.
 
As an educator she has been a guest workshop facilitator for Tiny Houses and the Future of Energy at the Global Student Leaders Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland (2016) and has held teaching positions at Boston Architectural College (2012), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2014), and the University at Buffalo (2017, 2019, 2020, 2021).

Laura is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC®) passionate about resilient, high-performance housing for the masses. She is an NCARB Certified architect most recently practicing at Wendel Companies. She previously worked at eco_logic STUDIO in Buffalo where she contributed to the West Side Homes multifamily housing project for PUSH Buffalo and the Solar Carousel Building at Canalside. She is the AIA Buffalo/WNY Emerging Professionals Committee Chair.  

"My experience at UB has taught me the importance of generous and ongoing empathetic and investigative listening when starting a project so that you can ask the right questions before proposing designs."

    - Laura Lubniewski