Tekena Koko

Tekena Koko is the 2026-28 Joseph F. Thomas Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon Architecture. He is a designer and educator whose interests span architecture and the arts. His teaching and research frame architecture as both a social practice, expressed through the design and repair of buildings, and a cultural practice that engages the built environment through critical aesthetic reflection. His current projects focus on experimental architectural media, data center aesthetics, and the activation of underutilized buildings in Pittsburgh.

Before joining CMU, Tekena taught at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau, Germany, and the University of Southern California (USC), and he was the 2021-23 Emerging Design Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. Adjacent to his design practice, he established Hotel, a gallery dedicated to exhibiting works of art and architecture in Los Angeles. Tekena has exhibited work at CK-Offspace (Leipzig), The Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles, Toronto Metropolitan University, and the Between Bridges project space in Berlin. Most recently, he co-organized the exhibition "Slouchers" at Kotti-Shop, Berlin.