Alexandra Staub
Alexandra Staub
Professor of Architecture
2026–27 Rock Ethics Institute Faculty Fellow
2019–20 Rock Ethics Institute Faculty Fellow
320 Stuckeman Building
Education
Ph.D., Brandenburg Technical University at Cottbus
Biography
Alexandra Staub is a professor of architecture and an affiliate faculty of Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute. Her research spans history, theory, and critical interpretations of the built environment to explore how our built environment shapes, and is shaped by, our understanding of culture. This interest leads her to examine not just what we build, but also how we get there: design processes and their social implications, the economic, ecological, and social sustainability of architecture and urban systems, interpretations of private and public spaces, architectural ethics understood as questions of power and empowerment, and how social class or gender shapes our expectations for the use of space. Staub has published three books and numerous articles and book chapters. Her most recent book, Architecture and Social Sustainability: Understanding the New Paradigm, was published by Routledge as an open-access volume in 2025.
In her 2015 book Conflicted Identities: Housing and the Politics of Cultural Representation, she focuses on how political and cultural processes shape our built environment, using post-World War II West Germany as a case study. She concludes that nation-states use officially sanctioned architecture to create a national identity that often diverges greatly from an identity represented by the vast realm of domestic space defined largely by those who occupy it.
Further articles have covered topics ranging from research policies in Germany for energy-efficient housing, the role of the automobile in shaping housing policies in postwar Germany, and how marketing and consumerism are used to shape housing demand in the United States. As a member of the Department of Architecture’s Culture, Society and Space (CSS) Research Cluster, Staub has been involved in research projects that have examined cultural aspects of housing and urban spaces in countries as diverse as the United States, Russia, Germany, China, India, Turkey, and Iran.
Project Title: Theorizing Social Value in the Built Environment
Abstract: For my REI Faculty Fellowship I will examine how stakeholder theory – long a “win-win” value-generating concept – can be applied to better understand social value in the built environment. The term social value has become current but remains ill defined. Against the backdrop of increased commercialization and social stratification of our built environment, a better understanding of the concept is essential. Through analyzing innovative land-use policies and legal frameworks as well as procedural decisions that shape built-environment projects, this study will address how the concept of value can be expanded to consider socially sustainable practices and outcomes.
In her 2015 book Conflicted Identities: Housing and the Politics of Cultural Representation, she focuses on how political and cultural processes shape our built environment, using post-World War II West Germany as a case study. She concludes that nation-states use officially sanctioned architecture to create a national identity that often diverges greatly from an identity represented by the vast realm of domestic space defined largely by those who occupy it.
Further articles have covered topics ranging from research policies in Germany for energy-efficient housing, the role of the automobile in shaping housing policies in postwar Germany, and how marketing and consumerism are used to shape housing demand in the United States. As a member of the Department of Architecture’s Culture, Society and Space (CSS) Research Cluster, Staub has been involved in research projects that have examined cultural aspects of housing and urban spaces in countries as diverse as the United States, Russia, Germany, China, India, Turkey, and Iran.
