Temporary Office [of architecture, design, technology] is an award-winning interdisciplinary design practice exploring architecture and digital technology through the production of multimedia and immersive exhibitions, objects, drawings, animations, site-specific installations, building proposals, and writings. Experimenting with the multiplicity of mediums, emerging techniques, and novel workflows, we work towards developing architectural vision that challenge conventional definitions of tools, measurements, and material forms—to not only stitch together, but also synthesize visual effects and cultural phenomena across scales and locations. Our projects transform objects and systems that possess cultural familiarities to people in the contemporary society into active spaces that visualize and modulate intangible forms and ephemeral imageries to provide a sense of care. Employing innovative fabrication methods and interactive technologies, we often develop unique integrated materials and systems that respond to each project’s specific spatial and social contexts.
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Catty Dan Zhang [founder & principal] is an associate professor of architecture at University of Tennessee Knoxville. She has received recognitions internationally in competitions and design awards. She was the winner of the Emerging Designer’s Exhibition competition hosted by UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design and delivered her solo exhibition “The Moving Air” in 2020. Her recent solo exhibition “Bubble Bath / Interior Cities 0.5” was on display at the MetroLab at Florida Atlantic University in 2023. Zhang’s design work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the 'T' Space, London Design Festival, Carnegie Museum of Arts, A+D Museum, Harvard GSD, among other institutions. Her recent work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, as well as several institutional grants. Zhang was a finalist of the Harvard GSD’s Wheelwright Prize in 2018 and 2021. She was awarded the first prize in the Pamphlet Architecture 37 competition and is the author of the most recent volume in the Pamphlet Architecture series titled “Active Atmospheres: On Instruments and Protocols for Medium Hybrids and Architectural Voids” (Steven Myron Holl Foundation & Station Hill Press, 2023).
Zhang recently taught at University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a tenure-track faculty during 2017-2023. She earned a BArch from Tsinghua University, an MArch with Honors from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MDes in Technology from Harvard University Graduate School of Design where she was the 2017 recipient of the Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology and Sustainability.