Julianna Cano is a designer, researcher and lecturer based in New York City.

She holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she received the Faculty Prize in 2021. Her thesis titled Spectral Minutiae: Delirious Central Park, interrogated the 19th century public park typology and examined society’s outmoded relationship with nature through the lens of the garden folly.

As a designer at Snøhetta, Julianna has worked on many notable projects including the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library and UCSF Barbara and Gerson Bakar Research and Academic Building. As a part-time lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania she has co-taught various advanced research studios with prominent international architects ranging in topics from robotics and biobased materials to vernacular building strategies. She has also been a guest critic at many universities including UPenn, UT Austin, Jefferson University, Temple University and the Royal Danish Academy.

Her manifesto, Straddling the Boundary: A Tiny Manifesto, published in the 2022 international conference ACADIA Hybrids & Haecceities, coined the term permeable boundaries as fleeting micro-conditions where dichotomies ranging from the geopolitical to the ideological violently collide. Julianna’s work is centered around activating these sticky yet timely collisions by inverting conventional working methods and producing tiny architectural devices.