Jenny French

Jenny French (MArch, Harvard University) is an Assistant Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a co-founder of French 2D, along with Anda French, an award-winning practice deeply engaged with local issues of collectivity, housing, public space, history, and identity. The firm’s interest in hybrid models that exist between practice and academia has been the catalyst for their practice-based research and advocacy.

French 2D’s work on mixed-use projects combines ideas of collectivity with more radical organizations and typologies. The firm completed the first all compact unit building in Boston, which provided 180 units and commercial space woven into the Boston University neighborhood. Their work in collaborative and participant led design, not only won a Progressive Architecture Award in 2020, but simultaneously created a transformational zoning ordinance in a major city in Greater Boston. The firm has extensive experience with meaningful community engagement and focuses projects at multiple scales on novel forms of civic participation. These projects include custom environments for participatory events and dinners, urban-scale graphics, experimental facades, and spaces for collective living.

French 2D was named as an Architectural Record Design Vanguard winner (2019) and received a 2020 P/A Award from Architect Magazine for Bay State Commons Cohousing. The firm has been featured in numerous publications, including Domus, Metropolis, and The Architect’s Newspaper, and as Architect Magazine’s Next Progressives. The firm was a MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program finalist, and has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Companies

• Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2019)
• Career Discovery Lead Faculty, Architecture Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2017)
• Design Critic in Architecture Harvard Graduate School of Design (2016)
• Designer and Co-founder French 2D (2012)
• Adjunct Faculty Northeastern University (2016 — 2016)
• Adjunct Faculty Architectural Design Tufts University (2013 — 2015)
• Designer Bergmeyer Associates, Inc. (2013 — 2014)
• Design Faculty, Gateway Program Boston Architectural College (2014 — 2014)
• Julia A. Appleton Traveling Fellow Harvard Graduate School of Design (2011 — 2012)

Education

• MArch Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2007 — 2011)
• BA Dartmouth College (2002 — 2006)