Gabrielle Coleman

Gabby Coleman is an interdisciplinary designer, planner, and artist. In her current position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Kansas State University, she teaches undergraduate architectural design studios, interdisciplinary studios, and graduate architecture seminars that prioritize culture, community engagement, and participatory design methods at the intersection of architecture and urban planning. In her seminars, Gabby leads applied research projects, teaching graduate students how to engage with community issues through design through partnerships with neighborhoods and governing bodies in Manhattan, KS, and Kansas City, MO. Her research engages with spatial issues at the building, neighborhood, and city scales, investigating topics of design justice like placekeeping, informal social networks, health inequities, and leveraging community expertise in the face of gentrification. She serves on the board of Design Futures Forum and as an affiliated faculty member on Kansas City Design Center (KCDC)'s Advisory Council.

Gabby holds a Master of Architecture degree from the College of Architecture, Planning, and Design and a Minor in Leadership Studies, both at Kansas State University. She received a Master of Science in Urban Planning with concentrations in Built Environment and Community + Economic Development from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, where her graduate research explored the intersection of place attachment and cultural displacement in historically Black neighborhoods. Storytelling and participatory research fuel her design approach.

Outside of architecture and urbanism, she’s a visual artist loyal to acrylic and watercolor mediums. A partial collection of her portrait series “more than a color” is on permanent display on the first and second floors of the Morris Family Multicultural Student Center at K-State.

Before teaching in the Little Apple, Gabby designed learning environments for elementary and junior high schools at Hollis + Miller Architects in Kansas City, MO.