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TOMI SEYI LAJA (b. 1996 Ibadan) is an American architectural designer, essayist, and researcher currently based in Berlin, by way of Chicago. Working with sculpture, drawing, and writing, her research-based practice prioritizes poetics to explore spatial themes on formalism, agency and sensuality. Her process embraces critical theory (on identity), practical assignments (on thermal conditioning), and field work (on landscape). She works on personal and commissioned projects worldwide.

A graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Design (Master of Architecture), Tomi is a 2023-24 Fulbright recipient for independent research in architecture and Guest Editor of the third issue of Disc Journal: Media, Technology, Environments. She works with Send/Receive (Berlin), and previously: Skidmore Owings and Merrill (Chicago and NYC), Park Books (Zurich), the Graham Foundation (Chicago), Harvard Design Magazine (Cambridge, MA), The Funambulist Magazine: Politics of Space and Bodies (Paris), Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, and Political Economy (Berlin), Yale Paprika! (New Haven), Black Embodiment Studio (Seattle), and the Luminary Arts (St. Louis), amongst others.

Constructing micro—climates of the cool, her larger body of art—architecture—essayistic works are forming quiet architectonics for rest and listening, referencing thought by Darell Fields, Sylvia Wynter, and Edouard Glissant with central concepts on abstraction, interiority, and opacity.

laja.tomi[at]gmail.com