Ersela Kripa

Kripa was born in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, and briefly lived in Greece as a refugee before seeking asylum in the United States in 1996.^[3] Her father was a structural engineer and Kripa credits her interest in architecture to learning from his work with architectural blueprints.^[1] During her time in Albania her family experienced persecution and lived through civil war.^[3] She studied architecture as an undergraduate student, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and later earned an M.S. in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University.^[2] Her husband, Stephen Mueller, is also an architect.^[3]

Kripa and her husband, Stephen Mueller, established an architectural firm called Agency, after receiving a fellowship from Columbia University, using it to travel to Albania and study buildings established by Edi Rama, a former Prime Minister of Albania.^[1] This research formed the basis of a book, Nation Building Aesthetics.^[1] Kripa and Mueller practiced in New York for several years, and Kripa won a MacDowell Colony fellowship in 2009 and 2013.^[4] During this period she also taught architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.^[1] In 2010–2011, she and Mueller were recipients of the Rome Prize for architecture, and spent a year in Rome, studying the forced relocation of the Romani people, and developing proposals that would accommodate Roma and Roman architecture in resettlement and habitation.^[5] In 2010, Kripa won a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in the field of architecture.^[6] In 2015, Kripa moved with her firm to El Paso, Texas, and is currently associate professor and director of the architecture program at Texas Tech University, El Paso.^[2] In 2020, Kripa and Mueller published a book, FRONTS: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World (2020) ISBN 1941806953, which studied architecture, design, and ecology around military sites in urban spaces.^[7][8]

Kripa's architectural work and research focuses on marginalized communities in urban and border spaces, examining the intersection of rights, and design.^[2] Along with her firm, Kripa has developed projects that engage with issues of security, migration, and privacy, such as the development of low-cost air quality systems for lower-income communities along the U.S. Mexico-border, and a training space to teach de-escalation tactics to police and security forces.^[9][10] In 2018, they won the 'Emerging Voices' Award from The Architectural League of New York for their work in examining personal agency in conflict zones.^[11] Installations designed by Kripa have been exhibited at the Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, the Venice Biennale, and the Berlin Biennale.^[2]