Christopher Gardner

Christopher R. Gardner is a registered architect and educator based in New York City, where he is the founder and principal of TUNA Architecture.

With TUNA, Chris has developed a ‘practice-as-project’. TUNA is less concerned with focusing on any one type, style, or approach and more interested in letting the work define what the practice becomes. As such, the name “TUNA” has no set meaning—like the work, it just felt right.

As an educator, Chris has taught architectural studios and seminars at NJIT Hillier, the Architecture Association in London, and here at Columbia GSAPP. In seminars and independently, he has developed a deep inquiry into the architectural space-making practice of sports and games.

Chris received his BArch from the University of Texas at Austin, and later at GSAPP earned a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design (MSAAD), where his work was recognized with the William Ware Prize/Saul Kaplan Fellowship and the inaugural Buell Center Paris Prize.