Taro Narahara

Architect, Designer, Researcher

Taro Narahara is an Associate Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where he teaches architectural computing, interaction design, and game design. His research focuses on the visualization of human behavior models; generative design in architecture inspired by self-organization; robotic fabrication; and digital design education. He has lectured widely and has published in international journals and conferences such as Computers & Graphics, the International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC), SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, ACADIA, eCAADe, CAADRIA, and CAAD Futures.

Since 2009, Narahara has won awards including the Peter Rice Prize, the Digital Design Prize, and the REAI Research Grant Award from Harvard University. He also received the Excellence in Research Award from NJIT for his research and sustained record of contributions in 2016.

Narahara's current research has included the application of game design to a project dealing with therapeutic gaming and rehabilitation robotics in collaboration with biomedical engineers at NJIT. The interdisciplinary team was awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2016, and He has contributed as a Co-PI. He is also a member of an international group to promote VR technologies that visualize traffic and human behaviors using multi-agent simulations.

Narahara is a licensed architect in the state of New York and a first-class architect in Japan and has practiced in the U.S. and in Japan. During this period, he was associated with firms such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Gluckman Mayner Architects and has collaborated on several award-winning projects including the Mori Arts Center, Hotel Puerta de America in Madrid, and the MoMA Store in New York City.

Narahara holds a Doctor of Design degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and an M.S. in Architecture Studies (Design Computation) from MIT. He also holds an M.Arch from Washington University and a B.S. in Mathematics from Waseda University in Tokyo. (CV)