South African-born Laura Kurgan received her degree in Architecture from Columbia University in 1988. In 1995, she established her own studio—Laura Kurgan Design—an interdisciplinary design practice based in New York City. Her methodology takes data network information and uses it as a visual device to inform and educate the general public on social issues and their physical implications to the built environment. Over the span of Kurgan’s career her projects have evolved from small, forward-thinking graphic installations to larger, three-dimensional built environments that merge data information with graphics and architecture resulting in spatial conditions that become visible networks. Since 2005, she has been the Director of Visual Studies and the Director of the Spatial Information Lab at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.