Joel Sanders
Professor in the Practice
Joel Sanders, FAIA, is the founder and principal of JSA/MIXdesign, an inclusive architectural design studio dedicated to making everyday building types—restrooms, art museums, and university campuses—accessible and welcoming to people of different ages, genders, abilities, cultural identities, and religions. JSA/MIXdesign initiatives include Stalled!, an AIA award-winning project that responds to national controversies surrounding transgender access to public restrooms, and MIXmuseum, a toolkit of strategies to make museums better meet the needs of their diverse audiences. Sanders holds a dual appointment as a Professor in the Practice at Yale School of Architecture and as a Professor at Yale School of Public Health, where he teaches classes that look at the intersection of architecture, inclusivity beyond code compliance, and mental and physical health. In his books (STUD: Architectures of Masculinity and Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture) and publications in mainstream and design publications, Sanders explores the complex relationship between culture and social space, looking at the impact that evolving cultural forces—such as gender identity and the body, technology and new media, and the nature/culture dichotomy—have on the designed environment. JSA/MIXdesign projects have been featured in international exhibitions and the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, MoMA, SF MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Joel received an honorary doctorate from Aalto University in 2025 and is the recipient of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s 2023 Lawrence Israel Prize, as well as six New York Chapter AIA Design Awards, three New York State AIA Design Awards, three Interior Design Best of Year Awards, and two ALA/IIDA Library Interior Design Awards, among others.
MArch Columbia University
Education
BA Columbia UniversityMArch Columbia University
Courses
7123
Fall 2025
Sensing Space: Architecture, Technology and Human Embodiment
Joel Sanders
1258
Spring 2025
Inclusive Design for the Built Environment II: Design Clinic
Joel Sanders
1252
Fall 2024
Inclusive Design for the Built Environment I: Participatory Design
Joel Sanders, Trace Kershaw
3290
Fall 2022
Body Politics: Designing Equitable Public Space
Joel Sanders
1293
Spring 2022
Storybuilding: Inclusive Design and Public Health
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2021
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
3072
Fall 2020
Design Research I: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
Joel Sanders
3290
Fall 2020
Body Politics: Designing Equitable Public Space
Joel Sanders
3073
Spring 2020
Design Research II: Challenging the Built Environment
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2020
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
3072
Fall 2019
Design Research I: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2019
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
1061
Fall 2018
Post-Professional Design Studio
Joel Sanders, Sunil Bald
3290
Fall 2018
Body Politics: Designing Equitable Public Space
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2018
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
3299
Spring 2018
Independent Course Work
Brennan Buck, Joel Sanders
1061
Fall 2017
City Wide Ferry Terminal, NYC
Joel Sanders, Leslie Gill
3257a
Fall 2017
Techno-Sensations: Architecture, Technology, and the Body
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2017
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
1021
Fall 2016
Second-Year Core Studio
Emily Abruzzo, Peggy Deamer, Peter de Bretteville, Martin Finio, Tessa Kelly, M.J. Long, Joel Sanders
3257a
Fall 2016
Techno-Sensations: Architecture, Technology, and the Body
Joel Sanders
3272b
Spring 2016
Exhibitionism: Politics of Display
Joel Sanders
1021
Fall 2015
Architectural Design 3
Emily Abruzzo, Martin Finio, Tessa Kelly, M.J. Long, Joel Sanders, Peter de Bretteville
2299
Fall 2015
Independent Course Work
Joel Sanders
3257a
Fall 2015
Techno-Sensations: Architecture, Technology, and the Body
Joel Sanders
3237b
Spring 2015
Human/Nature
Joel Sanders