Odile Compagnon is an architect based in Chicago and Paris, principal at Odile Compagnon Architect. Her professional practice as well as her research and work with students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago are transdisciplinary and transcontinental. For Compagnon, a vital aspect of sustainable design involves weaving a network of knowledge, experience, and connections, so that endeavors in one arena become a source of creative solutions in another.

While working with leading French firm Chemetov and Huidobro, Compagnon participated in the design of the French Embassy in New Delhi, India, and supervised the building’s construction. Subsequently, her own firm, DMC, also in Paris, built over 30 public buildings for various communities in central France. In Chicago, Odile Compagnon Architect, founded in 2001, contributes its expertise in design and strategy to several community groups, including Redmoon Theater, The Hypocrites and Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, combining aesthetic creativity with feasibility and users’ participation.

Compagnon earned her degree at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles in 1982, also attending the University of Illinois at Chicago (1980–81) and the Istituto Universitario di Venezia in Italy as a research scholar (1982). After working with Chemetov and Huidobro in Paris, Compagnon established her own company, DMC Architectes, (1987) which undertook public commissions and created master plans for several cities. Compagnon worked with Studio Gang/O’Donnell (Chicago) from 1997 until 2000, where she contributed to projects including, in Illinois, the Rockford Starlight Theatre, the Material Evidence exhibition installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chinese American Service League Building. Her work has been shown at exhibits including Speculative Chicago, Diversecity Riba (Chicago), Palladio’s sister (Boston) and the Parachute Pavilion exhibition (New York). Compagnon’s projects have received top recognition by Architecture Mouvement Continuité in its annual review of built architecture (1994, 1995, 1996).

Compagnon joined the faculty at SAIC in 1998, after teaching at Parsons Paris and the School of Architecture at UIC. She collaborates, in teaching and research, with professors from several departments, including performance, writing, continuing education, and art education. Recently Compagnon has taught Set Design, Undergraduate and Master of Architecture design studios, and Design with Light. She has also curated and designed four thesis shows: Making Modern (2009) GRAVITY (2010), TELEVISION (2012) and SET OFF (2013). In 2011, Compagnon, in collaboration with Paul Tebben, was selected to teach the GFRY studio: a two semester multidisciplinary design studio focusing on post earthquake reconstruction in Talca - Chile.