Professor Cranz is author of The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design and The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America. She is a Kellog National leadership fellow. She has received two Graham Foundation grants, and has been in design teams awarded First Prize in a national competition for an inner-city park for St. Paul, First Prize for Parc La Villette, Paris, and Seventh Place in the Spectacle Island Design Competition, Boston and has served as juror for several urban design and public art competitions. Teaches courses in the social and cultural bases of architectural and urban design, and research methods. Current research activity includes the body and the near-environment, the office of the future, environmental sociology, and sociology of parks.