I've worked on an unusually broad array of projects in architecture, interiors, exhibitions, furniture, and software, but the underlying approach is the same: Design exists to make products and systems more beautiful, usable, and humane for the people who use them.
The world is full of consumerist junk. Poorly conceived, cheaply fabricated, and quickly disposed. But the things we really care about — the places we love, the food we crave, the products that last, and the art that moves us — were born from a thoughtful process.
2007 — Current
This is the hardest one to write. Check back later. ;-)
2019 — Current
The Rex Brasher Association is an arts and ecology nonprofit established in 2008. Its mission is to celebrate Rex Brasher's extensive and largely unknown collection of paintings and books and to secure his legacy as one of America's most prolific and pioneering ornithological artists.
I joined the board in 2019 eager to help a small community of neighbors build a fledgling organization to celebrate an unrecognized artist, but my purpose in this story was unclear. It wasn’t until I saw a set of Rex’s twelve-volume tome Birds and Trees of North America that my mission in the organization became clear. The twelve massive volumes that were set before me in Rex's historic home on that warm spring day in April represented a singular focus that I have never seen before. If you read my CV to the bottom, you'll see that I've build a career by working with exceptionally-focused individuals, but this was something else altogether. Rex's goal to paint every species of bird in North America from field observation, without 'harvesting' birds like John James Audubon, represented decades of near-penniless dedication trekking through forest, swamp, sun, snow, and pests. This story has to be told.
As a prominent board member, I am leading initiatives to build an innovative museum, protect historic lands, preserve and digitize a landmark art collection, mentor a student internship program, and develop an art-and-ecology-based residency program focused on individual exploration and documentation of the world around us.
2017 — Current
Wassaic Commons is a design and maker incubator in Wassaic, New York. Founded by Matthew Schnepf and Munawar Ahmed in 2017, Wassaic Commons was conceived as a space where we could collaborate with designers and makers, support their entrepreneurial efforts to develop their own products, market their goods in a storefront gallery, and engage the community with a broader understanding of what it means to design, fabricate, and use well-made products. Wassaic Commons' mission is to support good design, dedication to craft, and entrepreneurial spirit and stem the tide of fast, cheap consumerism eroding our communities and the environment.
As a founding member, I have been instrumental in establishing the strategic vision and ethos of Wassaic Commons while being directly involved in the design and renovation of the 12,000-square-foot, 100-year-old timber barn that is central to the community and core to our mission.
2023 — 2024
Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting. With offices in over 70 cities across 30 countries, Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation.
I bring decades of expertise from the complex and demanding world of architecture to modern software and systems design, and a universal belief that all products—buildings, furniture, hardware, and software—must be beautiful, functional, memorable, and humane. Architecture and software are more closely related than most people realize, and I thrive working in the liminal space between them.
2007 — 2018
Bluprint is a design and technology office founded by Munawar Ahmed in 2006 with a singular focus: hire the absolute best people to form a cohesive, multidisciplinary team of six-sigma blackbelts, and set them loose solving uniquely complex and nuanced projects.
I joined the office as a creative and collaborative partner from the beginning, bringing expertise from the world of architecture to software and systems design. While at Bluprint, I found my voice advocating for well-designed, streamlined, and humane interfaces and processes; applied strict discipline and minimalist of architectural design to software design; and developed an innate ability to convey large strategic concepts as compelling, engaging stories. As an integral partner, I lead a broad range of projects, including strategic planning, web apps, iOS apps, and process engineering for fresh upstarts and venerable institutions.
2002 — 2007
Selldorf Architects is an architectural design practice founded by Annabelle Selldorf in New York City. The firm creates public and private spaces with a modern and timeless sensibility. Since its inception, the firm’s design ethos has been deeply rooted in the principles of humanism. At every scale and for every condition, Selldorf Architects designs for the individual experience. As a result, its work is brought to life—and made complete—by those who use it. The office specializes in architectural design, interior design, exhibition design, master planning, landscape concepts, and strategic planning, and has worked with many of the world’s most influential artists, collectors, and institutions.
Though the office now has more than 70 architects, designers, and specialists on staff, I joined when there was a mere twelve overachieving architects on staff. I immediately found a kinship with founder Annabelle Selldorf and my time working with this team of architects, which grew from 12 to 50 during my tenure, is one of the most influential and memorial periods of my life. It was at Selldorf Architects that I developed persistence that every aspect of a project, no matter how small or subtle, must be considered—and that the real power of a designer comes from understanding how things are fabricated, assembled, installed, maintained, and used.
2001 — 2002
Stan Allen holds degrees from Brown University, The Cooper Union, and Princeton. In 1991, after working for Richard Meier in New York and Rafael Moneo in Madrid, he established an independent architectural practice. Since that time he has pursued parallel careers as architect, educator, and author. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton, and from 2002 to 2012 served as Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton. Stan Allen’s work is focused on the relationships between urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture, and his office has produced work at each of these scales.
My time at Stan Allen Architect was influential because of the intense focus of bonding the vast scale of urban design with intimate scale of individuals through architecture and landscape. I collaborated on a full range of scales, from huge urban redevelopment projects like Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island and Canal Basin in Cleveland, to intimate projects like the Design House in Paju Book City, South Korea, and a public garden at the French Embassy on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
2001 — 2002
Field Operations is a leading-edge urban design and landscape architecture practice based in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Shenzhen, and London. Field Operations is renowned for strong contemporary design across various project types and scales, from large urban districts and mixed-use masterplans to large parks, waterfronts, and public spaces to small, well-crafted, detailed places. Regardless of scale, there is a special commitment to the design of a vibrant and dynamic public realm, informed by the ecology of both people and nature, rooted in place and context. The ecological basis of natural systems in relationship to urban form and public experience is of primary importance.
I worked at Field Operations at a seminal moment when Stan Allen (architect, author, educator) and James Corner (landscape architect, author, educator) partnered to create a hybrid office that was uniquely positioned to develop architecture and landscape in harmony from day one. Though this partnership no longer exists in a formal capacity, the framework for fully integrated design was lasting and influential on my career.
2000 — 2001
Christian Hubert Studio specializes in designing museum installations, exhibition spaces for art, and private residences for artists, collectors, and scholars. Christian Hubert is known for working closely with his clients and fostering an ongoing creative dialogue throughout every project. As a result, many clients have returned repeatedly over the years.
I worked with Christian Hubert for a brief but influential period. Christian provided mentorship on high-end architecture and design projects as I navigated design in New York. I recognized the opportunity immediately and absorbed every detail I could while working with some of the world’s most influential artists. I am grateful to this day for what I learned and earned at Christian Hubert’s landmark studio in downtown Manhattan.
1995 — 2000
Parks Library at Iowa State University is a seminal institution at the heart of an iconic and pastoral campus designed by Frederic Law Olmsted. Parks Library boasts an extensive collection of books and manuscripts, including seminal works from Alexander Lippisch and George Washington Carver. The Department of Preservation, which occupies a state-of-the-art laboratory on the top floor of the library, is responsible for the well-being and preservation of the University’s collection held at Parks Library and in departmental archives around the expansive 490-acre campus.
While many work-study programs are not worth mentioning on a modern resume, my time in the Preservation Department is notable. As an architecture student who was particularly patient, diligent, discerning, and adept with my hands, I was hand-selected to work under the direct mentorship of director Ivan Hanthorn, a Johns Hopkins-educated preservationist, to preserve, protect, and restore some of the most important and delicate works in Iowa State University’s archives. This was a tremendous honor, and I took the responsibility seriously. Not only did I learn advanced preservation principles and techniques, but together, we were able to develop a program to catalog and document archival works because I could do what no other student had — create highly detailed drawings and organize structured data. My experience binding books and preserving works of art has come up repeatedly in my professional work with artists, collectors, authors, directors, and most recently, with my passion to preserve and protect the seminal works of Rex Brasher.
High school counselors in rural Iowa during my teenage years had a limited toolkit. Boys were directed toward science and engineering curriculum, girls toward teaching and nursing. As a boy who excelled at math, physics, electronics, and drafting, I fell squarely in the former category. My academic advisor simply ignored that I was also an unusually sharp writer and rebellious artist. In the fall of 1993, I entered Iowa State University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Like all aerospace students, I focused on mastering physics and high-level math. As I approached the end of my second year and classes began to focus on the particulars of my discipline, I realized that engineering was not enough.
I enrolled in an architecture prerequisite studio, applied to the program, and was admitted through a narrow gate into the Department of Architecture. The architecture program at Iowa State University before and after my tenure was a straightforward and, in keeping with the ethos of the Hawkeye state, workmanlike education. But for the brief period that I was in the program, an amazing thing happened: A trust of academics from Columbia, Harvard, Pratt, Princeton, Cooper Union, and McGill arrived with an exotic and diverse curriculum that was wholly exciting and foreign in Ames, Iowa. Through pure coincidence, I became the product of a unique and philosophical experiment that blossomed, thrived, and expired in the brief period I was an architecture student.
I grew up on a generational farm in northwest Iowa, where my family tended 650 acres of corn, soybeans, hay, and oats and raised cattle, pigs, and chickens. Life in an agrarian German-Lutheran community is an experience like no other. Early lessons come fast: extremes of weather, the unpredictable and unrelenting demands of farming, individual ingenuity and self-reliance, economy of emotion, austerity of expression, a quick grasp of life and death, and an innate understanding that the long flat landscape extending to the horizon is only the beginning of the world.
I love to cook and bake, and I reject the dichotomy that one has to be one or the other. I’m infatuated with typography and letterforms, and in an alternate life, I would be a typographer. I love photography and despise Instagram. I used to run. I had a long, fast gait that felt as easy as walking, but as I got older, I developed a kinship with an Ergatta rowing machine. I like books, but I find myself looking at pictures more than words. I’m a stickler for grammar and spelling, but I’m slightly dyslexic, so I’m in a constant battle with my ability to be perfect. I don’t like dogs. I find people who require constant external validation or who are eager to please distasteful, so why the fuck would I want that in a pet? I drink hot coffee exclusively because cold brew is appallingly bland and I hate the sound of ice.