The day opens with a panel discussion featuring:

• Jerome Haferd, co-founder, BRANDT : HAFERD
• Pascale Sablan, senior associate, S9 Architecture / founder and executive director, Beyond the Built Environment
• Seb Choe, associate director, MIXdesign

In the afternoon, each student will have the chance to virtually visit one of the following firms:

• Caples Jefferson Architects
• GLUCK+
• SCAPE
• SO-IL
• Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners

Panelists

Jerome Haferd

Jerome Haferd is an architect and educator based in Harlem. He is co-founder of the practice BRANDT : HAFERD. Jerome’s work focuses on how architecture establishes a dialogue between contemporary phenomena and non-hegemonic histories, users, and spaces. 

BRANDT : HAFERD’s recent and current projects include the winning installation for the 2012 Folly competition organized by The Architectural League and Socrates Sculpture Park; Caesura, an installation at Marcus Garvey Park; Kew Hues apartment renovation in Queens; and The Bookmatch in East Harlem. The studio was recently recognized with the grand prize for the 2019 ZeroThreshold multi-abled housing competition and the 2020 AIA New Practices New York award. 

Jerome is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia GSAPP, City College SSA, and Barnard B+C/A. His work has been recently published in Log and Project. He received an MArch from Yale University and a BS in architecture from The Ohio State University.

Pascale Sablan

Pascale Sablan is a senior associate at S9 Architecture and founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment, which addresses the inequitable disparities in architecture by providing a holistic platform aimed to support numerous stages of the architecture pipeline. 

Founded in 2018, Beyond the Built Environment elevates the identities and contributions of women and diverse designers through exhibitions, curated lectures, and documentaries that testify to the provided value of their built work and its spatial impact. Pascale curated SAY IT LOUD exhibitions at the Center for Architecture, AIA New York, and other venues across the country. 

Pascale has been on the design team for a variety of mixed-use, commercial, cultural, and residential projects in the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, Azerbaijan, Japan, and United Arab Emirates. Most notably, she worked on the Bronx Point Project, with 540 residential units, community facility, and the first brick and mortar Universal Hip Hop Museum. 

She has been recognized with the 2018 Pratt Alumni Achievement Award, NOMA Prize for Excellence in Design, and as one of the 2018 American Institute of Architects Young Architects Award recipients.

Pascale holds a BArch from Pratt Institute and an MS in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. Pascale is the 315th living African American female architect in the United States to attain her architectural license.

Seb Choe

Seb Choe is a gender-fluid, Korean-American architectural researcher and activist based in Charleston, South Carolina. Seb is associate director of MIXdesign, a New York-based inclusive design think tank and consultancy that works to make everyday building types—including restrooms, university campuses, workplaces, hospitals, and art museums—accessible and welcoming to people of different ages, genders, races, cultures, religions, and abilities.

In Charleston, Seb organizes with Friends of Gadsden Creek, a grassroots campaign demanding reparations for continued local patterns of environmental racism. Seb was a 2020 fellow with the Carolina Youth Action Project, a QPOC-led abolitionist organization that builds power alongside trans and gender non-conforming youth. Seb’s independent multimedia practice produces books, built-installations, music, and video works that warp corporate design strategies into queer, optimistic proposals for new status quos. Seb holds a BA in architecture from Columbia University.

Virtual studio visits

Caples Jefferson Architects

Founded in 1987 by Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, Caples Jefferson Architects is a New York-based design and architecture firm “engaged with social, cultural, and community concerns.” The firm’s work includes civic, corporate, educational, cultural, and private projects in the United States and abroad. With a focus on efficient construction, renewable energy, and the use of long-lasting materials, the firm creates projects that are built to last while serving “as civic anchors in the public realm.”

Completed projects in New York City include Weeksville Heritage Center, Marcus Garvey Community Center, and 10 Bouck Court in Brooklyn, and the Queens Theatre-in-the-Park at Flushing Meadows Park. The firm is currently working on The Africa Center in Manhattan and the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens. 

GLUCK+

Founded in New York City in 1972 by Peter L. Gluck, GLUCK+ is an architecture and construction firm with projects that range from residential and mixed-use buildings to schools and recreational facilities. As an architect-led design-build practice, the firm has single-source responsibility for the design, construction, and commissioning of buildings—its designers also act as construction managers for most of the projects. 

Completed projects include Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in the Bronx, Bridge apartment tower in Philadelphia, and Artist Retreat in upstate New York. GLUCK+ is currently working on Van Sinderen Plaza affordable housing development in Brooklyn, Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, and 150 Rivington in Manhattan.

SCAPE

SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design studio founded by Kate Orff in 2007. With offices in New York and New Orleans, the studio believes that “landscape architecture can enable positive change in communities through the creation of regenerative living infrastructure and public landscapes.” SCAPE works on all scales, from urban pocket parks to regional ecological plans. Its projects aim to connect people to their immediate environment and create dynamic and adaptive landscapes.

Recent projects in New York City include First Avenue Water Plaza near the East River in Manhattan, Blake Hobbs Play-za in East Harlem, and the Living Breakwaters Design and Implementation in Staten Island. Current projects include China Basin Park in San Francisco, Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, and Tom Lee Park in Memphis.

SO-IL

Founded in 2008 by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, the Brooklyn-based firm is “both locally-rooted and nationless,” with projects in South Korea, Mexico, Italy, France, Portugal, and the United States. With public and private clients, SO-IL creates urban spaces, cultural buildings, housing, and temporary installations that “carefully investigate physical properties and history” to create meaningful dialogue with their surroundings. 

The firm has completed projects in the United States and beyond, including Kukje Gallery in Seoul, South Korea; Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, CA; and Las Americas Social Housing in Leon, Mexico. Most recently, SO-IL has been working on Site Verrier in Meisenthal, France; Beeline in Lisbon, Portugal; and Into the Hedge in Columbus, IN.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners is a New York-based architecture firm founded in 1986. The studio is committed to reflecting the values of institutions such as schools, museums, and nonprofits “toward an architecture of enduring vision.” Its designs are focused on “a sense of rootedness, light, texture, detail, and most of all, experience.” 

Completed projects include The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia; Lefrak Center at Lakeside, Prospect Park, in Brooklyn; and The Asia Society Hong Kong Center in Hong Kong. The firm is currently working on The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and the United States Embassy in Mexico City.