Emmett Zeifman

Bio

Emmett Zeifman is a Canadian architect who teaches in the Sustainable Architecture and Engineering and Urban Studies programs at Stanford. He is principal of NOUNS, an architecture and design practice, with built projects completed or underway in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and elsewhere. His research focuses on the history of modern architecture and its relation to contemporary urbanism, housing and low-carbon approaches to construction. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford, he taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2022-24), Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2017-21), and SCI-Arc (2014-17). He received his M.Phil in Architecture by Research from the University of Cambridge, where he was the 2013-14 Yale Bass Scholar in Architecture, his M.Arch ('11) from the Yale University School of Architecture, and his B.A. ('06) in English literature from McGill University. He recently curated the exhibition Towards a Newer Brutalism: Solar Pavilions, Appliance Houses and Other Topologies of Contemporary Life (2024) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which placed rarely seen materials from the Alison and Peter Smithson Archive in dialogue with experimental projects by Abalos & Herreros, b+, Shigeru Ban, Ensamble Studio, Lacaton & Vassal, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotor, and others.

Prior to founding NOUNS, he was founding principal of the design practice Medium Office in New York and Los Angeles, with Alfie Koetter, and was architectural designer on a number of super-tall and mixed-use projects in the United States and Southeast Asia at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in New York. With Constance Vale, he led the design and construction of the "central hub," a temporary pavilion for the acclaimed opera production Hopscotch in downtown Los Angeles. He was co-founding editor of the independent publication Project: A Journal for Architecture (2011-18), and assistant editor of the Yale publication Rethinking Chongqing: Mixed-Use and Super-Dense (2015), which also featured his photography throughout. His design work and criticism have been widely exhibited and published, and his editorial efforts have been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. In addition to his teaching, he has served as critic and juror and participated in panels and public discussions at numerous institutions, including Barnard, CCA, Columbia, Cooper Union, CUNY, Harvard, MIT, Pratt, SCI-Arc, Storefront for Art and Architecture, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, USC, Van Alen Institute, Washington University, and Yale.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Administrative Appointments

• Design Critic, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2022 - 2024)
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2017 - 2021)
• Lecturer, University of Pennyslvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design (2019 - 2019)
• Instructor, SCI-Arc (2014 - 2017)
• Yale Bass Scholar in Architecture, University of Cambridge (2013 - 2014)

Professional Education

• M.Phil, University of Cambridge, Architecture by Research (2014)
• M.Arch, Yale University School of Architecture, Architecture (2011)
• B.A., McGill University, Honours English Literature with Minor in Philosophy (2006)