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Hilary Sample

Hilary Sample is a Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), an architect, and a co-founder, with Michael Meredith, of MOS, an architecture and design practice located in Manhattan.

Since 2003, MOS’s projects include buildings, exhibitions, installations, furniture, objects, software, video, books, and publications. Built work includes the Floating House; Museum of the Outdoor Arts Element House, New Mexico; PS1/MoMA Afterparty Pavilion, Petite École, Versailles, France; the Laboratorio de Vivienda / Housing Laboratory, Mexico City; the Krabbesholm Four Studios in Denmark; collective housing in Washington, D.C., Asunción, Paraguay, and in St. Louis; a greenhouse clinic for Marta Gallery in Los Angeles, a music pavilion for Art Omi; Artist Studio for James Casebere; 9W in Cambridge, NY; Center for Books Arts, and Chamber Gallery in New York City. MOS has designed and co-curated exhibitions including The Other Architect at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, a83 Gallery, and Storefront for Art & Architecture. The studio’s work is held in collections including: the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Frances Loeb Library Special Collections, Columbia University’s Avery, and Butler Libraries, The American Academy in Rome Rare Books Reading Room, The Carnegie Museum of Art, and DAM Deutsches Architeckturmuseum.

Sample’s recognitions include: the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices award (2008); the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Academy Award in Architecture (2010); the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s National Design Award in Architecture (2015), a Holcim for Sustainability Prize (2015, 2025); United States Artists Award (2020); Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in Design (2021); the Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize American Academy in Rome (2022–23); and she was elected to the National Academy of Design (2025).

Sample holds a Master of Architecture and the Suzanne G. Kolarik Thesis Prize from Princeton University (2003) and a Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University (1994). She held the inaugural IDC Professorship in Housing Design (2019-2026). In addition to her appointment at GSAPP, she has previously taught at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design (2003-2004), awarded the Reyner Banham Teaching Chair at the State of New York University at Buffalo (2004-2005), Yale School of Architecture (2005-2011), and and has held visiting positions including the University of Arkansas John G. Williams Teaching Chair, Baumer Visiting Lecturer at The Ohio State University, and the Patrick Geddes Visiting Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh School of Art and Architecture. Prior to founding MOS, Sample was a designer at SOM in New York, and OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam. Sample frequently volunteers, serving on boards such as MacDowell and the Female Design Council, and Madame Architect, and scholarship selection committees with the Center for Architecture, The Architecture League mentoring, and volunteering with The School at Columbia University, and the Van Alan Institute.

Design research subjects: collective housing; maintenance; tending; houses; community clinics; public health and architecture; community gardens in New York City; nurses’ housing; Henry Street Settlement; Smithsons Occupational Health Unit; architectural drawings; workers housing including nurses; nursing and architecture, and architectural models.

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Selected Publications

Public Spaces N.Y. Park Books (2025)

Housing Laboratory / Laboratorio de Vivienda. Barcelona: Actar Press (2024)

The Making of a Petit Ecole. Barcelona: Actar Press (2022)

Vacant Space N.Y. Barcelona: Actar Press (2021)

Houses for Sale. CCA with Corraini Edizioni (2019) in English, French, and Italian

2G: MOS 84 (2019)

An Unfinished Encyclopedia of Scale Figures without Architecture. The MIT Press (2019)

MOS: Selected Works. Princeton Architectural Press (2016)

Maintenance Architecture. MIT Press (2016). Hardcover, paperback, and ebook

El Croquis No. 184 (2016). In English, Spanish, and Chinese

A Situation Constructed from Loose and Overlapping Social and Architectural Aggregates. AADR (2016)

Hilary Sample (Editor), Questions Concerning Health: Stress and Wellness in Johannesburg. Columbia Books on Architecture and the City (2015)

Recent Work

Krabbesholm School for Art, Architecture, Photography and Design, Denmark

Chamber design gallery, New York

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (Competition Entry)

Element House, New Mexico

Courses

Course	Semester	Title	Student Work	Instructor	Syllabus	Requirements & Sequence	Location & Time	Session & Points	Call No.
ARCH4105‑7	Fall 2026	Architecture Studio V		Hilary Sample		AAD + M.Arch III Only Architecture Studio AAD Studio	600 + 700 Avery, 113 Avery M, TH 1:30 PM - 6:30 PM, W 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM	Full Semester 0 Points	10414
ARCH4312‑1	Fall 2026	Storytelling Through Design		Hilary Sample		ALL GSAPP + SoA Interdisciplinary	409 Avery TH 9 AM - 11 AM	Full Semester 3 Points	10568