In 1974, in response to student requests and to the coordinated interests of its faculty, a series of experiments that took housing as a theme began at Columbia GSAPP. By 1976, the Housing Studio had emerged as a central feature of the Architecture program’s core academic sequence, and has since aimed to inspire a shift in thinking about architecture in relation to the world-at-large for generations.

To honor this important legacy, the IDC Foundation Professor of Housing Design will lead the seminal Housing Studio, in collaboration with the Dean. The Professorship will also add a crucial perspective to the GSAPP Housing Lab research and contribute to the exceptional intellectual community of scholars and practitioners leading the field in housing innovation.

“The IDC Foundation is very pleased to provide the funding that makes possible the first endowed professorship in the architecture program in Columbia GSAPP’s history,” said Raymond R. Savino, President of the IDC Foundation. “The endowed professorship will focus on housing design and serve as a catalyst for developing creative practices that can have meaningful impact on the production of affordable housing – with particular attention to the intersection of architecture, engineering, and building construction. In doing so, it will draw on Columbia GSAPP’s renowned leadership in housing design and advance innovations that address the pressing challenge of affordability.”

Columbia GSAPP is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Hilary Sample has been appointed as the inaugural IDC Foundation Professor of Housing Design. Sample has played an instrumental role in the oversight and development of the housing curriculum in the Master of Architecture program since her appointment as a full time faculty member in 2011. She has reinforced the Housing curriculum’s two-fold ambition to challenge students with the notoriously complex architectural design problem of multi-household and multi-family housing, while also asking them to address the nuanced social, economic, and political questions that housing has long entailed. In addition to her academic work, Sample is an architect and principal of MOS Architects, which she co-founded with Michael Meredith in 2003. An internationally recognized architectural practice, MOS was the recipient of the 2015 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award in Architecture. The firm is currently working on housing projects in New York City, Mexico City, and Washington, D.C.