News

Dr. Laura Sara Wainer and Jerome Haferd will join the full-time faculty of the Spitzer School starting in fall 2022.

Laura Sara Wainer will join the Spitzer faculty as a tenure-track assistant professor of architecture and urbanism, teaching in the undergraduate architecture studios in fall 2022. Dr. Wainer is an architect, urbanist, and development specialist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her academic work analyzes the intersection between housing and urban policy, design politics, and governance. She holds a PhD specializing in urban sociology from the School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a fellow in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies. She received a master’s degree in international development, sponsored by a Fulbright Scholarship, from The New School, and a dual BA in architecture and urbanism from the University of Buenos Aires.

Dr. Wainer’s professional practice incorporates urban planning and design, housing policy, and social inclusion for International Growth Centre (IGC) at Oxford University, Habitat for Humanity, the World Bank, and the InterAmerican Development Bank. She has also curated projects focused on building bridges between academia, activism, and professional practice in design, such as the Housing+ Biennial hosted by the Center for Advanced Urbanism at the MIT Media Lab, and the ”60 Days – 11 Maps – 1 City” project hosted by The New School, the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, and Slum Dwellers International.

We are also delighted to welcome Jerome Haferd in a new capacity as tenure-track assistant professor of architecture.

Haferd is a licensed architect, urban designer, and educator based between Harlem and the Hudson Valley, NY. Haferd’s expanded practice and advocacy critically engage with historically marginalized subjects, built environments, and nonhegemonic histories to unlock a new disciplinary and professional imaginary for architecture. His recent published work expands upon research in academia and practice that observes marginalized narratives, memorialization, and emplacement while traversing the urban and the rural. Haferd’s writing on Blackness, indigeneity, and otherness as a speculative archaeology has been published in numerous journals. He has practiced and lectured nationally and internationally, which includes design collaborations and scholarship with the Harlem African Burial Ground and Task Force as well as a recent collaboration here with the Pine Street African Burial Ground that was awarded the 2020 Studio Prize. Previously at Spitzer, Haferd co-taught Unit 24 with Visiting Professor Mitchell Squire, and coordinated the Advanced Studios, where he introduced new cross-institutional collaborations. In addition, he has taught and conducted cross-institutional collaborations at Columbia GSAPP, Yale University, and others. He is one of the core initiators of Dark Matter University, a BIPOC-led transdisciplinary entity geared toward new models of design pedagogy and knowledge production.

Alongside his independent practice, Haferd is cofounder with K Brandt Knapp of the award-winning architecture and research firm BRANDT : HAFERD, a studio that grows out of civic engagement, producing public-oriented projects in New York City and nationwide. The studio is a 2020 New Practices New York winner. The practice was also awarded the grand prize for the 2019 Cleveland ZeroThreshold Housing competition with a multi-abled, intergenerational housing and urban plaza prototype, and was finalist with WXY for the forthcoming Bronx Museum of the Arts expansion. Other recent projects include the 2020-21 Harlem Renaissance Pavilion with WXY and Beautiful Browns, awarded second prize in the 2021 OnOlive emerging Black architect housing competition. Before co-founding BRANDT : HAFERD, Haferd worked in the offices of OMA/Rem Koolhaas and on numerous masterplans, civic, and cultural projects with Bernard Tschumi Architects Urbanistes.

Haferd will be teaching in the graduate program in architecture in the fall, leading an advanced studio unit.