Stephen Cassell

Stephen Cassell, AIA, is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia GSAPP and a founding Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO). Architecture Research Office is a 30-person New York City firm that has earned a reputation for elegant, innovative and imaginative architecture born out of relentless exploration and engagement. The firm’s current and recent projects include the restoration of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, along with a new campus for the organization; the expansion of Dia Art Foundation’s location in New York City; a new Education and Welcome Center at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn; two new public schools in Brooklyn, and the restoration of the seminal 20th-century-artist Donald Judd’s Home and Studio.

Architecture Research Office received the 2018 AIA New York State Firm of the Year Award, the 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored the firm with their 2010 Academy Award for Architecture. The firm’s work has been exhibited widely and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Stephen holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Princeton University and received his Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Cassell has taught at numerous schools of architecture, including Harvard, Princeton, MIT, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Virginia. He has served as the Chair of the Board of the Van Alen Institute and on the Leadership Committee of the Lower Mississippi River Delta Design Initiative.