Episode #7

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Professor Hilary Sample, who directs the Core Architecture Studios at Columbia GSAPP and is the co-founder of MOS Architects with her partner Michael Meredith. They discuss the lasting influence of Ordos 100 on the firm’s thinking, the role of representation, and how MOS Architects pursues an inclusive way of working and thinking while maintaining a purposefully small office. Sample directs GSAPP’s Housing Studio, which has a long tradition at the School and invites students to think across typologies and scales while considering a range of cultural, geographic, and environmental contexts. Sample speaks of the studio’s travel to Mexico, which coincided with the November 2016 Election, and the importance of considering New York City’s housing legacy in relation to global references.

“Students come here to look for a sense of being global citizens and being a part of a collective – even though we are in this incredible culture of individuals and individuality. At the heart of the Core, which is the primary thing I am teaching at the School, is that the students are thinking about how they are part of a collective, not just an individual. I think that’s been a big shift for the practice of architecture. It’s of course about finding your own identity within that, but also about how you really exist within a much broader realm – making architecture on one hand for yourself but also for others, and to think about that as a way forward.”
– Hilary Sample

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