Emmett Zeifman joins Department of Architecture
The Department of Architecture is delighted to welcome Emmett Zeifman to UC Berkeley as assistant professor. A registered architect in California and New York, he has extensive teaching experience and a record of editorial and curatorial work that brings archival research into contemporary discourse on the future of design. His interests in housing, urbanism, and low-carbon approaches to construction align with the research areas of the Department of Architecture and he sees opportunities to collaboratively address these issues through architectural research, practice, and pedagogy.
“I am incredibly excited to welcome Emmett Zeifman to the Department of Architecture,” said Chair Lisa Iwamoto. “The faculty and I share the opinion that his unique combination of architectural practice, design criticism, and editorial experience will be extremely valuable to the school and lead us into new territories vital in contemporary practice. As usual, Berkeley’s rigorous and inclusive process of hiring new faculty brings the best of the best to Bauer Wurster Hall.”
“I’m thrilled to join the ranks of faculty who are doing such impressive work right now in the Department of Architecture,” said Zeifman. “At Berkeley, there is a commitment, which I share, to the design of buildings as a means of engaging systemic issues. I look forward to working collectively on issues that are central to contemporary architecture and pedagogy. We need to advance larger questions than can be answered by any one practice: What is the status of architecture at this moment in time? How do we build differently to meet the challenges of the present? How do we establish and disseminate collective knowledge?”
Research & Curatorial Work
—Lisa Iwamoto, Chair, Department of Architecture
In his editorial and curatorial work, Zeifman uses the history of modern architecture as a springboard for understanding contemporary urbanism, housing, and sustainable construction. He has explored these connections in two recent projects that bring contemporary practice and practitioners into dialogue with the New Brutalist ideas of the postwar period: the guest-edited journal Log 64: Toward a Newer Brutalism, or the Undecorated Shed (2025) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design exhibition Towards a Newer Brutalism: Solar Pavilions, Appliance Houses and Other Topologies of Contemporary Life (2024).
Growing out of his research on New Brutalists Alison and Peter Smithson — conducted at the University of Cambridge while completing a Master of Philosophy as the 2013-14 Yale Bass Scholar in Architecture — these projects both present a model for how designers can find meaning in history and archival material and propose New Brutalism as a harbinger of contemporary architectural sensibilities.
“In that moment [of the 1950s], there was a desire for transparency, for honesty about structure and the use of materials, for the immediacy of the architectural image that is very similar to what we see in architecture today,” he said. As contemporary architects are confronted with crises of housing and climate, Zeifman explained, there is an analogous interest in thinking about how different forms of architecture can emerge from different ways of constructing and occupying buildings. “Form is no longer considered autonomous from construction and user. Instead, some of the most compelling experiments in architectural form today can be read as literal expressions of unusual construction techniques and patterns of use.”
Professional Practice
Zeifman is principal of architecture and design practice NOUNS. In contrast to his early career experience working on large-scale global projects as a designer with Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in New York, and the mostly speculative work of his former practice, Medium Office, Zeifman is currently focused on realizing buildings at an individual and local scale. Recent projects include single-family houses and ADUs; loft and apartment renovations; and retail storefronts, interiors, and display systems.
“With these projects, I have been able to better understand the material realities of how we build in our current environment. Working through these challenges forces me to engage with questions like, ‘How do we approach a wood-frame structure reaching the middle or end of its life? What is the relationship between the image of architecture we desire and the construction that the economy allows?’ It’s become important for me to think about the specific circumstances in which we work, from materials to labor to the urban context, and, as my practice grows, I see the potential for an increasing synthesis of my practice, my research and my teaching.”
Teaching & Education
Zeifman has more than ten years’ teaching experience. He has taught design studios and seminars at Harvard GSD; Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; SCI-Arc; California College of the Arts; and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, he taught in the sustainable architecture and engineering bachelor’s degree program in Stanford’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
He has served as a critic and juror and participated in panels and public discussions at numerous institutions, including Barnard, UC Berkeley, Cooper Union, CUNY, Dartmouth, MIT, Pratt, Texas A&M, UCLA, University of Michigan, USC, and Washington University. His design work and criticism have been widely exhibited and published, and his editorial efforts have been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
In addition to his MPhil from the University of Cambridge, Zeifman earned his Master of Architecture from the Yale University School of Architecture and his BA, in English literature, from McGill University in Montreal.
At Berkeley this fall, Zeifman will teach an undergraduate option studio.“I have always been impressed by UC Berkeley’s students, many of whom I have taught in graduate programs,” he said. “As a product of Canada’s public education system, I am thrilled to be teaching at a public institution, and contributing to the future of the department and its students at this exciting moment in its history.”