Art & Design Lecture Series

New Affiliates is an award-winning architecture studio founded by Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb. Based in New York, we work across a range of scales and typologies—from ground-up buildings and interiors to residential, commercial, and cultural projects. Over the last decade, we have developed an expertise in large-scale exhibition and installation design through ongoing collaborations with leading arts institutions including the Jewish Museum, the Shed, and the Park Avenue Armory. We’re drawn to organizations that see architecture as part of a broader cultural dialogue—and who value design as a tool for evolving with their communities over time.

Our work in the art world has directly shaped our approach to sustainability and reuse. Designing for institutions where production cycles are fast and often temporary made us increasingly attentive to material waste—and pushed us to ask how architectural practice might adapt. In response, we’ve launched initiatives like Testbeds, which repurposes architectural mockups into civic infrastructure for community and cultural use. Building on collaborations with city agencies including the Departments of Sanitation and Parks and Recreation, this research creates a feedback loop within our broader practice: what we learn through reuse becomes a generative design strategy, informing everything from early concept to construction detail.

Our work has been exhibited and published internationally, including in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition New York, New Publics. We have been featured as 'Next Progressives' in Architect Magazine and in the Architect’s Newspaper's Interior Top 50 List, and honored with the Architectural League Prize, the AIA New York New Practices Award, and a Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design and a Design Excellence Award from New York City's Public Design Commission.

 

Ivi Diamantopoulou
Ivi Diamantopoulou is a registered architect in NY and Greece, with nearly two decades of experience in designing and realizing built work. Alongside practice, she serves as the director of Syracuse University's School of Architecture program in New York City. She previously held teaching appointments at Columbia's GSAPP, Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College. She holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton, where she was awarded the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for excellence in design and the Stanley J Seeger fellowship; and a Diploma with honors in Architecture and Engineering from the University of Patras.

Jaffer Kolb
Jaffer Kolb is a designer, writer, and curator who has led projects and publications in New York, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Venice--for New Affiliates and for a range of international studios prior. He is currently on faculty at MIT’s School of Architecture. Previously he led the installation of the 13th Venice Architecture Biennial under David Chipperfield and before that was the US editor for the Architectural Review. He holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, a Master of Urban Planning from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies from Wesleyan University.