Jaffer Kolb is co-director of New Affiliates, along with Ivi Diamantopoulou. Their work explores how architecture is shaped by, and shapes, local economies and political systems through its practice and form. Their built projects range in scale from a 300-square-foot micro-apartment to a 7,500-square-foot studio art building. They are currently working with various branches of the New York City government on identifying alternative forms of reuse through public infrastructures. The practice also works with cultural institutions to organize and design exhibitions and large scale installations. Their work has been featured in T Magazine, Metropolis, Dwell, Die Zeit, and Architect Magazine among many others.
Jaffer currently teaches at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He writes, most recently guest editing a special issue of Log called ‘Working Queer’ in 2018, and sometimes curates. Kolb was the 2015 Muschenheim Fellow at the University of Michigan’s School of Architecture, and before that worked as a designer in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Previously, he worked the 13th Venice Architecture Biennial under David Chipperfield and served as the US Editor of the Architectural Review. Kolb 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.
