Profile

Co-founded by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, WORKac believes in the power of architecture and design to engage environmental and social concerns, and to create new possibilities for the future. Our work throughout the US and around the world emphasizes a deep engagement with local cultures, climates and histories. Our focus is on public, cultural, and civic projects that re-invent how we live, work and experience the world together. We aim to integrate architecture, landscape, and ecological systems and draw resolute realism together with polemical optimism to move beyond the projected and towards the possible.

WORKac has been named the #1 design firm in the US by Architect Magazine and selected as the AIA New York State “Firm of the Year.” The practice has achieved international acclaim for projects such as the Edible Schoolyards in Brooklyn and Harlem, a public library for Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, the Miami Museum Garage, the Student Success Center at the Rhode Island School of Design, a new branch for the Brooklyn Public Library in DUMBO, and two community centers in Mexico City in collaboration with IUA. Current projects include the Beirut Museum of Art in Lebanon, a Public Library for Boulder, Colorado, a new commercial building in Mission Bay, San Francisco, and a new space for the Peoples Theater Project, Inwood, New York City.

WORKac has been exhibited widely including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Chicago Architecture Biennale, the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Canadian Center for Architecture, the Design Museum, London, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Museum Brugge, and at the Sharp Family Gallery at the Olana State Historic Site.

Andraos and Wood are committed educators. Andraos is professor and dean emeritus at Columbia GSAPP where she recently served as Advisor to the Climate School. Wood has taught extensively, and is currently an adjunct associate at GSAPP. Their publications include We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge, 49 Cities and Above the Pavement, the Farm!

Principals

Amale Andraos AIA HFRAIC co-founded WORKac in 2003 with Dan Wood. She is the President and CEO of the firm as well as a Professor and Dean Emeritus at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where she recently served as an Advisor on the University’s Climate Initiatives and for the newly-launched Climate School. Andraos is recognized as a thought leader, contributing widely to the field through her lectures and writings. Her publications include The Arab City: Architecture and Representation, a critical engagement of contemporary architecture and urbanism in the Middle East.

Andraos has served on numerous juries, advisory, and selection committees, including most recently as Chair of the Aga Khan Award, and is currently serving on the Advisory Council for the New Museum’s incubator space, New Inc, in New York. She is a licensed architect in the State of New York and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (HFRAIC). Andraos was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

Dan Wood FAIA co-founded WORKac in 2003 with Amale Andraos. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the Former Vice President for Design Excellence of the New York Chapter of the AIA. Wood is a licensed architect in the States of New York, Rhode Island, and Colorado and is LEED certified.

Wood has taught extensively, most recently at Columbia University, where he is an associate adjunct professor. He held the 2023 Davenport Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture, the 2017 Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto and the 2013–14 Louis I. Kahn Chair at the Yale School of Architecture. He also held both the Trott and Baumer Visiting Professorships at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture and the Friedman Professorship at UC Berkeley. Wood is originally from Rhode Island.

Additional Team Members

  • Nevin Blum, Associate
  • Claudia Anselmo da Costa, Associate
  • Matt Voss, Associate
  • Daniel Confroy, Director of Communications and Marketing
  • Taylor Corley
  • Lalin Maholarnkij
  • Sarah Sioufi
  • Wuyahuang Li
  • Cathy Ying Li
  • Rondela Spooner
  • Kristina Dittrich
  • Jenna Hussain
  • Veronika Rengifo, Bookkeeper
  • Tracy Scott, Office Manager
  • Luna, Office Pup

Publications

We'll Get there When We Cross That Bridge, Monacelli Press, 2017
Architecture and Representation: The Arab City, Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016
49 Cities, Inventory Press, 2016
Above the Pavement-the Farm!, Princeton Architectural Press, 2010

Selected Press

Selected Firm Awards

  • Wallpaper* USA 300, 2023
  • Arts and Letters Award in Architecture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2023
  • AN Interior Top 50 Award, Architect’s Newspaper, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018
  • AD 100, Architectural Digest, 2021
  • Architecture Magazine Top 50, WORKac #1 Design Firm in the US, 2017
  • “Game Changers”, Metropolis Magazine, 2017
  • AIA New York State Firm of the Year, 2015
  • National Design Award, Finalist Interiors Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, 2015
  • “Best Of Year” Award, Interior Design Magazine, 2008
  • “Emerging Voices”, Architectural League of New York, 2008
  • Young Architects Program, MoMA/PS1 Contemporary Art Center, 2008
  • “Design Vanguard”, Architectural Record, 2006
  • “New Practices, New York”, AIA NY and Architects’ Newspaper, 2006

Selected Project Awards

  • Adams Street Library
    • AIA NY Awards, Honor in Interior Architecture, 2023
    • AIA/ALA Library Building Awards, 2022
    • MASterworks Award—Best Adaptive Reuse, Municipal Arts, 2022
    • NYCxDesign Award for Institutional Project, 2022
    • ENR NY Best Project—Cultural, 2022
  • Anthropologie Dos Lagos
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Interior Architecture, 2008
  • Beijing Horticultural Expo Master Plan
    • AIA New York State Honor Award (in collaboration with SCAPE, SLAB, and Studio Zhu Pei), 2015
  • Blaffer Museum of Art
    • AIA Houston Merit Award for Renovation, 2013
    • City of Houston “Best Of” Awards: Best College Campus Building, and Best Artistic Renovation, 2013
  • Children’s Museum of the Arts
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Interior Architecture, 2013
  • Diane von Furstenberg Studio HQ
    • MASterwork Award—Best Historic Renovation, Municipal Arts Society, 2008
    • New York Designs, Architectural League, 2007
  • Edible Schoolyard at P.S. 216
    • AIA New York State Design Citation, 2014
    • MASterworks Award—Best Green Design Initiative, Municipal Arts, 2014
  • Kew Gardens Hills Library
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Architecture, 2018
    • MASterworks Award—Best New Urban Amenity, Municipal Arts Society, 2018
    • Award for Excellence in Design—New York City Public Design Commission, 2010
  • Lee Angel Showroom
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Interior Architecture, 2006
  • Marea
    • AIA NY Awards, Honor in Architecture, 2023
  • Miami Museum Garage
    • International Architecture Award, Parking & Transportation Centers, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum
      of Architecture & Design, 2019
    • Beazley Designs of the Year Award Nominee, The Design Museum in London, 2019
    • Architizer A+ Awards, Jury Winner, Concepts + Architecture + Collaboration, 2019
    • AIA Miami Design Award, 2018
    • The Architect’s Newspaper, Honorable Mention, Best of Design Award, 2018
  • New Holland Island Master Plan
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Urban Design, 2013
  • Pilares
    • Progressive Architecture Award, Architect Magazine, 2022
  • Public Farm 1 (P.F.1)
    • AIA New York State Design Citation, 2009
    • Structural Engineering Merit Award, Public Farm 1, SEAoNY, 2008
    • “Project of the Year: Park/Landscape,” National. NY Construction/ENR, 2008
    • “Best Landscape/Urban Design Project,” Regional. New York Construction, 2008
  • RISD Student Success Center
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Architecture, 2021
    • Archmarathon Award for “Institutional Building”, 2020
    • AN Best Design Awards, Honorable Mention in Education, 2019
  • Stealth Building
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Architecture, 2017
    • ArchMarathon Award for “Living”, 2017
    • ArchDaily Building of the Year, 2017
  • Wieden+Kennedy Offices
    • ArchDaily Building of the Year, 2015
    • AIA NY Awards, Merit in Interior Architecture, 2014