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Nicole Vlado Torres

Assistant Professor Adjunct

Nicole is an architect committed to promoting equity in the built environment and public realm. As a Principal of Shakespeare Gordon Vlado Architects, she led the firm’s work in affordable housing, resulting in the design of homes for over 3,500 families, seniors, and formerly unhoused New Yorkers. She has also dedicated her career to improving the practice of architecture through active roles with the AIANY’s Housing Committee, nycoba NOMA Professional Development Committee, and as a professional mentor for ARCscholars, an architectural and urban design program for teen and young adult NYCHA residents. Nicole is currently working to facilitate public-private partnerships to improve NYCHA’s open spaces as a Policy and Planning Fellow at the Design Trust for Public Space, and to help solve the NYC housing crisis as an Urban Design Forum Big Swings fellowship.

Nicole's CV is available here.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.