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Tommy Schaperkotter

Assistant Professor Adjunct

Tommy Schaperkotter is an architect, builder, and educator devoted to transdisciplinary exploration of material cultures, construction ecologies, and interdependencies between built and non-built environments. He works at the confluence of climate urgency, labor equity, and design-build processes. His projects include housing in the United States, rural reforestation in Haiti, earthen construction in Austria, and architectural advocacy for displaced communities in Bangladesh. 

Schaperkotter received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia and holds a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he was a co-recipient of the Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize and the AIA / ACSA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Students Award. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union and he also teaches at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. 

Tommy's CV can be viewed 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.