Adjunct Faculty

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Don O’Keefe is the principal architect of O'Keefe & Associates, a design practice in New York City, Tokyo, and Richmond. Current projects include a hotel in northern Japan, a home renovation in Tokyo, and an urban redevelopment in Virginia. Projects completed by the office include an art gallery in Brooklyn, a renovation of a unit in the Nakagin Capsule Tower, a cabin in Virginia, a flat-pack plywood furniture set, and various interior projects in Japan and the US. As a consultant, O’Keefe has advised corporations and government agencies including CoStar Group, Mitsubishi Estate, and the City of Yokohama.

O’Keefe is currently assistant professor adjunct at the Cooper Union, and previously held appointments at Harvard University and Keio University in Tokyo, where he helped to launch the Fumihiko Maki Archive. His writing has been published in venues including The Architectural Review, The Japan Times, and the recent book Sharing Tokyo (Actar Press, 2023).

O’Keefe is a registered architect in New York and Virginia, and a member of the American Institute of Architects, the Architectural Institute of Japan, the City Planning Institute of Japan, and the U.S. National Book Critics Circle. O'Keefe holds a Master in Architecture with distinction from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in urban studies and planning from the Virginia Commonwealth University. 

O'Keefe's CV is available here. 

Tandis Shoushtary is a designer and educator working across data visualization, interaction design, and animation. Her practice moves between journalism, product design, and speculative research, with a committed focus on how data shapes public understanding. She has spent the last several years designing visual systems and interactive experiences for The New York Times, Adobe, Vox Media, and a range of civic and cultural institutions in New York and Berlin. She’s a Cooper Union graduate, and pursued a dual master's degree in Design & Computation at the Berlin Institute of Technology in collaboration with Berlin University of The Arts. 

 

  • 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.”

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  • 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.