Firm name: New Affiliates
Location: New York
Year founded: 2016
Firm leadership: Ivi Diamantopoulou, Intl. Assoc. AIA, Jaffer Kolb
Education: Diamantopoulou: Dipl. Arch., University of Patras in Greece; M.Arch., Princeton University School of Architecture; Kolb: B.A., Wesleyan University; M.Arch., Princeton University School of Architecture
Experience: Diller Scofidio + Renfro and MOS Architects, among others
How founders met: At graduate school
Firm size: Four, but it oscillates
Mission:
Loose forms, idiosyncratic ornament, irreverent reuse
First commission:
Tunbridge Winter Cabin
Favorite project:
We love whatever project we have under construction. We have an art studio building in Brooklyn, N.Y., opening this summer. It was a circus of constraints, but alongside a willing and great client, we ended up designing a building full of weird contradictions, juxtapositions, and affiliations all based on a desire for practicality and economy. It’s like our formal sensibility hid itself in dozens of little moments that reveal themselves—and continue to—over time.
Second favorite project:
Our design for a Marc Camille Chaimowicz exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. This collaboration with a fantastic curator and a wonderful artist felt like a place where design and architecture could bring something to the table that was optimistic and meaningful. It was a great learning experience and showed us how work can be expressive and unsettling through tropes of familiarity and comfort.
Origin of firm name:
We wanted something dumb, open, and friendly. We didn’t want to use our names to accommodate other collaborations.
Modern-day design hero:
Our hero of the week is the late Congolese artist Bodys Isek-Kingelez, who displayed an amazing combination of humor, criticality, and graciousness that we find totally inspiring. His ideas for certain model towers are absurd and incisive, but he so earnestly described wanting to make them! It’s a weird sensibility that’s as sharp as it is silly; dreamy as it is earnest. (His retrospective is currently on view at MoMA.)
Special item in your studio space:
A prototype of Scabby, a small desk light modeled after the inflatable union protest rat. It’s 5 inches tall, covered in a patchwork of possible finishes, and seems to move nomadically between our desks like a Victorian mummy.
Design tool of choice:
Kolb: trace paper.
Diamantopoulou: AutoCAD.
Both: We meet in Rhino.
Design aggravation:
We love everything! We also don’t. It’s confusing.
We don’t like things that are too self-serious, too effortful, or too fussy. But we also probably fall victim to all those things sometimes.
Memorable learning experience:
For us (and probably for most young practices), failures and successes pile on daily. Projects appear as quickly as they vanish; clients are ecstatic as often as they are disappointed. In general we are trying to learn to stay excited and engaged while not letting ourselves feel those peaks and valleys too deeply.
The worst criticism you’ve ever received:
We always wish we received more criticism. We criticize ourselves a lot.
Favorite place to get inspired:
A small park at Mercer and Bleecker streets in Manhattan where one can find us several times a week, pacing and having loud conversations.
When I’m not working in architecture, I:
Diamantopoulou: Read, look at things, hang out with people and a dog, or two.
Kolb: Hallucinate, protest, write, repeat.
The best advice you have ever gotten:
“Just make stuff!” And: “It’s not that serious.” Somehow they have the same effect.
Greatest challenge in running a successful practice:
To keep doing it until it makes sense.
Superstitions:
Never be too optimistic.
Skills to master:
Bookkeeping, hiring, making models
Morning person or night owl?
Kolb: Absolute morning person, I'm useless after sundown.
Diamantopoulou: Any-time person turned morning person over the last couple years (thanks, Jaffer!).
Social media platform of choice:
Instagram
Vice:
Oftentimes more “live” than “work”
