Following last week’s look at an opening for an Intermediate Architectural Designer at Seed the North, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for the Director of Making Studio at Columbia University.

Reporting to the Dean of Columbia GSAPP, the role calls for an individual who will promote the GSAPP’s pedagogy and student engagement in digital fabrication. Among the responsibilities for the role are to “manage fabrication activities from small-scale massing models to full-scale building details” in the school’s Fabrication Shop, to guide and advise students on project execution in the shop, and to oversee student use of a wide variety of materials including wood, plastic, and metal.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Columbia GSAPP offers us the opportunity to look back at some of the recent developments at the school which our editorial has reported on. In February, the school established the James Stewart Polshek Scholarship in honor of its former dean, who passed away in September 2022. Last December, meanwhile, Columbia GSAPP doctoral student Samuel Stewart-Halevy collaborated with a wider team on the reuse of discarded architectural mockups in Queens, New York.

2022 also saw Columbia GSAPP Masters of Architecture student Kelsey Jackson awarded the 2022 Common Bond Scholarship by the Center for Architecture along with two other students, while GSAPP doctoral candidate Robin Hartanto Honggare was among the winners of the Carter Manny Awards given by the Graham Foundation.

Columbia GSAPP’s emphasis on the physical fabrication of student works in their latest open role also offers us the opportunity to reflect on recent examples in our editorial of architecture students collaborating on live projects. Last month, we covered news of a team from IAAC who constructed a timber observatory within a Barcelona forest, while April saw a team of UBC students build one of Canada’s first near-zero embodied carbon campus spaces.

Last year, meanwhile, students from ETH Zurich constructed a timber dome entirely from waste materials, while a separate team of ETH students and researchers built a prototype 3D printed eggshell pavilion.

Further reading for interested candidates

• IAAC team’s mass timber nature observatory floats above a Barcelona forest (May 2023)
• Team of UBC students builds one of Canada's first near-zero embodied carbon campus spaces (April 2023)
• Columbia GSAPP establishes new James Stewart Polshek Scholarship in honor of its former Dean (February 2023)
• Testbeds is giving discarded architectural mock-ups new life in New York's community gardens (December 2022)
• NYIT's Robotics Fabrication Laboratory is looking for a manager to support the school's 'culture of experimental making' (December 2022)
• Mississippi State University studio teaches the value of collaboration between its architecture and building construction science students (May 2022)
• Expo of biomaterial structures populates University of Virginia campus, created by architecture students and scholars (April 2022)
• Archinect’s ongoing coverage of student works
• Columbia GSAPP’s Archinect profile
• Archinect Tips: Employment Edition (November 2020)

Job Highlights is one of a number of ongoing weekly series showcasing the opportunities available on our industry-leading job board. Our Meet Your Next Employer series profiles and interviews interesting studios with open positions currently available on Archinect Jobs, while our weekly roundups curate job opportunities by location, career level, and job description.