Jerome Haferd

Background

About Jerome Haferd

Jerome W Haferd, RA, NOMA is a licensed architect, public artist, and educator based in Harlem, NYC. He is principal of the award winning JEROME HAFERD Studio. Haferd is assistant professor of architecture at City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture where he co-directs the new Place, Memory, and Culture Incubator. He is a 2025 United States Artist Fellow. Jerome Haferd Studio critically engages built environment projects in both urban and rural contexts, often looking to marginalized histories to unlock a new imaginary for architecture, design, and cultural infrastructure. Haferd and his team’s work on complex sites includes collaborations with the Harlem African Burial Ground, Roots to Sky Collective, The Park Avenue Armory, and the National Black Theatre. Haferd is lead architect and designer for the 2023-24 Culture, Creativity, and Care Initiative with the Mellon Foundation and Harlem Grown. The studio is one of the first prize recipients for the International Africatown Design Competition and is working on a permanent public artwork and plaza for the East River Esplanade with NYCEDC, Marvel Architects and Stantec. Jerome Haferd Studio will be exhibiting in the U.S. Pavilion at this year’s 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. Haferd is a core initiator of Dark Matter U, a BIPOC led trans-disciplinary network geared towards new models of design pedagogy and practice. He received the 2022 #BlackVisionaries award as part of a DMU cohort. The team’s recent projects include the Sankofa installation in Harlem, their winning Africatown Competition Proposal “In the Wake”, the BLK BOX experimental arts venue and Beautiful Browns, awarded second prize in the 2021 OnOlive emerging Black architect housing competition. Haferd co-led the DMU “Constellation'' exhibit at the 2022 Lisbon Architecture Trienale : Terra. Haferd also co-founded BRANDT : HAFERD, and has worked for internationally recognized firms including OMA/Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi Architects, where he was project leader on numerous institutional, planning, and exhibition projects worldwide. Haferd is on the Board of Directors of The Architectural League of New York.