Adam Frampton

Adam Frampton, AIA, is an architect and a principal of Only If, a New York City-based design practice for architecture and urbanism that he founded in 2013. Only If's work has been published in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Domus, Interior Design, Frame, Architect Magazine, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Fast Company, and The Architect's Newspaper, among others. Frampton is also currently a Design Critic at Harvard University GSD and has also taught as a Visiting Critic at Rice University, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP, and at Parsons, Syracuse University, and the University of Kentucky. He is the coauthor of Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook (2012) which maps Hong Kong's three-dimensional networks of pedestrian circulation and public space. His work and research have been exhibited in the 12th, 14th, 16th, and 17th Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, the M+ Hong Kong, the Lisbon Triennale, the Rotterdam Biennale, the Shenzhen Biennale, the Sao Paolo Biennale, the Seoul Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Center for Architecture, and the Van Alen Institute, New York. Previously, he worked as an associate at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam and Hong Kong from 2006 to 2013. He holds an M.Arch. from Princeton University and is a licensed architect in the United States and the Netherlands.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Architectural practice 
  • Cities
  • Drawing
  • Housing
  • Urbanism
  • Architecture and urbanism
  • Housing

Related News

Classes (Selected)

  • Fall 2023 Gensler Visiting Critic Studio

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • 2022 Architectural Record Design Vanguard
  • 2022 IIT Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, nominee
  • 2020 Domus Magazine 50 Best Architecture Firms
  • 2019 Architect Magazine Next Progressives
  • 2018 AIANY New Practices New York

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • 2023 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, Architecture Now: New York, New Publics, commissioned project The People's Pool
  • 2021 M+ Museum, Hong Kong, commissioned model of Cities Without Ground, acquired into the permanent collection
  • 12th (2010), 14th (2014), 16th (2018), and 17th (2021) International Architecture Exhibitions at the Venice Biennale

Publications (Selected)

Frampton, Adam, Jonathan D. Solomon, and Clara Wong. Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook. San Francisco: ORO Editions (2012)

Selected Work

  • An image of books opened showing a map

    Adam Frampton, Jonathan D. Solomon, and Clara Wong, Cities Without Ground, A Hong Kong Guidebook, San Francisco: ORO Editions (2012). image / provided

  • An image of a modern townhouse amongst other townhouses

    Only If, Big Ideas for Small Lots (2019). image / Tegmark

  • A modern townhouse next to a traditional townhouse

    Only If, Narrow House (2021). image / Iwan Baan

  • A picture taken looking down on a white modern staircase

    Only If, Narrow House (2021). image / Iwan Baan

  • A picture taken of the hallway of a modern white house

    Only If, Narrow House (2021). image / Naho Kubota

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