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About

Whether recycling an existing structure to extend its lifespan, reimagining sidelined and neglected public spaces, or constructing new, healthy affordable housing, Architecture Outfit is committed to crafting lasting, sustainable, and elegant buildings and environments that enrich the experiences of individuals, organizations, and communities.

Our diverse portfolio – comprising cultural and educational facilities, workplaces, restaurants, stores, homes, and mixed-use developments – is shaped by our enduring curiosity about how people interact with their surroundings and each other, and goal of finding the most resourceful solutions to formidable design challenges. The economy and expressiveness of our work comes from the efficient and graceful resolution of each project’s functional, experiential, and environmental goals through an intensely iterative and collaborative design process.

Founded in 2008, Architecture Outfit is a full service architectural and interior design firm based in New York City. Our skilled, cohesive team, led by Thaddeus Briner and Marta Sanders, provides expertise in new construction and renovation, programming and planning, agency approvals, sustainability including LEED and Passive House design.

Making architecture is an optimistic pursuit.

It leads us to explore important issues and engage with people committed to noble visions to build something lasting.

Every built work has the potential to improve people’s lives and our relationships with the natural world.

Every project and element of it, regardless of scale, should be considered rigorously and approached with an awareness of its broader social and environmental context.

Every site offers resources - space, light, air, views, materials - to be used efficiently and opportunistically.

Every material has innate qualities – strength, texture, color, porosity – to be respected and optimized through precise and innovative craft.

The parameters of function, site, budget, schedule give a project clarity.

These frameworks allow for clear, meaningful, and authentic design that transcends style or abstract narratives.

There are opportunities for people to experience moments of beauty, joy, and reflection all around us.

Architecture should make these moments visible and inhabitable.

Use gives architecture purpose.

Our projects are not finished or alive until they are used.

Leadership Team

Thaddeus Briner, RA
Principal
Thaddeus Briner, RA
Principal

Thaddeus is the founding partner of Architecture Outfit. With almost three decades of experience, Thaddeus has led a wide range of complex renovation and new building projects in New York City and beyond. Whether a small interior fit-out or large-scale urban intervention, his work is recognizable by its dynamic spatial relationships, bold formal characteristics that defy stylistic labels, and thoughtful, often unexpected, details which come from a deep understanding of material qualities and fabrication methods. Thaddeus is energetic and hands-on with his projects – he builds models and sketches extensively – and guides the entire studio to work this way.

Before launching AO in 2008, Thaddeus was an associate at Rogers Marvel Architects where he led teams to complete the firm’s first public and ground-up building projects: the Studio Museum in Harlem, the New York Public Library Mulberry Street Branch, One Seventh Avenue Condominiums, and the Stephen Gaynor School/Ballet Hispánico.

He established AO by realizing innovative and carefully crafted restaurants, stores, and workplaces for emerging brands like Chipotle and Aesop, and has recently completed the award-winning Sorting House Condominiums and Cove Hollow Farm Road Residence. He is currently leading AO’s designs for private homes on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, as well as several multi-family residential buildings including a 40-story tower in Downtown Brooklyn and Cooper Park Commons, an affordable housing development which combines new Passive House construction with the adaptive reuse of historic structures.

Thaddeus received a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College and a Master of Architecture from Rice University. He has taught at New Jersey Institute of Technology and served as a design critic at Pratt Institute, City College, and Columbia University. He won the prestigious Architectural League’s Young Architects Prize in 2001. Thaddeus is a licensed architect in New York.

Marta Sanders, RA
Principal
Marta Sanders, RA
Principal

Marta is an Architecture Outfit partner who brings insights and expertise from over 30 years of professional practice. With focus on arts, education, and public space projects, she has led numerous multi-faceted teams through inclusive design and construction efforts to successful completion. She embraces the challenge of “discovering the project” through a collaborative and dynamic programming and conceptual design process and, having worked primarily in dense urban contexts, knows how to maximize opportunities within the constraints of older buildings and complex city sites.

As an associate at Rogers Marvel Architects, Marta partnered with higher educational institutions including Dartmouth College, Rice University, Hunter College, and New York University to create master plans for the long-term development of their buildings and campuses. She also strategically conceived and carefully executed school renovation and new construction projects such as Achievement First Endeavor Charter School, Trinity School, Stephen Gaynor School, and Metropolitan Montessori School.

Since joining in 2015, Marta has led AO’s team to create new facilities for Rioult Dance, Theatre Row, Pace University’s Actors Studio Drama School, Brooklyn Workforce Innovations, and the International Cinematographers Guild. She also completed Turnstyle, an award-winning public space in the NYC transit system. Marta is currently collaborating with Symphony Space, New York Theatre Workshop, and Rattlestick Theater to make their historic buildings more efficient, vibrant, and welcoming.

Marta earned her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Kentucky and Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. She is an active member of the American Institute of Architects New York Committee for Architecture on Education and WX Women Executives in Real Estate Mentoring Committee and serves on the University of Kentucky School of Architecture Advisory Board and as a design critic for the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction. Marta is a New York licensed architect.

Stephen Nielson, RA
Stephen Nielson, RA

As an architect and project manager with almost two decades of experience, Stephen combines the capacity to envision provocative, ambitious designs with the technical expertise and maturity to implement solutions effectively within project constraints.

Since joining Architecture Outfit in 2010, Stephen led the design and construction of many notable projects including Turnstyle, a commercial development with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the Cove Hollow Farm Road Residence, a compound which combines historic and new structures in a sustainable, agricultural setting.  He is currently leading AO’s team on hospitality and home projects on Long Island and Upstate New York. Stephen also guides AO’s new technologies and visualization efforts.

Stephen earned his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia and Master of Architecture from Yale University where he taught design studios and contributed to publications and design competitions. He chairs the Committee for Awesome Ideas for ioby, “in our backyards”, a civic organization dedicated to “making neighborhoods more sustainable, healthier, greener, more livable, and more fun”. Stephen is a Virginia registered architect.

Matt Taylor, RA
Matt Taylor, RA

Matt is an architect and project manager with expertise in sustainable adaptive reuse and new construction projects. With over 13 years of experience, he brings a comprehensive understanding of building technologies and mastery of design tools to his projects, thoroughly studying and resolving problems at every stage of project development.

Since joining AO in 2011, he has designed, documented, and administered the construction of several Aesop stores, the Chipotle New York headquarters, and the Sorting House Condominiums. He completed programming and concept design studies for full-building conversions for Theatre Row, New York Theatre Workshop, and a new East Village arts center. He is the project architect for new multi-family residential buildings including a tower in Downtown Brooklyn and Cooper Park Commons, a Passive House affordable housing development. Matt also coordinates AO’s document standards and sustainability resources.

Matt received a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design from the University of Colorado and a Master of Architecture from Rice University. Matt is a certified Passive House Designer and registered New York architect.