STEVE is a New York City based architecture and design practice led by Zachary Schumacher. © 2025






Zachary S Schumacher (b. 1991) is an architectural designer and educator based in New York City. His current research explores the integration of digital fabrication with labor practices often overlooked or dismissed by architecture—such as aftermarket automotive finishing, choreography, and mechanics—to propose alternative construction methods that hybridize spatial, graphic, and visual modes of architectural production. He currently teaches at Princeton University School of Architecture and Dartmouth College Department of Studio Art. Previously, he has taught at UC Berkeley and RISD, and his scholarly work has appeared in Actar, Contract, Log, Paprika!, and Pidgin. Schumacher holds a Master of Architecture from RISD and a Master of Science in Architectural Studies from MIT.


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Current 
Employment Faculty 
Princeton University, School of Architecture 
2024-present

Faculty
Dartmouth College, Studio Art Department
2024-present



Previous
CollaborationsStock-a-studio
2023-2024

Outpost Office 
2021-2023

Matter Design
2022

Viola Ago and Hans Tursack
2019


Exhibitions and
Publications
Exhibition, Institute for Public Architecture (IPA) at Governors Island, NYC
2025

Publication, Pidgin Issue 31, Princeton University, “Die Schlange”
2023

Guest Lecturer, Drawing and The Digital Age, Harvard University GSD
2023

Exhibition, Kirkland Gallery at Harvard University GSD in Cambridge, Mass
2022

Exhibition, Department of Architecture Triennial, RISD Woods-Gerry in Providence, Rhode Island
2022

Publication, with Outpost Office, CCA Tashkent, Spake Scapes
2021

Publication, Actar, Portals: Pedagogy, Practice, and Architecture’s Future Imaginary
2021

Exhibition, “Nine Houses”, MIT Keller Gallery in Cambridge, Mass 
2021

Publication, SUCKERPUNCH, “Digital Duck”
2021

Publication, Log Issue 51, “Digitial Duck” 
2020

Publication, Paprika! Vol. 6 No. 2, Yale University, “Counterfeit Realism”
2020

Exhibition, “Systems” a83: WORKING REMOTELY in NYC
2020

Exhibition, RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island 
2020

Interview, Catalyst Issue 05
2017

Publication, Contract magazine June cover story and spread 
2016

Publication, Washington Times
2015

Presenter, Dwell on Design LA
2015



Education
Master of Science in Architectural Studies, SMArchS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2023


Master of Architecture, MArch
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
2020


AwardsInstitute for Public Architecture (IPA) Fellow 
2025

MIT MISTI Travel Fellow
2023

Louis C. Rosenberg Fellow 
2022

MIT MISTI Travel Fellow
2022

Council for the Arts at MIT
2022

RISD Thesis Super Jury 
2020

AIA Columbus Design Award 
2016

AIA Ohio Design Award 
2016

NBBJ Innovation Award 
2016







Last Updated May 23, 2025
MATERIAL 










Ground Control
2025


The grid has long been a foundational tool in architecture, shaping how we see space and how we build. But its influence goes beyond geometry—it organizes circulation, consolidates land, and often turns space into property. Truly grasping the grid’s hold on architectural thought means reckoning with its legacy of appropriation and partition.

At the same time, architectural design has traditionally relied on static representations—plans, elevations, sections—to convey spatial relationships. Yet there’s untapped potential in exploring more dynamic, performative ways of understanding space. Choreography, like geometry, is a system of instructions unfolding through space and time. It shares geometry’s focus on proportion, sequence, and spatial coordination—just without fixed form.

By analyzing choreography, we can uncover the underlying structures that guide movement in architectural construction, offering new ways to think about the relationship between land, labor, and design. This project explores the shared harmonics of geometry and choreography by transposing the perfect square plan into both a rectangle and a circle. What emerges is a framework that links the grid to embodied knowledge of construction—bridging measurement and movement, inscription and instruction. A construction site ballet. 


Video features a snippet of the 17-minute performance with dancers Rebecca Pappas, Alexx Shilling, and Ella WS

Video by Deborah Garcia