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Daphne Binder

Assistant Professor Adjunct

Daphne Binder is a registered architect and co-founder of Space ODT, an M/WBE certified architecture and urban design firm based in NYC. At their firm, Daphne and her partner Theodore Kofman have gained experience working with, and designing for, specific communities and businesses. Their recently completed projects include the New York Headache Center, a medical center treating adults and children with chronic headaches, and Howl! Arts/Howl! Archive (HA/HA) gallery, a headquarters for the art organization in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In addition to her design work, Daphne also engages with research and advocacy she’s passionate about—resiliency and health in urban and rural environments. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Daphne and her firm led the Open Streets Elmhurst initiative at Design Advocates, and she received an AIA New York Presidential Citation for her work with the AIA New York Unified Task Force.
 
Before founding Space ODT, Daphne had practiced with various firms in Boston and New York with a focus on national and international institutional and commercial work. Her independent design and research work has been exhibited in various venues, including the Center for Architecture in NYC and the A+D Museum in LA. She is the author of Minus 400 and Over 40 Degrees: Architecture in the Dead Sea 1948-1971, with Theodore Kofman (Intellect Bristol, UK, ‘20), Unmaking a Destination: Unpacking New England’s Tourist Town, (issuu.com, 2017), and was the editor of Common Wealth with Edward Mitchell (Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, CT.). Daphne is a graduate of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union and Yale University School of Architecture where she received her Bachelor and Master of Architecture, respectively. She has received multiple awards in recognition of her academic work, including the Irma Giustino Weiss Prize for Creative Achievement for her thesis Circumnavigating the Dead Sea, the AIA Henry Adams Medal, The Alpha Rho Chi Medal and the Lotos Foundation Prize in Arts and Sciences. Daphne has taught at Northeastern University and at Pratt Institute, and is currently teaching at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

Daphne's CV is available here. 
 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.