:a design-obsessed architecture office which has built projects at a wide range of scales: from furniture design for dogs up to the scale of concert halls, port terminals, and office towers.
Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture is an internationally recognized architecture office and design atelier. Since its founding in 1986 by principals Jesse Reiser (FAIA, FAAR) and Nanako Umemoto, the firm has remained at the forefront of contemporary architectural design through its built and speculative projects, critical writings, workshops, lectures, teaching, and mentorship.
In 2010, the firm was awarded first prize for the Taipei Music Center and the Kaohsiung Port Terminal in Taiwan, both of which began construction in 2013. The Taipei Music Center was completed in 2021, and the Kaohsiung Port Terminal is expected to be completed in 2022. O-14, a 22-story exoskeletal office tower in Dubai, was completed in 2012 and has since received numerous international honors, including an AIA Design Award, the Concrete Industry Board’s 2009 Award of Merit, the American Council of Engineering Companies’ 2009 Diamond Award, and the 10 Year Award of Excellence by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
In 2006, Reiser+Umemoto published the Atlas of Novel Tectonics, widely recognized as an essential work of contemporary architectural theory. The firm’s first comprehensive monograph, Projects and Their Consequences, was published in 2019, tracing thirty years of innovative, multidisciplinary investigations of form, structure, technique, and planning.
Awards and honors include the Chrysler Award for Excellence in Design, the Academy Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Citation and John Hejduk Award from the Cooper Union, and the USA Booth Fellowship from United States Artists for Architecture & Design.
Principals:
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Jesse Reiser AIA FAAR is a registered architect in New York and a principal of RUR Architecture DPC. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union in New York, and completed his Masters of Architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He was a fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1985, and he trained in the offices of John Hejduk and Aldo Rossi prior to forming Reiser + Umemoto with Nanako Umemoto. Jesse is a Professor of Architecture at Princeton University and has previously taught at various schools in the US and Asia, including Columbia University, Yale University, Ohio State University, Hong Kong University, and has lectured widely at various educational and cultural institutions throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He is also an honorary fellow at the University of Tokyo’s School of Engineering.
Nanako Umemoto is a principal of RUR Architecture DPC. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Cooper Union in New York in 1983, following studies at the School of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at the Osaka University of Art. Nanako has taught at various schools in the US, Europe and Asia, including Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, EPFL in Lausanne Switzerland, Hong Kong University, Kyoto University, and the Cooper Union, and she has lectured widely at various educational and cultural institutions throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. She is a Professor of Practice at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Debora K. Reiser is a principal of RUR Architecture DPC. Over a career spanning seven decades, she has completed hundreds of residential and commercial projects, in addition to dozens of designs for furniture and rugs. Among the first women to graduate from the Pratt Institute with a B.Arch in 1948, she worked for over two decades in the office of architects George Nemeny and Abraham Geller prior to forming her own practice in 1972.
Through years of mentoring younger architects—including principals Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto—Debora has had an outsized impact on contemporary architecture, having trained influential practitioners Laurie Hawkinson, Hani Rashid, Yama Karim, Jason Payne, and many others. Her work has been published in numerous books and periodicals, including Interiors Magazine, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens and The New York Times Magazine.
Contact us
For employment inquiries, please email your resume, cover letter, portfolio, and three references as a single PDF (max size 10MB) to rur@reiser-umemoto.com, with the subject line “Application for Employment.” Due to a high volume of applications, we can only respond to select candidates.