AD–WO

AD—WO is an art and architecture practice directed by Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood.

The practice examines ideas of measurement and animism. Rooted in Black studies and conceptual art, AD—WO designs installations, exhibitions, buildings, and public spaces. Their research-driven practice utilizes critical visual devices to contribute to public discourse and expansive conceptualizations of urbanism as the choreography of everyday life.

Founded in 2018, AD—WO has created independent art works and installations including: 100 Links, made in collaboration with the Buell Center, an immersive installation of Gunter’s chains at the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennale that examined how earth was measured and divided during the colonization of North America; Ghebbi, a presentation of walled territories in Ethiopia comprised of corrugated metal, bamboo and blue tarp thresholds, as well as two custom large-scale tapestries at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale; and Immeasurability, which considered Blackness in the quotidian spaces of Atlanta and the ocean floor of the Atlantic as part of the group show Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America at the Museum of Modern Art. Their most recent work, Ancestral Ecologies, created in collaboration with artist Olalekan Jeyifous is a site-specific environmental installation currently on view at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

AD-WO has collaborated with multiple curatorial departments to design exhibitions that respond to diverse mediums, from Tom Lloyd’s electronically programmed light works, exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem to the architectural ephemera of Amaza Lee Meredith’s practice at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University to African metalworks at the Bard Graduate Center in New York.

Their portfolio of completed architectural works includes art spaces and civic projects, from a film venue in Brooklyn, New York to a public pavilion in Columbus, Indiana. Their current projects take on increasingly complex typologies and scales, including the renovation of the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, to a mid-rise apartment tower in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and a three acre, mixed-use urban design and architecture project involving the conversion of a grain terminal in Portland, Oregon. 

AD—WO has received numerous awards including United States Artists (USA) Fellowship in Architecture & Design, J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize (Exhibit Columbus), The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award, and the Pinpoint Award from African Futures Institute (AFI). Works by AD—WO are included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Jen Wood (b. 1984, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia)
Is a founding partner of AD—WO and a licensed Architect in the state of New York. She has nearly two decades of experience working for leading architecture practices in Melbourne and New York. Wood received her Bachelor and Master of Architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and a Master in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University.

Emanuel Admassu (b. 1983, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
Is founding partner of AD—WO and assistant professor at Columbia University GSAPP. His work addresses spatial justice and African urbanism. He is currently working on a book titled Animist Urbanisms that articulates the vibrant relations between animist cultural practices and contemporary urban systems in Atlanta, Addis Ababa, and Dar es Salaam. Admassu completed his Bachelor of Architecture at Southern Polytechnic State University, followed by a Master in Advanced Architectural Design and Advanced Architectural Research at Columbia University.

Current Team: David Zhang, André Santos, Miang Patanakijpaibul