ODA is a New York architecture practice founded by Eran Chen in 2007 and based at 99 Hudson Street in Manhattan, with additional studios in Buenos Aires and London. The firm is known for residential and mixed-use buildings that push massing and shared outdoor space, and for adaptive reuse of significant older structures. ODA was architect of record for architecture and interiors on the $313 million Book Tower restoration in Detroit, working alongside historic preservation architect Kraemer Design Group on the seven-year revival of the 1926, 38-story Louis Kamper tower. The project reopened in June 2023 with 229 apartments, a 117-key hotel, event space and seven food and beverage concepts.
ODA organises its work into four practice areas rather than one. The studio’s own project index counts 57 architecture commissions, 29 interiors, 20 landscape projects and 6 in urban design, and each of those disciplines has its own director inside the office, which is why interior and landscape scopes tend to stay in house on an ODA building.
Recent work runs well past Manhattan. In Buenos Aires the studio turned a defunct parking garage into a mixed-use, class A office building planted heavily enough that ODA describes it as flush with greenery. In Rotterdam it renovated the former Postkantoor, the city’s old central post office. Four Seasons and Extell Development have announced a luxury resort and private residences at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah with ODA on the design, and closer to the office, 62 Reade Street converted a Tribeca clock factory into a family home. An urban plan in Chicago is also on the books.
Eran Chen AIA founded the practice in 2007 and completed more than 50 buildings in a little over a decade. He teaches as an adjunct professor at both Columbia University and New York University, collected his writing on density and vertical urban living in ODA’s book Unboxing New York, and the firm has since published a second monograph with Rizzoli. ODA was named to Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2025.
Day-to-day the studio is run by principals Dongyoung Kim as director of operations, Michael Unsicker AIA as project director and Ryoko Okada as interior project director, with technical directors, a director of landscape and a set of project directors under them. Every job gets a named project director rather than a rotating team lead.
Three studios take enquiries: 99 Hudson Street, Second Floor, New York NY 10013; CABA in Buenos Aires; and Scott House, Suite 1, The Concourse, Waterloo Station, London SE1 7LY. New business goes to newbusiness@oda-architecture.com, employment to jobs@oda-architecture.com.
