Hilary Sample is an American architect, principal, and co-founder of the award-winning architecture firm MOS Architects in New York City. [1]
Hilary Sample is an American architect, principal, and co-founder of the award-winning architecture firm MOS Architects in New York City. [1]
Sample received a Master of Architecture with distinction from Princeton University (2003) and a Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University (1994).
With partner Michael Meredith (architect), Sample founded MOS Architects in 2003. [2] The New York-based firm is a small architectural practice that works on a range of projects that interconnect architectural practice, academia, and the arts through playful experimentation and inventive material usage. MOS’s work spans buildings, exhibitions, installations, furniture, objects, software, video and publications, and is characterized by a critical reflection on architecture itself, often addressing questions of architectural representation, scale, domesticity, and use.
MOS has designed and curated exhibitions for a variety of art- and architecture-based work, such as The Other Architect at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (2015) [3] , 44 Low-resolution Houses (2018) [4] and Building with Writing (2025) [5] at Princeton University, and A Garden of… at Marta Gallery (2025) [6] . The practice has also collaborated with artists such as Tony Cokes, Pierre Huyghe, Rachel Rose (artist), and Tobias Putrih. Meredith and Sample have been invited to display their work in galleries and institutions across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the Museum of Modern Art (2012) [7] , the Chicago Architecture Biennial [8] , and the Venice Architecture Biennale on multiple occasions. Their works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
The firm’s built works primarily includes single-family housing, collective housing, artist studios, and cultural and educational projects. Notable projects include four studio buildings for the Krabbesholm Højskole campus in Denmark, the Museum of Outdoor Arts Element House visitor center in Colorado, Studio No. 3 and House No. 10 in New York, the Floating House on Lake Huron, and the Lali Gurans Orphanage and Learning Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. Their work has also engaged social housing, beginning with their Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream exhibition at the MoMA and continuing through projects such as Laboratorio de Vivienda and Barrio Chacarita Alta Housing.
Sample is the associate professor at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. [9] Prior to joining Columbia University, Sample taught at Yale University, University at Buffalo, where she was awarded the Reyner Banham Teaching Fellowship, and the University of Toronto. In 2015, Sample and Meredith served as the Fitzhugh Scott MasterCrit Chairs in Design Excellence at UW Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning [10]
Sample was a visiting scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Her writings have been published in Harvard Design Magazine, Log, Praxis, and Metropolis. Her research focuses on the intersection of architecture, health, environments, technology, and design.
Publishing forms a significant component of MOS’s work. The firm produces books that document projects and exhibitions and present research-based and speculative work related to architecture, housing, public space, and pedagogy. Selected publications include:
MOS Architects has received numerous awards and recognitions, including:
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