Troy Schaum

Troy Schaum is an Associate Professor at the Rice School of Architecture where he has taught since he was the 2008-2010 Wortham Fellow. He is also a partner in SCHAUM/SHIEH based in Houston and New York City. His design and research interests focus on new possibilities for form, representation, and politics in the post-megalopolitan city.

Schaum is the Director of the Totalization Studio program at Rice Architecture. He is also the editor of Totalization: Speculative Practice in Architectural Education (Park Books, 2019) whose contributors explore the status of expertise in the formulation of contemporary practice. 

SCHAUM/SHIEH has a particular interest in the city at the scale of the building, both as a site of theoretical experimentation and as a reality that may be transformed through building. This work unfolds at a range of scales, with completed projects in Detroit, New York, Houston, and Virginia. Recent and ongoing work includes a masterplan for the Judd Foundation and a restoration of the Chamberlain Building for the Chinati Foundation, both in Marfa, Texas, the headquarters for an arts institution in Houston, and proposals for a residential tower on Park Avenue in New York City. SCHAUM/SHIEH was a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, named one of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA, awarded as one of the Architectural League’s 2019 Emerging Voices, and named to the Domus list of 50 Best Architecture Firms 2020. Schaum’s built work has received several AIA design awards. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, the Storefront For Art and Architecture, Harvard GSD, Yale SOA, University of New Mexico, and the Center For Architecture in New York and published in many journals including Architect’s Newspaper, Texas Architect, Dezeen, Domus, Architect and Architectural Record.  

Previous to founding SCHAUM/SHIEH, Schaum worked as an architect at OMA, Studio Daniel Libeskind, LTL Architects, and Jim Jennings Architecture. Schaum is NCARB certified and licensed in New York, California, and Texas.