OFTN is a multidisciplinary design and planning practice specializing in civic architecture and infrastructure. We work in close collaboration with clients and partners to plan, design, and build public environments that are resilient and inspiring.

We believe the best way to prepare for the future is to design it. In a world of rapid change, the spaces we share matter more than ever. Our three founders each bring over 20 years of experience and recognized early that the best civic spaces require a fusion of technical expertise and design rigor. Today, our agile, multidisciplinary team works across all project phases - from early visioning to implementation - to create future-facing solutions that improve our cities for generations to come.

Office for the Next Environment is a certified SDVOB (Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Business) nationally, in New York State and Virginia, and for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

A consistent theme through these varied design and planning projects is our thorough interrogation of the spatial implications of technical and policy-based proposals, whether the potential changes to the urban fabric come from implementing large-scale infrastructure (e.g., flood protection), systemic transformations (e.g., transit modalities), or regulatory evolutions (e.g., zoning). With this uniquely flexible skill-set, our designers have helped drive the urban design of numerous high-profile projects, including New York City’s nearly completed East Side Coastal Resiliency effort, the Financial District and Seaport Masterplan, and the Brooklyn Marine Terminal redevelopment. OFTN additionally has had the honor to be the Architect of Record for the City’s first two major resiliency projects to be implemented, ESCR and BMCR, as well as for Lower Manhattan’s new Interceptor Gate Buildings, the first such structures to be built in New York.

We are currently designing detailed resiliency improvements for Bellevue Hospital's historic campus as part of East Midtown Coastal Resiliency and collaborating with the Battery Park City Authority to implement the Progressive Design-Build of their North/West Resilience Project. OFTN is the architect of multiple resilient buildings for DEP utilities within dense urban sites and is currently working with SUNY and the PANYNJ to retrofit and modernize several of their operational assets.