Info

DREAM THE COMBINE is the creative practice of artists and architects Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers.

Partners in work and life, we create site-specific installations exploring metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our known understanding of the world. Our work serves as a critique of what we take for granted and a challenge to the contexts in which they are sited.

We are winners of the 2023 Emerging Voices Award from The Architectural League of New York, the 2022-2023 Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome, the 2022 United States Artists Fellowship in Architecture and Design, the 2021 McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists, the 2020-2021 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize, the 2018 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, the 2018 Art Omi Architecture Residency, and the 2017 FSP/Jerome Foundation Fellowship.

Our work is deeply collaborative, and our studio name speaks to this process. Often working with engineer Clayton Binkley, filmmaker Issac Gale, and a trusted group of fabricators, we investigate the conceptual overlaps in art, architecture, and cultural theory through structures that disrupt assumed dichotomies and manipulate the boundary between real and illusory space. We seek out spaces on the margins in our work.

We have been published widely, including features in Wallpaper, Metropolis, Architectural Record, The New York Times, Dezeen, The Architects Newspaper, Architect Magazine, Archinect, MassContext, and Log.

Jennifer NewsoM, AIA, FAAR, LEED AP, NOMA, NCARB

Jennifer received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale College and her Master of Architecture from Yale University, where she also received the Fermin Ennis Memorial Fellowship and the Anne C.K. Garland award for academic achievement. While at Yale, she organized the two-day symposium Black Boxes: Enigmas of Space and Race held at Yale School of Architecture.

Jennifer is Assistant Professor at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. She was formerly Assistant Professor at University of Minnesota and instructor at Juxtaposition Arts, a youth empowerment and apprenticeship program in North Minneapolis.

Jennifer's research probes the conceptual space between real bodies made of flesh, steel, concrete, glass, etc, and the recognition of these bodies through images. Using race as a provocative impetus for her work, she is concerned with surface perceptions and the structures that support those readings. Prior to founding Dream The Combine, she worked with firms as diverse as Adjaye Associates, Deborah Berke Partners, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, and Cooper Robertson. 

Her writing has been featured in Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, MasContext33: Vigilantism, Metropolis Magazine, Architect Magazine, and Africana: The Encyclopedia of African and African-American Experience.

Tom Carruthers, FAAR

Tom received his Bachelor of Arts in drawing and sculpture from Brown University and his Master of Architecture from Yale University. While at Brown, he received the Gilbert Stuart award for best work in the annual juried show.

Tom's early work consists of site-specific sculptures that explore landscape as metaphor and image as space. For four years, he was lead assistant for artist Ursula von Rydingsvard, helping with the construction of over 20 works, including Ogrommna at the North Carolina Museum of Art and Katul Katul, a 1% for the Arts permanent installation at the Queens Family Courthouse, NY. As a licensed architect, he worked alongside the late Charles Gwathmey and at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, developing early concept proposals with formal strategies that integrate context, complex geometry, and material construction. 

Tom is Assistant Professor of the Practice at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He was formerly co-owner of Jacobsson Carruthers, a metal fabrication studio in NE Minneapolis.

OR Contact Us Directly

Jennifer Newsom: jennifer at dreamthecombine.com

Tom Carruthers: tom at dreamthecombine.com