Matt Berman believes passionately in the transformative power of good design. A founding principal at New York design and architecture firm Workshop/APD, Berman considers the built environment a player and protagonist in its inhabitants’ lives, with the ability to create a mood and catalyze more meaningful interactions and experiences.

Since the firm’s inception in 1999, he has encouraged clients to demand more of their spaces, creating modern hotels, restaurants, high-end homes, luxury residential developments, institutional projects, and design products that engage the senses and invite inquiry at every scale. Today, he leads Workshop/APD’s hospitality vertical, setting the scene for an ever-changing cast of characters with spaces that are interactive, engaging, and intrinsically tied to their unique locations, as well as a thriving product practice that includes the firm’s Workshop Collection brand.

Berman’s passion for perfectly imperfect materials and finishes worked by hand, machine, or mother nature imbues his work with a timeless, tactile quality and informs the firm’s product development practice. He is known for pursuing technological advances in construction, fabrication, and materials to solve complex design challenges in groundbreaking projects, such as Building 92 in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard and 1 Hotel Nashville.

A formative stint at ANY Magazine made Berman acutely aware of the implications of design at every scale, propelling him from architectural journalism to a career in architecture and design. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lehigh University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, and has served as a visiting professor at Pratt Institute. He is a member of the Design Leadership Network leadership board, and the Hospitality Design editorial advisory board.

Along with Bernard Tschumi, he co-edited Index Architecture (MIT Press, 2003), and hosted the original television series What the Window Washer Saw, about the world’s most iconic skyscrapers. Berman co-authored Workshop/APD Homes: Architecture, Interiors and the Spaces Between (Rizzoli, Fall ’22) along with Workshop/APD cofounder Andrew Kotchen and writer Marc Kristal. He resides in New York City and Asbury Park, NJ with his husband, Jim; their son, Owen; and their bulldog, Watson.