Oz Fishman

Oz Fishman is a designer, urbanist, and researcher in the SMArchS Urbanism program at MIT Architecture. His research includes the development of human-in-the-loop design systems that use computer vision and vision–language models to support participatory, micro-scale urban interventions, as well as territorial projects that examine how infrastructure, ecology, and social life are metabolically entangled. His current thesis research focuses on the Bordo Poniente landfill in the former Lake Texcoco basin examines a site where a mass of refuse larger than the Vatican functions simultaneously as infrastructure, ecology, and social archive. 

Before MIT, Oz was a lecturer and research lead at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, where he worked with teams of students, researchers, municipalities, and public agencies to develop and deploy urban design methodologies grounded in existing social and spatial conditions. He co-authored the "New Urban Field" toolkit with Prof. Els Verbakel as part of the Israel100 initiative. In May 2023, he coordinated Urbanism in the Expanded Field, an international conference on urbanism and urbanization, with over 400 participants from 15 countries, in partnership with UN-Habitat. 

In professional practice, Oz worked as an urban designer at HQ Architects, contributing to citywide masterplans, urban renewal frameworks, and mixed-income housing projects. His work spanned urban policy, landscape integration, and infrastructural coordination, including regeneration projects aligned with major transit investments and large-scale renewal efforts in dense and socially complex cities.

At MIT, Oz has been actively engaged in building academic and institutional platforms that link research, pedagogy, and practice. He helped coordinate Intersecciones Energéticas, an international symposium on energy transition and urban decarbonization, in collaboration with the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism and the UNAM Faculty of Architecture in Mexico City. 

Earlier, Oz worked with the Joint Distribution Committee on institutional strategy and innovation, integrating technological and design approaches into social service frameworks, and in Buenos Aires on vocational training and youth leadership programs across Latin America. At Schusterman Family Philanthropies, he designed and led immersive journeys through Israel and the Palestinian territories, engaging participants with the region’s complex and conflicting territorial and social realities.

Oz holds a BA in Economics from The George Washington University and a Master of Urban Design from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.