Preston Scott Cohen is widely known for his innovative ideas about the relationship between architecture and geometry. He uses diagonal projections and similar devices to distort familiar forms, proposing complex designs that challenge our preconceptions about the nature of order in architecture.

After earning degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cohen established his design firm in Boston in 1989. He has designed projects in a wide variety of scales — creating everything from modest domestic and commercial interiors to cultural institutions.

When Cohen adopted computer-aided design in the early 1990s, his work moved from “inventions” — intricate, hand-drawn geometric projections that remarkably foreshadowed computer models — to projects with multiple layers that aim to solve construction problems. This approach is evident in Wu House, Cohen’s design for a residence on a 185-acre site in Burson, California, in which intersecting geometries relate the house’s interior to its surroundings.

Cohen’s more recent projects include the Goodman House (2004), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2009), and the Robbins Elementary School (2008).