Matthew Akira Okazaki (b. Oakland, California) is an artist, designer, and educator based out of Boston, Massachusetts.

His research and creative work centers around a practice of “making do.” Through the selection of sites, materials, stories, and construction techniques, Okazaki attempts to embrace the ordinary and readily available in our built environment to find, uncover, and construct new meanings and modes of understanding in our everyday lives. P rivileging tactics over strategies, his work explores ideas of authorship, memory, heritage, and identity in the hopes of amplifying stories less told.

Okazaki is founder of the architecture practice Field Office LLC, and a principal at Architecture for Public Benefit, a benefit corporation providing design services for mission-driven organizations in the Greater Boston area. He holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with commendation and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from UCLA. Prior to starting his own practice, Okazaki worked at the offices of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Envelope A+D, MKThink, and Morphosis.

He is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, and has previously taught at Tufts University, Brandeis University, and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.


okazaki@northeastern.edu