Jacob Chartoff is an architect and partner at MAS Studio. He began his career over twenty years ago after receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Upon graduation, Jacob worked at a small firm in Boston, learning on the job, and contributing to the design of multiple private residences, a few synagogues, and a couple of Modern Cape Cod vacation homes. In 2003, he relocated to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) for Graduate School where in his final year of the Master of Architecture program, he teamed up with Iker for a Campus Master Plan Independent Studio. They have continued to collaborate off and on ever since.
After graduating from UIC, Jacob joined Landon Bone Baker Architects (now LBBA) and developed the initial design for the AIA Chicago Distinguished Building Award-winning Rosa Parks Apartments. In 2007, while working for the Architect-led Design Build firm GLUCK+, Jacob served as the onsite assistant construction manager overseeing the construction of a 27,000-SF modern single-family home on the North Shore of Lake Michigan.
In 2008, Jacob joined Wheeler Kearns Architects, where he spent several years working on a variety of residential, educational, and institutional projects, until relocating to New York City and rejoining GLUCK+. While there, Jacob was the Project Architect for one of the first prefabricated steel and concrete multi-unit residential buildings in New York City. Comprised of fifty-six modules that were fabricated off site in rural Pennsylvania, the seven-story, twenty-eight unit building was delivered and erected over the course of a few weeks. The Stack won numerous awards and appeared in multiple publications, including Dwell, Domus, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
After returning to Chicago, Jacob joined Columbia College Chicago as the Campus Architect and Director of Campus Planning and Construction. Over the next four years he designed, managed, and administered over a hundred projects of various sizes and complexity including learning environments, performance spaces, and administrative offices. In 2013, he was one of the founding members of the Wabash Arts Corridor, a living urban canvas for street art and murals. Following his tenure at Columbia College, Jacob was an Associate Principal at Civic Projects Architecture where he focused his attention on residential projects, project management, and mentoring emerging professional staff.
In 2021, Jacob joined Julie to co-lead the Interiors Studio at SOM where he served as Associate Principal and the Interiors Technical Design Lead. Jacob was responsible for management of project documentation, technical design guidance, materials research, full construction administration services, and team management, training, and professional development. Key projects included a 40,000-SF agile workspace for John Deere’s Global IT group in Chicago’s Fulton Market, and the full interior renovation of Vanderbilt University’s Kirkland Hall for the Offices of the Chancellor in Nashville.
