Born in1970 in La Jolla, California, Tom Wiscombe is an architectural designer based in Los Angeles. In 1999, he founded EMERGENT, an organization dedicated to architectural design and research.

Tom Wiscombe was Senior Designer and Project Partner at Coop Himmelb(l)au for over 10 years, right-hand to Principal Wolf Prix. He was in charge of various internationally reknowned projects, including the Dresden UFA Cinema Palace, the Lyon Musees Confluences, and the Akron Art Museum. Most notably, Wiscombe was Senior Designer for BMW World, Munich, which has been hailed as one of the most important buildings of the 21st century.

Educated at UCLA (M. Arch. I) and UC Berkeley (B.A. Arch.), Wiscombe has taught design and technology at SCI_Arc, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was the Esherick Chair of Architecture at UCB for 2005. He is currently teaching in the X-Program (M. Arch II) at SCI-Arc, and is Innovation Fellow at the Technical University of Sydney. Wiscombe lectures widely, most recently at The Bartlett, Cornell University, Rice University and Yale.

Wiscombe began his career as an intern at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in the atmospheric science department, where his father is Chief Scientist.