I/O architects started in 2004 as a long-distance collaboration between Sofia and Tokyo when Viara Jeliazkova and Georgi Katov developed their first projects. Their work manifests an ambition to combine local experience with external perspective. The design process is marked by sensitivity to the specific context of local landscape, city and society. Reaction varies from admiration to an ironic awareness of the existing inconsistencies. Formal expression is adequately controlled avoiding the risks of transition aesthetics.