Our projects are guided by identity
and culture, reflecting the narrative for which they’re designed. Conscious of architecture’s potential to
communicate, from a way of living to
a company’s image, our work aspires to provide the setting that expresses the
idea. Settling in Los Angeles after
living in Europe and traveling extensively, our experience gives us a distinct
perspective on building and site. It is
a view that combines an elemental approach to architecture and an open
relationship toward the environment. As
our practice evolves, this perspective increasingly defines our work.
Our
projects start with a dialogue about program and
purpose, and progress toward their own identity. At every scale, from furniture and interiors to architecture and urban planning, our architecture responds to fundamentals – space, light
and materiality. We design from the
inside out, in response to a project’s specific conditions and constraints. Views, light, proportion, orientation and materiality guide us to
shape and organize volume. Context and
terrain; movement through space; and thresholds of variable permeability are
consistent themes.
Collaboration and research across
disciplines, and across time and culture, is essential to our work. As the craft of building has become
increasingly complex, participating in teams of diverse experts challenges us
to find solutions that seamlessly integrate complexity. This dialogue is supplemented by our own
research. We see history and the world
as an illustrated guide to inventive design solutions that are ready for
translation. We find inspiration in
everything from canonical architecture to indigenous dwellings and applied
arts.
Working from Los Angeles, where landscape and site often permeate
buildings, we believe that architecture can be landscape-generative rather than
landscape displacing. Our work, built
and un-built, shows that architecture has the potential to coexist with the
organic environment rather than consume it.
Beyond merely visual concepts, many of our proposals establish
narratives for new ways of living, and illustrate the potential for a
transformed experience.