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Lately, an interesting pattern is emerging. Many projects that linger in memory do not come from sprawling international offices but from studios that may have never been heard of before within popular architectural circles. Teams that are small enough to fit around a single table are producing work that resonates far beyond their footprint. This raises an intriguing question. Has architectural influence become disconnected from office size?
The answer is not that large firms have become less important. If anything, the opposite is true. Big firms are able to tackle today’s most complex projects — infrastructure, healthcare, social housing and so forth — by having the capacity to coordinate enormous teams coupled with their extensive technical expertise and undertake an array of impactful projects. Still, it seems that influence is no longer measured solely by scale. A sensitive retrofit or community project can spark as much conversation as a large skyscraper.
But perhaps the profession has not become smaller; it has become more distributed. Nowadays, visibility does not belong exclusively to big offices. Through an array of online publications, awards and digital platforms, firms can effectively disseminate their work with remarkable ease, making their portfolio accessible globally, regardless of their size.
Four-Roof Pavilion by Found Projects, Shenzhen, China
Found Projects, for example, which was the Jury Winner for this year’s Best X-Small Firm award, is an architecture studio located in Los Angeles that works across public spaces, cultural interiors, residential projects, landscape interventions and small civic structures in the US and China. Their Four-Roof Pavilion project demonstrates how a thoughtful intervention can transform a public site — in this case, acting as a second gateway for Pingshan Children’s Park in Shenzhen.
More broadly, their highly crafted architecture work explores and ultimately responds to each site with immense precision, fostering a wider conversation on scale, space, and culture. A decade or two ago, a project like this might have remained known only within its local context. Today, award platforms and digital publications allow such work to circulate globally, introducing a shift where small studios are now much easier to discover.
Blue Court by Found Projects, Ningbo, China
In parallel, some of architecture’s most influential ideas arrive disguised as modest commissions. A project does not have to be a large-scale intervention, spanning hundreds of square meters: it could simply be a house, a shop, a pavilion, etc. These are the types of briefs that are often assigned to smaller studios. Albeit small, these commissions provide an ideal testing ground for exploring spatial ideas or material and construction techniques, because they involve fewer stakeholders and can remain largely open-ended.
Saen Studio’s projects, for instance, go beyond the aesthetics of space. Being the Popular Choice winner for this year’s Best X-Small Firm award, they showcased how they view their work as an open dialogue between architecture, culture, and context. Rather than “playing it safe,” they test out processes that may lead to new innovative solutions through a series of residential and commercial projects. Therefore, operating in a smaller canvas potentially acts as a gateway to innovation that many smaller firms have “the luxury” of enjoying, since ultimately, fewer compromises lead to a clearer translation of ideas into built form.
JDA House by Saen Studio, Tijuana, Mexico
Speaking of architectural innovation, it used to be the case where experimentation came hand in hand with large groups of employees, advanced technological infrastructure and big budgets. Take, for example, firms like Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid, which have dedicated segments within the company that are devoted solely to architectural research.
Yet with the advancement of AI tools as well as a current preference for local sensitivity, innovation has become significantly decentralized. In other words, these conditions have allowed smaller firms to engage with more complex briefs that would potentially require more manpower than they could provide five years ago. At the same time, many of these practices possess a deep understanding of their local context, making them particularly well-positioned to address regional challenges through architecture.
Nikos Koulis flagship by bureau de change, Athens, Greece
This year’s Jury Winner for Best Small Firms, for example, builds its work from a close reading of place. Oscillating between Athens and London, bureau de change creates architecture in both small and larger scales. The Nikos Koulis flagship jewelry store is an intimate renovation within the Athenian city center, sensitively responding to local materials.
On the other hand, their project, Trace, is a deep retrofit residential development that reimagines a four-story 1980s brick building, utilizing principles such as circular economy, particularly by developing a new site-specific, glass-reinforced concrete (GRC) composite for the project’s façade, using materials harvested from the original building. The work proves how a relatively small practice can influence conversations around adaptive reuse and urban design that go far beyond the number of buildings they produce.
Trace by bureau de change, London, United Kingdom
Architecture has always relied on different forms of leadership. Some practices introduce new ideas; others prove those ideas can operate at scale – making firms of all sizes necessary for the profession’s future. What appears to be changing is not who matters, but how influence is distributed. Today, the next influential project might emerge from a global firm with hundreds of employees or from a studio small enough to gather around a single table.
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Featured Image: Four-Roof Pavilion by Found Projects, Shenzhen, China
