API Design Directory
We’re working to compile a list of API designers working in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and urban design. The list currently focuses on U.S. based firms. Click here to apply.
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Atelier Cho Thompson
New Haven | San Francisco
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Christina Cho Yoo, Principal | Ming Thompson, Principal
Atelier Cho Thompson is a bicoastal, multidisciplinary design and concept firm, engaged in the art of architecture, interiors, graphics, brand strategy, furniture, installations, and exhibitions. Our expertise and passions transcend the conventional boundaries between these disciplines, resulting in a richness borne of the cross-pollination of ideas and strategies from across this spectrum of design.
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Spiegel Aihara Workshop
San Francisco
Architecture, Landscape ArchitectureContact: Megumi Aihara, Principal
SAW is a transdisciplinary design firm, operating at the nexus of architecture, landscape, and urban design. This mix allows us to work across scales (from the tactile object to the city) and timelines (from the immediate to the ecological) at the onset of a project. We view design as a collaborative, research based process, and work closely with clients to better understand their needs and advance their goals.
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Synthesis Design + Architecture
Los Angeles
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Alvin Huang, Principal
Synthesis Design + Architecture is a progressive design firm with a global profile. We don’t specialize in a particular project typology – but prefer to think of ourselves as specialists in using design as the medium, and technology as the means, for challenging the status quo. As a firm that values provocative questions as much as innovative solutions, we believe firmly in the ability of design to change the world around us.
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Chu-Gooding
Los Angeles
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Annie Chu, Principal
Chu & Gooding is an acclaimed architecture and interiors firm with an emphasis on cultural, arts-related, educational, and institutional projects, recognized for designing distinctive homes and sophisticated spaces. Part of a long lineage of craft, expertise, and experience, we have a deep understanding of the tactile, and we see interiors as a profound, provocative, and essential element of architectural design.
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Soft-Firm
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Lexi Tsien, Partner
Soft-Firm is an interdisciplinary practice and flexible platform off which to expand design hunches into architectural ideas, spaces, and artifacts. Soft-firm is speculative and concrete: taking a playful and lo-fi approach to visual perception, elemental forms, and material contrast. Using design as a tool of activism, Soft-Firm engages collaborative and progressive programs to promote equity in institutions and the architectural practice as a whole.
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Höweler + Yoon
Boston
ArchitectureContact: J. Meejin Yoon, Co-Founder + Managing Partner
Höweler + Yoon is a design-driven architecture practice and creative studio that believes design is an instrument for imagining and implementing change – social, cultural, technological, and environmental. Over the last 18 years, we have built a reputation for work that is formally and technologically innovative, socially engaged, and conceptually rigorous.
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Dash Marshall
Brooklyn | Detroit
Architecture, Interior DesignContacts: Amy Yang, Co-Founder | Ritchie Yao, Co-Founder
Dash thinks that the built environment should serve the individuals, families, organizations, and communities living within. The built environment should help you live, work, and play the way that you want to. It should be designed to fit the needs and quirks of communities. It should be joyous and inspired. We built a multi-disciplinary design studio so that we can work towards this ambition in the most effective way possible, from the design of spaces to strategies, and everything in between.
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Matte Blacke Inc.
Los Angeles
Interior DesignContact: Cliff Fong, Founder
Cliff Fong was born in New York and has had a diverse upbringing, living in many countries around the world. He has been a part of Los Angeles’ fertile design community for two decades as an interior designer, fashion designer and entrepreneur. As an interior designer, Cliff creates unique, personal and often unexpected environments, drawing from various inspirations. His work is largely residential but also includes notable commercial spaces such as Michael Voltaggio’s Ink restaurant.
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wrk-shp
Los Angeles | Tokyo
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Airi Isoda, Co-Founder
We are a multi-disciplinary duo – our interests range from tiny mundane objects to large scale buildings and everything in between. Our clothing line is designed using textiles from Japan and produced in California. Our furniture designs and home products are made by local, highly-skilled crafts-people. Wherever or whatever we are up to, we are constantly thinking of ways to bridge architecture design and everyday things.
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tonychi studio
New York
Interior DesignContact: Tony Chi, Founder
tonychi studio is a team of individuals who work together and work closely with developers, architects, and collaborators to elevate the lived experience of spaces through our expertise in space planning, brand, conceptual and design development. With an avant-garde approach deeply rooted in tradition, our work continuously searches to redefine the way we apprehend design. We use empathy as our point of entry, and give homage to a place, its culture, its people and its patrons.
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OWIU
Los Angeles
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Amanda Gunawan, Founding Principal | Joel Wong, Founding Principal
OWIU, an abbreviation for The Only Way Is Up, is a full-service Architecture and Design office. We approach every project with a strong emphasis on aesthetics and precision of form, coupled with a strong narrative and conviction. Imbued in the practice lies an innovative and progressive mindset that naturally creates a mission to propel design forward given the technological advances of contemporary society.
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MKCA
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Michael K. Chen, Principal
Michael K Chen Architecture is an architecture practice providing innovative and superbly crafted work for clients seeking thoughtful and considered design. We have experience designing and building at a diverse range of scales and bring an ultra-refined sensibility and attention to detail to projects ranging from individual apartments to single family homes and larger buildings. Our approach is deeply informed by curiosity and a love of tinkering, of drawing, of discourse, and of making.
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Jean Liu Design
Dallas
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Jean Liu, Principal
Jean Liu Design, LLC was established in 2007 as a full-service interior design firm, specializing in high-end residential and commercial projects. We are also a group of design aficionados whose talent, experience, and training make us uniquely qualified to work alongside clients, builders, and architects on all aspects of interior design, whether it is new construction, historical renovation, space planning, furniture sourcing, or staging. We pride ourselves on creating modern, edited, comfortable, and inspired spaces, and nothing makes us happier than helping clients translate their vision and lifestyle into a place they can call home.
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Young Huh Interior Design
New York
Interior DesignContact: Young Huh, Founder
Young Huh Interior Design is a full-service design firm specializing in residential and commercial interiors. Resetting the design narrative for each project, YHID’s work is about finding harmony and dynamism through the application of classic and modern design principles. Thoughtful architectural details provide the groundwork for warm and welcoming interiors, each animated by sophisticated surface treatments, a singular play of pattern and color, and a touch of wanderlust.
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nARCHITECTS
Brooklyn
ArchitectureContact: Mimi Hoang, Co-Founder
nARCHITECTS is a Brooklyn-based architectural studio working nationally and internationally on new buildings, transformations, and public spaces. The practice was founded to address contemporary issues in architecture through conceptually driven, socially engaging, and technologically innovative design work. We partner with public agencies, cultural institutions, developers, and private clients to design architecture that aligns with a changing world. nARCHITECTS is a nationally certified WBE and NYS/NYC accredited W/MBE firm.
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MODU
Brooklyn
ArchitectureContact: Phu Hoang, Co-Founding Director
Listen, discover, transform: MODU works in an open design process with our clients, providing clarity with a creative, focused, and collaborative method. We begin each project with careful listening as we learn our client’s perspective. We lead with designs that show a clear appreciation of all stakeholders’ aspirations. We then set out to discover the untapped potential of each project. Good design clarifies complexity, transforming ideas into extraordinary places and experiences. Our team thrives on realizing these futures for our clients, creating measurable value for each project.
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N H D M
New York
ArchitectureContacts: Nahyun Hwang, Principal | David Eugin Moon, Principal
N H D M is an NYC-based minority and woman-owned architecture firm that produces visionary designs and impactful research for buildings, interiors, exhibitions, and urbanism. Each project of N H D M is a unique exploration of the rich complexities of the contemporary built environment, and the firm’s introspective yet projective, and consistently high-quality work is bolstered by the principals’ extensive transdisciplinary experiences as lead designers for major projects in both public/capital and private sectors prior to founding. The firm recently completed award-winning work for the Nam June Paik Art Center, and ongoing work includes a wide range of cultural/institutional, housing, and community space projects, as well as urban design projects and territorial research. N H D M is the recipient of the Architectural Record Design Vanguard Award, the AIANY New Practices New York award, Domus 100+ Best Architects, the American Architecture Prize, and multiple AIANY Design Awards, among others.
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SO - IL
Brooklyn
ArchitectureContact: Jing Liu, Co-Founder
Diverse in origin, our team of collaborators speaks a dozen languages and is informed by global narratives and perspectives. We are both locally-rooted and nationless, coming together as a mid-size, well-recognized company. With our ambitious private and public clients, we explore how the creation of environments and objects inspires lasting positive intellectual and societal engagement. In a digitized world that increasingly draws one inward, our architecture is outward-looking, engendering meaningful dialogue with what is materially and psychologically outside of ourselves.
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Barcelon Jang Architecture
San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Darlene Jang, Principal
Barcelon Jang Architecture is committed to projects that build relationships for people, culture and community in a sustainably built environment. Founded in 1976 by Wayne Barcelon and Darlene Jang, the firm has designed buildings that have been transformative in scale and complexity. Recognized for community design leadership, the firm espouses a collaborative approach, working with neighborhood community groups, non-profit organizations, and local and state regulatory agencies. The team's participation during planning and community engagement at public hearings and workshops expedites public approval of projects from inception to completion.
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IwamotoScott Architecture
San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Lisa Iwamoto, Co-Founder
We create innovative designs at all scales - with work ranging from art installations to interiors to buildings to visionary cities. We rethink the constraints of the everyday to create unique architectural syntheses of program, site and material to make spaces that are functional, distinctive and beautiful. We spend more time on fewer projects to ensure engaging and original results. We have been at the forefront of digital fabrication, design computation and materials for over a decade, and use this experience to contribute fresh ideas for the benefit of all our clients - whether the project is a piece of furniture, house, tech office, mixed-use building, or speculative vision for the future of the city.
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Figure
San Francisco
ArchitectureContacts: James Leng, Co-Founder | Jennifer Ly, Co-Founder
Figure is an architecture collective led by James Leng and Jennifer Ly, based in San Francisco, California. James Leng is a founding partner of Figure, and a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Architecture. Previously, Leng was the Harry der Boghosian Teaching Fellow at Syracuse University, and has received various accolades such as the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for immigrant contribution to the arts, the SOM Foundation Research Prize for independent research, and the James Templeton Kelley Prize for best graduate thesis. Jennifer Ly, RA, is a founding partner of Figure, and a licensed architect in California. She holds her master’s in architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and bachelor’s of art in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Kurisu LLC
Portland, Oregon
Landscape ArchitectureContact: Hoichi Kurisu, President and Founder
An exclusively design-build firm, Kurisu has been creating exceptional landscapes nationally and internationally since 1972. Our work is based on the conviction that nature heals, and that in today’s world, communion with nature is more critical than ever to human wellbeing. Kurisu’s designs are based on the Japanese garden’s centuries of wisdom about sensory and cognitive experience of space, and nature’s inherent energies. At the heart of these designs are the concepts of ma, or emptiness, and ki-sei, flow. Every element – from the shape of a waterfall to the careful placement of stepping stones – is specifically designed to cultivate awareness, humility and quiet contemplation.
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Shin Shin
Los Angeles | Detroit
ArchitectureContacts: Melissa Shin, Co-Founder | Amanda Shin, Co-Founder
Shin Shin Architecture is a female and minority owned architecture and design firm, co-founded by sisters Melissa and Amanda Shin. We provide a full-service architectural experience for residential, commercial, and cultural projects of all scales and are fully licensed and insured in the States of California and Michigan. Shin Shin was named Best New Firm in the West (2021) by the Architect’s Newspaper and has been featured in Dwell, the Los Angeles Times, and various other publications.
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Alda Ly Architecture
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Alda Ly, Founder and Principal
ALA is a recognized thought leader in biophilic design and has been featured nationally and internationally in publications such as Metropolis, Contract, Interior Design, etc. The New York-based studio’s long list of clients includes Bloomberg, Rent the Runway, ThirdLove, functional medicine provider Parsley Health, the retail platform Bulletin, and social-action technology firm Blue State Digital. While ALA’s projects range from those with multi-million dollar construction budgets to start-ups building their very first headquarters, they all share ALA’s minimalist and playful design vocabulary, and seamlessly combine comfort, wellness, smart planning and fresh interior design concepts.
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Min Design
San Francisco
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: E.B. Min, Founder and Principal
Min Design is built on a foundation of architecture, landscape and art. We create objects, spaces and environments that bring pleasure and delight into architecture. E.B. Min leads Min Design. An honors graduate of Brown University with dual concentrations in Art History and Studio Art, she began her architectural studies as a cross-registered student at Rhode Island School of Design. She received her Master of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and she is a licensed architect in California. E.B.’s experience in the landscape architecture office of Delaney and Cochran nurtured her interest in the integration of landscapes and buildings. E.B. has taught at U.C. Berkeley and is an Adjunct Professor in the Architecture Program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
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Food New York
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Dong-Ping Wong, Founding Director
Food designs environments, like a bathhouse carved from a hedge, a pool that cleans the river, and a health center for a post-COVID city. Food New York is an environmental design studio. Clients and collaborators include The Office of PlayLab, Friends of + POOL, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Virgil Abloh and Off-White, Arup, 2x4, Axel Vervoordt, MoMA, the New Museum, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, Milk Studios, Palm Heights, The Standard Hotel, Nike, Adidas, Yeezy, Fool’s Gold, Need Supply and Hypebeast. The MBE studio is directed by Dong-Ping Wong, with Cass Nakashima, Bella Janssens, Ryan Fierro, Daniel Kendra, Ashely Kuo, Tong Zhou, Katty Cybulski and Oluwabunmi Fayiga.
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Agency-Agency
Brooklyn
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Tei Carpenter, Founder
Agency—Agency is an award-winning New York City-based architecture and design studio directed by Tei Carpenter. The practice seeks out an expanded role for architecture by engaging buildings, objects, interiors, infrastructures, speculations, and environments. The studio’s recently completed work includes a new non-profit headquarters in downtown Houston and an installation commissioned by BMW Mini for the A/D/O Water Futures research and design program. Agency—Agency’s work has been exhibited at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Center for Architecture and the Venice Biennale. In 2018, Agency—Agency was honored as one of the New Practices New York by the American Institute of Architects.
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Leong Leong
New York | Los Angeles
ArchitectureContacts: Christopher Leong, Founding Partner | Dominic Leong, Founding Partner
Leong Leong is a minority-owned architecture firm and creative agency that uses the power of design to advance visionary social agendas within the built environment for institutions, cultural enterprises, and forward-thinking clients. Founded in 2009 in New York, Leong Leong works globally and at many scales including buildings, interiors, exhibitions, and furniture. As both architects and creative thought partners, we synthesize vision, design, and execution to generate projects with cultural resonance for diverse clientele. The studio has been the recipient of the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices Award, the AIA New York New Practices Award, and has been recognized as a Design Vanguard by Architectural Record.
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Kwong Von Glinow
Chicago
ArchitectureContact: Lap Chi Kwong, Principal
Kwong Von Glinow Design Office is an award-winning architecture practice based in Chicago founded on the belief that architecture is meant to be enjoyed. The practice builds the thoroughly enjoyable from the slightly familiar. Their work translates forward-looking architectural concepts into playful designs with broad appeal. Taking an optimistic and explorative approach, KVG focuses on creating innovative living environments, places for cultural engagement, urban public space, and contemporary workspaces.
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Homework
San Francisco
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Susan Work, Principal
HOMEWORK is an architectural design shop in San Francisco that offers creative and thoughtful solutions for your environment whether residential or commercial. We offer a range of services for any project scope— from architecture, planning, documentation, interior design, selection of finishes and furnishings, decoration, and styling. Trained in New York City, the WORK portfolio spans a range of projects from multi-family residential buildings, products, private homes, custom furniture and textiles, and luxury interiors for commercial, retail, and hospitality brands.
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Catherine Kwong Design
San Francisco
Interior DesignContact: Catherine Kwong, Principal
From San Francisco to Napa Valley, to Hawaii and beyond, we specialize in designing high-end residential interiors, with a focus on modern architecture and custom furniture and detailing. We believe that a commercial space can still feel like a home - albeit one without all of that pesky laundry to do. We bring an elevated aesthetic and a healthy dose of fun to all of our hospitality projects. Whether it's organizing a big launch event or styling an intimate family photo shoot, we are happy to step in to take care of all the details for you. Life should be celebrated, and we're here to help.
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Mandy Cheng Design
Los Angeles
Interior DesignContact: Mandy Cheng, Studio Principal and Owner
Mandy Cheng Design is a full-service design firm exclusively specializing in ground-up builds, full home renovations, and full home decorating projects. Our firm creates beautifully curated and livable spaces, and each project is uniquely designed to fit the client’s aesthetic and utilitarian needs. Mandy Cheng, recently debuted in Architectural Digest's 2022 AD 100 list, has transitioned her set design experience into a career as one of the most sought-after interior designers in Los Angeles. Cheng has designed homes, retail stores, and offices from California to New York to Florida.
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ARA-la Studio
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Aejie Rhyu, Principal
ARA-la Studio seeks to approach architecture and design with an open mind and across multiple scales. We like ideas and stories, details and the way things come together, and spaces that engage all the senses. We look to the past and to the future for inspiration. We are interested in idiosyncratic uses of space and things, unexpected connections, and organic discoveries. We think design should be simple, but that it should have a personality and always a point of view. Aejie Rhyu is an architect and designer based in Los Angeles, California. Her professional experience includes renovations and new construction, with projects spanning custom furniture design, to small-scale residential and hospitality design, to large-scale cultural, institutional, and commercial developments. She has had lead roles in design as well as in managing teams, in all phases of the process from concept to construction.
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Ibañez Kim
Architecture
Contact: Simon Kim, Principal
IBAÑEZ KIM is a genre-defiant design practice that works with sensate materials, atmospheres, sound, and new media to generate architecture, objects, and cities. The founding principals Mariana Ibañez and Simon Kim produce designs of high and low systems, cultures, and durations. Their teaching positions at UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania allow them to test and experiment with concepts and materials that produce innovation and value in their professional work. They have produced designs for institutions such as the MoMA, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Smithsonian, Opera Philadelphia, and for exceptional clients looking for the next normal.
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EYRC Architects
Los Angeles | San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Takashi Yanai, Principal | Patricia Rhee, Principal
Honored with the AIA National Firm Award in 2015, Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (formerly Ehrlich Architects) is a versatile practice that has earned an international reputation for design excellence and an exemplary professional culture. Founded in 1979, the Los Angeles and San Francisco-based firm is a 45 member team that has mastered building types ranging in scale from houses to courthouses, including libraries, university centers, corporate and government facilities. EYRC Architects has been recognized with more than 150 awards including nine national AIA awards, and the title of AIA California Council Firm of the Year in 2003.
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EC3
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Edwin Chan, Founder
EC3 is a Los Angeles-based architecture and design office founded by Edwin Chan, the veteran design partner of world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. The firm draws from Edwin Chan’s extensive experience in delivering arts and cultural buildings to inform the design and execution of projects in all scales, from urban design and mixed-use buildings, to exhibition designs and sculptural commissions. Since its inception in 2012, the cross-disciplinary design practice has developed a diverse portfolio with a roster of international clients in California and across the US, as well as in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. EC3’s design approach prioritizes tactile timeless experience to abstract theoretical trends; and aims to balance creativity with feasibility from concept to execution.
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JFAK Architects
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Alice Kimm, Principal
Through an inquisitive design process that mines the complexities of our heterogeneous society, John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK) creates distinct and joyful formal landscapes that encourage creative interaction, sustain the environment, and catalyze positive change for their communities. The firm employs a diverse range of tools, including skillful distribution of natural light; experimentation with materiality, color, and texture; celebration of transparency and visual relationships, repurposing of common symbols in new ways; and always, the restless exploration of form and space to create environments that people return to over and over again, even if they don’t quite know what it is that draws them.
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Bureau Spectacular
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Jimenez Lai, Founder
Bureau Spectacular imagines other worlds and engages design through telling stories. Beautiful stories about character development, relationships, curiosities and attitudes; absurd stories about impossible realities that invite enticing possibilities. The stories conflate design, representation, theory, criticism, history and taste into cartoon pages. These cartoon narratives swerve into the physical world through architectural installations, designed objects, interiors, and the edifice. Bureau Spectacular is a group of individuals who engage culture through the contemplation of art, architectural theory, history, politics, sociology, linguistics, mathematics, graphic design, technology, and graphic novels. We often find ourselves at the crossroads of all disciplines, yet comfortably embracing the healthy intersections between the many human discourses.
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ALLTHATISSOLID
Kuala Lumpur | Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Alex Chew, Founding Partner | Max Kuo, Founding Partner
ALLTHATISSOLID is a friendship, a body of work, and a set of evolving ideas built on the founding belief that architecture must challenge society and technology to envision new worlds. Engaging in a wide variety of building types, the studio leads with design, seeking unique possibilities within each project. With backgrounds in architecture, art, interior design, academia, and commercial development, ALLTHATISSOLID is deeply committed to cross-disciplinary collaborations, finding pleasure in new discoveries and experiences.
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Verse Design
Shanghai | Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Xie GuangYong, Founding Partner | Dai Lie, Founding Partner
Verse Design is an integrated real estate development service team with unique aesthetics and planning and planning integration capabilities. The company is jointly established by professional architects and planners from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, North America and Europe, etc., and has rich experience and good reputation in many regions and cities at home and abroad. Jianyan Architecture takes real estate project planning as the leader, and is engaged in urban design, urban planning, architectural design, and research. its outstanding advantage lies in the space design that is guided by urban investigation and rational analysis, taking into account the humanistic spirit and architectural art.
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LAB+
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Andrew Liang, Founder
LAB+ Architects is a Los Angeles based full-service architecture and design office. We are passionate about the creative process and offer a full range of professional services to guide a client’s project from ideation and planning through construction. All projects have different project forces, needs and parameters, and we tailor fit our services to every project. Recognizing that even with the most attentive and accountable professional services, the true measure of success is the project’s ability to contribute to the betterment of the built environment comprised of the personal, social, cultural, environmental and functional conditions that shape our daily lives. At LAB+ Architects, we bring an insatiable appetite for ideation, conceptualization, and crafting poetically uplifting and materially rich designs from inception to the last technical detail. We actively resist the expediencies and temptations of trends in favor of strategic and timeless solutions that can best position our client’s investment, objectives and work/lifestyle well into the future.
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Formation Association
Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: John K Chan, Founder
Formation Association practices architecture as an expansive cultural enterprise emerging from investigation and reflection to transform our expectations of the built environment. From a purview of broad-ranging interests, the practice excavates history, engages the contemporary moment, and collaborates with clients, communities, and interdisciplinary partners to promote a variegated design approach. Endeavoring to discover multivalent outcomes for projects of every scale, Formation Association pursues the studied synthesis of the social and the material and their ongoing interplay across architecture, urbanism, and broader ecologies. Formation Association’s projects have been published by Phaidon to Architect Magazine, and featured in online design journals such as Dezeen, Designboom, Fast Company, and Divisare. The firm’s collaborations with artists have been presented in museums and cultural institutions both locally and internationally, from the Hammer Museum and the Orange County Museums of Art, to the MIT List Visual Art Center and the Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris.
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Spinagu
Rosario | Los Angeles
ArchitectureContact: Jia Yi Gu, Co-Director
Spinagu is a culturally-engaged architecure and design studio with offices in Los Angeles and Rosario. Our work takes the form of buildings, objects, exhibitions, and texts. Spinagu designs thoughtful architecture that elevates the everyday while speculating on contemporary ideas and processes. Through research and experimentation, our approach foregrounds materials, forms, and technical craft while exploring the link between ideas, aesthetics, and values. We are currently working on, thinking, about, and writing about the uses of color in houses, self-initiated development models, and the role of institutions in architecture. Maxi Spina is currently Design Faculty at SCI-Arc and AIA International Associate. He was previously a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and a Maybeck Fellow at UC Berkeley; Lecturer at CCA and Associate Professor at Woodbury. Jia Yi Gu is an architectural designer, curator, and historian whose work is focused on media-based practices and exhibition-making in architecture. She is curator and director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Her research is focused on the production of models in postwar architectural practices.
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Farzana Gandhi Design Studio
New York
ArchitectureContact: Farzana Gandhi, Founder
Farzana Gandhi Design Studio is a NYC based architecture and urban planning practice that pushes innovation with a focus on sustainable and socially conscious solutions, both locally and abroad. Concepts are developed through the careful study of cultural, economic, and environmental implications. The firm embraces an integrative and collaborative approach to design. Clients and communities are invited to engage throughout the design process in order to meet specific needs ranging in scale from small: product design and temporary installations to large: architecture and urban design. We believe in giving back. Current projects include grant-based humanitarian work and pro bono efforts. Innovative solutions have resulted in a patent for a new roofing system and new models for rural tech education outreach. Full services are provided from pre-design and schematic design through to construction. Experience includes design and construction of various institutional, commercial, residential, and community/public projects. We also work in product design, furniture design, graphic design, and exhibition / installation design. Extensive experience also in community participatory design practices, community visioning services, masterplanning and urban design, climate resiliency reports, and advocacy documents.
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Worrell Yeung
Brooklyn
ArchitectureContact: Jejon Yeung, Co-Founder
Worrell Yeung is an architecture and design studio based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2014 by Max Worrell and Jejon Yeung, our practice synthesizes complex systems and needs into clear conceptual solutions that are precise and considered. Working across several scales and typologies—from adaptive reuse and public space to ground-up residential and cultural—we approach every project as an opportunity to create work that is adaptable to the present climate, focused on function, and enduring. We approach conceptualization and construction with equal importance, making work that appears simple and unembellished but is rooted in a rigorous and innovative design and analysis process—from concept to realization. At its core, our work embodies a concise, poetic pragmatism that encourages discovery and wonder at multiple scales. We strive to create architecture that makes life better for people and positively transforms the experiences of its users and the wider community.
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Frederick Tang Architecture
Brooklyn
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Frederick Tang, Principal
Frederick Tang Architecture is a boutique architecture and design practice based in the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The ten-person studio provides a full array of architectural and design services from early programming and conceptualization through architectural and interior design, permitting, bidding, and construction phase services. The holistic practice completes the package with custom offerings in branding, graphic, product, and experience design. Rather than approach each project with a particular style we prefer to emphasize experimentation, curiosity, and collaboration throughout our process. The studio designs largely in physical models, full-scale mock-ups, material samples, hand sketching, as well as digital renderings. We trust that an iterative process produces more refined and unexpected solutions because space can tell a story. Our work spans many typologies and scales including public spaces such as retail stores, restaurants, art galleries, and fitness centers, as well as private spaces like townhouses, apartments, and offices.
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Schaum/Shieh Architects
Houston | New York
ArchitectureContact: Rosalyne Shieh, Co-Founder
SCHAUM/SHIEH is a small architectural collaboration operating between Houston, TX and New York City. Rosalyne Shieh and Troy Schaum established SCHAUM/SHIEH in 2009 around overlapping interests in art, form, and the city, and have developed a dialogue through projects ranging from buildings and installations to speculative projects and unsolicited urban plans. The practice has a particular interest in the city at the scale of the building, both as a site of theoretical experimentation and as a reality that may be transformed through building. We work at a range of scales, with completed and current projects in Detroit, New York, Marfa, Houston, and Virginia. SCHAUM/SHIEH was a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, a winner of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA, and named one of the 2019 Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York. Our work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, the Storefront For Art and Architecture, and the Center For Architecture in New York.
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Obata Noblin
San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Max Obata, Co-Founder
Formed as a partnership in 2019 and based in San Francisco, OBATA NOBLIN OFFICE is a full-service architecture and design firm. We believe that design is an act of optimism and that architecture should heighten our shared human experience by strengthening where people live, work and interact. We specialize in uncovering the exceptional in the everyday through shrewd manipulation of material, space, and light and an astute attention to detail. We employ an iterative design method that encourages the evolution of ideas and uncovers hidden opportunities. Our process is site and client specific and is driven by a collaborative approach that welcomes the unexpected. ONO is fully registered to work as an Architect in California.
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Mobile Office Architects
Anacortes | Seattle | Brooklyn | Santa Barbara
ArchitectureContact: Alan E. Ho, Principal Architect
Mobile Office Architects (MOA) is an architecture and design-build firm founded by Dustin Stephens and Alan E. Ho. MOA practices as a design collaborative that links architects, designers, builders, craftsman, and artists. This model enables us to draw from a diverse set of skills, perspectives, and talents to suit each project. MOA founded MOA-Build with Jim Casey and Sam Parish for the building and construction operations of our projects. MOA-Build empowers us to better serve our clients and intensify our pursuit of integrating design and construction. This allows for a hands-on delivery approach to each project. SMALL PROJECT STUDIO is an intensive 10-day design-build Architectural Association (AA London) Visiting School programme based in the rural community of Guemes Island, Washington State, USA, that explores and tests new models of housing, nomadic structures, and direct design-build output processes.
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Temple Simpson Studio
New York
ArchitectureContact: Temple Simpson, Founder
At Temple Simpson Studio, we place design excellence above all. We believe that quality design requires attention to detail, emanates thoughtfulness, is rigorous and appropriate to its use, and celebrates craft. This philosophy informs everything we do, resulting in structures that exist harmoniously with their environments rather than dominate over them. Created by merging the art of architecture with the science of building, our work expresses a sense of simplicity that can only be the product of this integration, not one of style or omission. We hold interdisciplinary teamwork and collaboration between talented designers, engineers, consultants, and craftspeople high above individual expression or divine inspiration. In other words, our process is more akin to the creation of a symphony than a sculpture. We tend to limit the amount of work we take on to ensure that our projects are realized in this way.
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SsD 에스에스디
New York | Seoul
ArchitectureContact: Jinhee Park 박진희, Principal
SsD 에스에스디 is an architecture firm that approaches design as a convergent, interdisciplinary venture that aspires to bridge the utopian and the pragmatic. Instead of separating aspects of architecture, urbanism, landscape, history, social systems, and codes into their constituent disciplines, these essential design ingredients are simultaneously explored so that minimum form gains maximum effect. In this way sustainability emerges as an integrated rather than additive result. Along with being published in major media such as Metropolis Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Architectural Record, The New Yorker, and PBS, SsD has received many prestigious design awards including the AIA Young Architects Award, the Emerging Voices Award and the Young Architects Forum Award by the Architectural League of NY, an Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Award, the Metropolis Next Generation Prize, and fourteen AIA awards. SsD is a certified Minority and Woman owned business.
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I-Kanda Architects
Charlestown
ArchitectureContact: Isamu Kanda, Founder
I-Kanda Architects is an award-winning architectural design practice that creates buildings and spaces that are modern, yet enduring – equal parts purpose and sculpture. The firm’s built work broadly ranges from mountain-side cabins to boutique storefronts, adaptive re-use barn conversions to penthouse gut-renovations. Each project is approached as a new array of needs and desires out of which to craft uniquely enhanced environments that enrich both the immediate and long-term experiences of individuals. The firm aims to turn constraints into possibilities - to work collaboratively with clients, builders and contexts to realize ideas that far exceed initial hopes. Since its inception, the Boston based firm’s work has graced the covers of Boston Home Magazine and Boston Globe Magazine, and been published in Dwell, Dezeen, AN Interior and Azure. The firm has been awarded the AIA Design Honor Award by the Boston chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Architizer A+Award, the AN Best of Design Award, the Best of Boston Home Award for Urban Architect, and was selected as "Next Progressives" by Architect Magazine.
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The Open Workshop
Toronto | San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Neeraj Bhatia, Founding Principal
The Open Workshop is a multidisciplinary design workshop focused on critically re-examining the concept of an open work, first posited by Umberto Eco in 1962. With expertise ranging from architecture to urban design, The Open Workshop uses a multidisciplinary approach to provide innovative, project-specific design solutions. Recognized for its design-research, the office has a record of complex projects that engage multiple systems and stakeholders. The office has garnered recognition through international competitions, exhibitions, and publications that focus on how design-research can renegotiate the relationship between architecture and its environment. The firm’s approach relies on transcalar design techniques that find opportunities to holistically integrate environmental, political, economic and social factors. The Open Workshop is a licensed architectural practice in the State of California, USA and the Province of Ontario, Canada (OAA).
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General Architecture Collaborative
Architecture
Contact: Yutaka Sho, Principal and Co-Founder | Zaneta Hong, Partner and Principal
GAC creates inclusive and thoughtfully designed architectural spaces in East Africa that help sustain businesses, communities, and the environment. Collaboration and community-centered spaces are made possible through the interplay of exceptional design, superior and sustainable construction, and dynamic research and development. Every design involves collaboration with community, an essential strategy to make certain users feel ownership over the project, whilst actively seeking to reduce environmental impact. With 12 years of research and 7 years of construction experience in Rwanda, GAC ensures that the inclusive design process is translated into beautiful spaces. GA Collaborative is a group of designers, artists, educators, and researchers dedicated to helping those with little or no access to design. We work with great people, partners, artisans, and collaborators on projects that have an intelligent and sustained impact. At the core of what we do is a belief in the importance of research, craft, and innovation in the design process and the value of sharing of that knowledge and experience with others.
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AND Architecture + Planning
San Francisco
ArchitectureContact: Steve Suzuki, Principal
AND Architecture + Community Planning utilizes its expertise in architecture design, planning and engagement services to support and enhance community-based nonprofits, lower-income, and underserved communities by starting with the neighborhood and organizational priorities and needs first. All projects begin with a process that engages those who are involved or affected by the project or issue as co-designers. We advocate and educate for spatial equality that supports justice and human dignity. AND was founded in 1973 by a group of Architecture Students from UC Berkeley who wanted to use their design talents with the goal of improving living conditions in San Francisco’s and Oakland’s Chinatown. They began their work by volunteering and making design improvements to living and communal spaces within low-income Asian neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Over the years, AND expanded its services to low-income multiethnic communities throughout the greater Bay Area based on the belief that communities deserve to live in a socially, economically, and environmentally healthy community.
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Studio O+A
San Francisco
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Primo Orpilla, Co-Founder and Principal
We design experiences. We made our name rethinking the impact workplace has on work, but today our reach extends beyond the physical environment. Our central idea is that every client has a story and that a work environment is a great vehicle for telling it. When doing our initial programming on a project, we get all the basics - headcounts, distances, and adjacencies - but we also want to know how this company got rolling, who the people are, and what they like to do. We think of this process as good design, and we apply it to every service we offer: commercial interiors, branding, environmental graphics, tenant improvements, and design consulting. We’re excited about what’s happening in the design world - and thrilled to be a part of setting the agenda.
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J.Jih
Boston
ArchitectureContact: J.Jih, Founder
J. Jih is a multidisciplinary design practice founded by J. Roc Jih in Boston, specializing in architecture that pushes at the boundaries of perception. J. is currently a Lecturer in architectural design at MIT. They attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating with a Masters of Architecture in 2012, and was awarded the Faculty Design Award for Design Excellence. They also hold a B.A in Architectural Studies and Sculpture from Brown University, Magna cum Laude, with Honors, and studied for a year at the Architectural Association in London. J. has worked for multiple award-winning architecture firms, including Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Howeler+Yoon Architecture, and IwamotoScott. They have experience as a designer, builder, digital fabrication specialist, web designer, sculptor, and metalsmith, and work on projects ranging from furniture/product design and graphic design to architectural design and masterplanning.
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Rangr Studio
New York | Berkeley
ArchitectureContact: Jasmit Singh Rangr, Founder
Jasmit Singh Rangr grew up on the coasts of India, and in the UK, and has lived in the US since attending Yale University for college and for graduate school. In these different climates and geographies he developed a deep sensitivity to the interaction between climate, landscape, and architecture. In 2004 Jasmit founded Rangr Studio, a design firm committed to creating architecture in harmony with its landscape, climate and the environment. The firm has designed and built architecture across the United States and internationally, including the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica and India. Jasmit has dedicated his work to the continued investigation of the relationship between building and site. Each project simultaneously seeks integration with the site's ecology, whether urban or rural, and a poetic experience of its location: a view over a pool seamless with the ocean; a screen porch that hangs over air among tree branches; oak leaves blazing gold through a clerestory at sunset; a city apartment and roof deck from which one sees moving columns of light on asphalt in the rain.
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Michael Hsu Office of Architecture
Austin | Houston
ArchitectureContact: Michael Hsu, Founder
Michael Hsu Office of Architecture believes that design is for everyone. We design with empathy and to elicit emotion. We design for optimism. We re-imagine materials to create memorable experiences. We believe in the active collaboration of designer, client, and artisan. Our work connects us with nature and manifests a sense of wellbeing. We design spaces that engage our local, regional, and global communities. The studio was founded in 2005 in Austin to unite people through design. We are a nationally award-winning, fully integrated architecture and interior design practice. Our work is rooted in hospitality and includes a range of project types such as large mixed-use developments, adaptive reuse projects, public realm design, architectural branding, single family homes, hotels, restaurants, workspaces, and bespoke furniture design.
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eightvillage
Atlanta
Architecture, Urban DesignContact: Pavan Iyer, Founder
eightvillage is a design and development firm that brings together facets of architecture, urban design, ecology, and education to collaborate and help foster a sense of place. We use our technical skillset as designers to supplement our empathetic process. Our practice is focused on creating place-based ecologies, and we seek to have a positive impact in communities and the environment through architecture, urban design, sustainability and community development.
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Hye-Young Chung Architecture
Los Angeles
Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape ArchitectureContact: Hye-Young Chung, Principal
HYCArch is a full-service architecture and design firm led by Hye-Young Chung. As a multidisciplinary practice, we consider all aspects of design through the lenses of innovation, aesthetics, and constructability. We specialize in residential, cultural, and commercial interiors and buildings. We believe successful projects are delivered through collaborative efforts, and champion effective and efficient communication with the client and all team members to achieve a common goal. We are an affirmative practice that welcomes all and seeks out opportunities to engage society and culture.
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Kodama Diseno Architects
Oakland
ArchitectureContact: Steven Kodama, Principal
Kodama Diseño has served communities of color negatively impacted by economic disinvestment, zoning isolation, housing need and access to healthcare for over forty years. We have focused exclusively on providing architectural services to non-profits and community-based organizations providing affordable housing for the aged, disabled, unhoused and families. Kodama Diseño has successfully designed over 380 unique and innovative projects and close to 30,000 units of housing developed through a meaningful community design process, representing the thoughts and aspirations of our constituencies.
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JAAX
Los Angeles | New York
Architecture, Interior Design, Urban DesignContact: Jinsa Yoon, Founder
We are architects, designers and researchers in Los Angeles & New York. We strive to design beautiful spaces that comfort, encourage and intrigue the users- spaces that reflect the client’s visions and respond to their historical and physical contexts. Stories we want to tell are not confined to a specific scale or typology. We work locally and internationally, and have collaborative partners in our hometowns as well as in Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo.
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Supermass Studio
New York
Landscape ArchitectureContact: Taewook Cha, Founding Principal
Supermass Studio is a full-service landscape architecture practice based in New York City with its roots grounded in landscape, urbanism and ecology. Our mission is to provide innovative and imaginative solutions of super-massive impacts to our cities. Our practice is guided by as much pragmatism as it is by creativity and innovation. Particular attention is always given to project schedule, budget and constructability, in order to achieve and realize the highest levels of design excellence and performance.
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Tumu Studio
Boulder | Chicago
Architecture, Interior Design, Urban DesignContact: Huili Feng, Co-Founder
Tumu Studio is an architectural and interior design firm specializing in custom residential and boutique commercial design. We work with people who seek to enrich their lives in spaces that embody their purpose, spirit and vision. Our core value is authenticity, integrity, and originality.
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HyperBina Design Group
Boston | Shanghai
Architecture, Urban DesignContact: Bing Wang, Founder
HyperBina Design Group, a subsidiary of HyperBina Incorporated, is a full-service design firm with offices located in the US and China. Commissions encompass projects of architecture design, urban planning, urban design, design research and design strategies. It is a research-based design practice, advocating and developing quality architecture and environments – natural, productive, social, and cultural – that inspire and connect us with humanity and community. HyperBina Design Group leverages its global experience, design creativity, professional expertise and access to worldwide capital markets. It supports clients by understanding their needs, applying multi-disciplinary approaches with a focus on design creativity and detail-oriented execution.
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Ink Landscape Architects, PLLC
Scarsdale
Landscape ArchitectureContact: Sandra Nam Cioffi, Founding Principal
Ink Landscape Architects, PLLC is an MWBE firm founded by Sandra Nam Cioffi, whose portfolio of work is defined by the art of craft, deep cultural research, regional ecology, and elevating the human experience in the built environment. After working on world class projects for great firms, and a marketing career in the beauty industry, Sandra launched INK to push the boundaries of landscape architecture and redefine how we approach the art of convening people through sustainable design.
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Blue Truck Studio
San Francisco, CA
ArchitectureContact: Peter Liang, Founder
Blue Truck Studio is a daring and driven architecture practice founded in 2003 by Peter Liang on the values of collaboration, craft, and sustainability. Specializing in residential work and small retail ventures, the firm approaches each project with a dedication to minimalist forms, thoughtful details, and elegant design solutions
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Future Projects
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContacts: Khoi Nguyen, Founding Partner | Julie Tran, Founding Partner
Future Projects is an architecture and interior design firm founded by Julie Tran and Khoi Nguyen that is dedicated to exploring the richness of human experience and creating spaces that are genuinely personal, socially engaging, and finely crafted. Committed to the idea that design can enrich our inner lives and connect us to the outside world in profound ways, Future Projects does not adhere to any particular style but rather our design process is guided by an interest in aesthetic experiences that offer new ways of living, working and connecting with one another.
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Office of Things
New York
Architecture, Interior Design, Urban DesignContact: Can Vu Bui, Principal
Office of Things is a collaborative architecture and design studio, exploring the construction and transformation of the built environment. We focus on heightening the value and sensitivity of the human experience at all scales.
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Modellus Novus
New York
Architecture, Interior DesignContact: Preeti Sriratana, Founding Partner
MN is an architecture firm creating spaces that shape and define culture. Our New York City-based team is led by individuals united not only by our diverse backgrounds and perspectives but an optimistic commitment to designing spaces for the many. MN seeks to redefine access to exceptional design. From the most public cultural institutions to private homes, our work prioritizes the experience of all users of a space. These excellent experiences are driven by precise, pragmatic and daring decisions — regardless of project size or type. Diverse perspectives are pivotal to our work, and we partner with clients who share our belief that great design should not be elusive nor exclusive. For us, architecture is a collaborative effort between those who create and those who experience. We design for where those moments meet.
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Hou de Sousa
New York
ArchitectureContact: Nancy Hou, Founding Partner
Hou de Sousa is a New York based multi-disciplinary studio that promotes innovative and environmentally responsible design solutions. In addition to large scale art installations and sculptures, their team has built a variety of hospitality, residential, and public projects both domestically and abroad.
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Reddymade
New York
Architecture, InteriorsContact: Suchi Reddy, Founding Principal
Reddymade Architecture and Design creates award-winning spaces, places, and experiences that amplify human engagement, potential, and wellbeing. The firm’s practice in architecture, and interior design spans all typologies and scales, from commercial to healthcare projects, single-family residential to multi-family work, and adaptive reuse to new construction. Through public art, Reddymade engages wide audiences in the wonder of our collective human experience.
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Peti Lau Design
New York | Los Angeles Interiors
Contact: Peti Lau, Founder
Peti Lau is an acclaimed International Interior Designer with a magnetic personality, and sought-after connoisseur for her eccentric touches and diverse tastes. Peti specializes in high-end residential and commercial designs, and is known for her bold eccentric modern touches, as well as artful and timeless interiors.