Your studio offers architecture, as well as interior and furniture design, how has this shaped your business?
Offering interior and furniture design to our clients is something that happened naturally and seamlessly for us. As an architect who loves experimenting with materials and spending years hand-building sculptural furniture, the lines between architecture, interiors and furniture were always blurry. We never drew a line in the sand between these services and made the simple decision to work continuously on every detail until a project’s completion.
Your team thrives in both high-end residential and commercial design. Does one area of design inform the other?
Architecture is about people so the primary driver in commercial and residential design remains the same – to enhance people’s experience. Whether designing a “listening room” in the home of an avid record collector, or the “tasting room” of a new brewery, I find that the verbs attached to each space – meditating, exercising, dining, reading, studying, working, learning, gathering etc. – are the critical, defining elements as these point toward a person’s interaction with the space.
How do you use natural light as inspiration for your projects?
We think of “light” as the space we inhabit, architecture as the “mass” we build to create this inhabitable void – our architecture is an exercise in removal of mass, or carving out of space rather than an additive process. Light becomes an essential part of the experience in all our projects: its effect on the space and how it harmonizes with changes in sound, air movement, color, materials and textures is the art and science we work toward each day.
Tell us about the relationship between architecture, landscape, interior and furniture design.
From the moment you site the home to the moment you sit in it, each decision builds upon the previous and these thousands of details reverberate simultaneously once engaging with a space. The myriad of decisions are felt in the relationship between landscape, architecture and interiors which is so intrinsic that you immediately feel it if any of these has not been considered with the same values in mind.
How does your focus on diverse views allow spatial and material poetry to emerge?
I have been fortunate to live and experience a wide variety of places, cultures and building traditions. We are now lucky to have projects all over the world, from the Pacific Northwest to New York City and from Mexico to France and Haiti – the diversity of these places inspires our projects; the poetry emerges from the crossing of local tradition, building science and the narrative that is woven into each project and is inspired by our clients.
How has your experience working internationally impacted your view on design?
In France, where I am from, there is a specificity to “place”, whether in the countryside or mountains that respond to the local style and environment and inspired our practice to look beyond a specific style – our work is informed by materials, climates, scale, landscapes, ways of living, history and light. Searching for contemporary solutions informed by this idea of “place” and context is what continues to drive our vision.
Do you have a dream project?
My dream is to work in a huge landscape, where the architecture is barely visible and fully deferential to it.
Outside of design what interests you?
I spend all my free time with my boys, drawing, rock climbing or listening to music.
