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Soft-Firm’s “awareness that a project’s uses and users will change over time…is a thread running through the firm’s body of work and leads it to design with flexibility in mind, giving users the space to “self-determine” their built environment,” writes Michelle Duncan in Metropolis’ profile of the interdisciplinary design practice. Their “approach amounts to using design as a tool for activism,” says Duncan. Soft-Firm’s co-founder Lexi Tsien adds, “we’re really interested in the social aspect of how architecture can empower different communities.” Click here to read more. Photo by Michael Vahrenwald.

CO Adaptive’s Mercury Store, a timber adaptive reuse theater project is featured in Bloomberg’s CityLab series. CO Adaptive “reimagined the material at the heart of the structure: heavy timber,” writes Aaron Clark. “Part of the project’s value is to show how older timber-framed commercial buildings can be updated for contemporary use.” Click here to read the full article. Photos by Naho Kubota / Illustration: Stephanie Davidson.

This by That client Formation Association, working together with artists Anna Sew Hoy and Zhu Jia; and This by That client Studio J.Jih, in collaboration with Figure; are each among the six finalist teams selected for the Los Angeles Memorial to the Victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre design competition. The finalists were announced earlier this month by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument. You can read more about the memorial in The Architect’s Newspaper and the Los Angeles Times. Image Penjing by Figure x Image Penjing by Figure x Studio J.Jih / Courtesy City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Madame Architect interviews Soft-Firm’s co-founders Lexi Tsien and Talitha Liu on the freedom in practice, community, models of care and staying grounded. Liu tells writer Julia Gamolina: “I think our core mission is to empower constituents — both individuals and groups — to take ownership of their spaces. In our ideal world our projects support multiple different groups over the day, seasons, years. We love coming back to our projects and seeing them take on a life of their own.” Read the full interview here. Portrait by Mary Kang.

Spiegel Aihara Workshop's Gardens Over Denny's is featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine's January 2023 print issue. ⁠”A playful allusion to the diner that remains an anchor of this Silicon Valley block— [Gardens Over Denny's] was an opportunity to let the landscape lead the identity of each dimension of this mixed-income, multifamily housing development in Sunnyvale, California.” Pick up a copy of Landscape Architecture Magazine's January 2023 print issue for an original sketch of the project in the magazine's Backstory section! Drawing courtesy SAW as featured in Landscape Design Architecture Magazine.

Centered Home designed by aanda + HYCArch is featured in Architectural Record's January 2023 print issue’s Kitchen and Bath supplement. ⁠ ⁠“Thinking inside the box needn’t be boring, as demonstrated by a home renovation and expansion in Los Angeles for a semiretired couple and their beloved cat,” writes Sheila Kim. Informed by a balance of meditative solitude and exuberant communal living, the home is designed as a series of nested conditions organized concentrically: an interior “cube,” within a mediating shell of space for communal activities, within the perimeter of landscape. Pick up a print copy of Architectural Record’s January issue or click here to see more of the home’s features. Photo by Brandon Shigeta.

Worrell Yeung Architecture's renovation and redesign of a five-story cast-iron building in SoHo, into the home of Canal Projects–a new arts organization dedicated to supporting forward thinking international artists at pivotal moments in their careers, is featured in Surface Magazine and Frame. Photo by Naho Kubota. Exhibition on view: "Pray", work by Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic.⁠

Located in upstate New York, North Salem Farm designed by Worrell Yeung, “offers a new take to the region’s agrarian vernacular for the 21st century”, writes Ellie Stathaki in Wallpaper*. ‘The house is at once simple and complex,’ say’s practice partner and co-founder Jejon Yeung…'The gabled forms are familiar but also multi-layered in the way they engage the site, engage with each other, creating spaces that reframe the site and the experience both inside and out.' Click here to read more about how Worrell Yeung united the three structures on the property and used design to harmoniously integrate them within the landscape. Photo by Naho Kubota.

“As architectural education seeks to reform, can Wright’s unusual school provide a blueprint for the future?” A great question writer Riyl Pitel poses in ICON’s profile of The School of Architecture. TSOA’s dean Stephanie Lin says of the school, “Notably it was called a fellowship…a collective of individuals working and doing everything together. It’s both part of the school’s history but also the future of education in my mind.” Read more about how “the school’s inclusive approach is already gaining it a progressive reputation” by picking up a print copy of ICON’s Autumn 2022 print issue. Photo of kite-flying workshop at TSOA led by SFMOMA Associate Curator Joseph Becker, and featuring aerocene tetra kite by Tomás Saraceno, Courtesy TSOA

CO Adaptive is profiled in Metropolis’ November/December 2022 print issue. Writes Matthew Marani: “adaptive reuse is the surest means of sequestering embodied carbon while limiting the carbon-intensive manufacturing associated with the building trades. CO Adaptive Architecture…places these concerns front and center with a growing body of work that playfully reimagines historic structures while incorporating low-energy Passive House design.” To read more pick up a print issue or click here to read online. Image: Mercury Store, photo by Naho Kubota.

Congratulations to our clients who are among the honorees in The Architect’s Newspaper’s 2022 Best of Design Awards. For AN’s 2022 Best in Show Award, Davidson Rafailidis won in the Adaptive Reuse category and Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW) won in the Unbuilt—Conceptual category. Alda Ly Architecture (ALA) and Frederick Tang Architecture (FTA) received AN’s Best of Design Honorable Mentions: ALA in the Interior—Healthcare category and FTA in the Interior—Hospitality category. SCHAUM/SHIEH received AN’s editors’ pick in the Restoration and Preservation category. Image: Davidson Rafailidis’ Continual Construction, photo by Florian Holzherr.

Architensions’ The Playground drawing series, depicting their recently completed installation for Coachella 2022, is now on view at a83 gallery in New York, as part of the exhibition Architectural Drawings: Parallel Rules, until January 20, 2023. To read more about the exhibition check on these articles in Dwell & AN. Photo courtesy a83.

Monocle recently visited The School of Architecture (TSOA) to observe its ethos of "learning by doing". Writes Gregory Scruggs: “TSOA’s emphasis on design and build is key to its graduates’ competitive advantage and, despite being inspired by the tradition of Wright and Soleri, could be an influence on design education more broadly in the coming years.” Read more about TSOA’s in Monocle here. Joseph Becker Workshop, photo courtesy TSOA.

Spiegel Aihara Workshop’s (SAW) landscape design for a new mixed-income multifamily housing development in Sunnyvale, CA, the heart of Silicon Valley, is featured in The Architect’s Newspaper’s Oct/Nov print issue. Lauren Gallow of AN writes, “the hearty, hardworking landscape helps weave the project into its context, with terraced gardens connecting the public facing streetscape to a private interior courtyard. Gallow continues, “SAW choreographed the plantings to balance visual interest with the need for low-maintenance, low-water landscape.” The project is playfully referred to as “Gardens Over Denny’s”, in reference to the beloved Denny’s restaurant that had long existed on the site, and through community endorsement, returned to become the development’s anchor tenant. ⁠Pick up a copy of AN’s Oct/Nov print issue or click here to read more. Photo courtesy SAW.

Frederick Tang Architecture’s transformation of the top floor of a 12-story, 1901 mercantile building in SoHo is featured in Design Hunter Mexico. The project turned the space into a light-filled, color-driven home for MOXI, an acupuncture and wellness studio. Throughout, organic materials like light woods, stones, and ceramics complement a color scheme of cypress green, copper, terra cotta, and peach, all chosen for their calming effects. The project marks FTA’s first work in the health and wellness space. Photo by Gieves Anderson.

Frederick Tang Architecture’s design for artist Adam Pendleton’s Clinton Hill studio is featured in Architectural Digest’s December 2022 print issue. The renovation transforms two former storefronts in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York into a tailor-made studio for Pendleton. Writes Kat Herriman, "Through invitingly tall glass gallery doors, shipped from Italy, they [Pendleton and Tang] carved out a series of discrete private chambers—Pendleton’s first purpose-built painting studio, library, and office—as well as a 13-foot-high white box viewing room. On the building’s brick façade they added a band of raked black stucco that calls to mind the textural surfaces of Pendleton’s paintings." Click here to peek inside the studio and read the full article online. Photo by Jason Schmidt.

Michael K. Chen Architecture completed the interior architecture and design of a 600-square-foot luxury apartment aboard a residential yacht, playfully dubbed as Pied-à-Mer. Caroline Williamson writes in Design Milk, “MKCA utilized their own knowledge in designing smaller, multifunctional spaces, while referencing Le Corbusier’s fascination with mid-century steamship design to create the clever convertible floor plan”. Read more about how MKCA incorporated convertible designs onboard this residential yacht in Design Milk. Photo by Alan Tansey.

Spiegel Aihara Workshop’s Wraparound House, a 1930s Spanish Revival in the Marina neighborhood of San Francisco, is featured in Interior Design Magazine. The house’s nickname, “Wraparound,” comes from the notion that subtle variations in corner geometry impact directional movement, similar to how the shape of a hockey rink influences control of the puck. Writer Brook Robinson notes, the house’s “sinuous surfaces blur the separation between rooms, encouraging fluid movement”. Read more about Wraparound House’s “rich textures, soft curves, and an elegance befitting its history in Interior Design Magazine. Photo by Paul Dyer.

Frederick Tang Architecture's architectural renovation and interior design of a newly constructed 3,500-square-foot townhouse in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, dubbed ‘State Street’, is featured in NY Magazine's Curbed. Spread across six floors, the townhouse is connected by a central, curved plaster staircase with custom reeded glass and brass stair rails. The living area on the ground floor boasts 20-foot ceilings accented by a wall of windows with southern exposure, and is anchored by a fireplace that FTA re-designed in a sculptural plaster form inspired by the work of artist and artisan Valentine Schlegel. “We do so many townhouse projects Frederick Tang tells Curbed, "and here we got to do all the fun stuff.” You can read the full article in Curbed here. Photos by Gieves Anderson.

Formation Association has designed the West Coast headquarters for Phillips, the London-based contemporary auction house. The space is remodeled from a series of existing buildings, featuring three showrooms, a patio, and an office, transforming what were once eclectic neighborhood structures into light-filled galleries on an iconic stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, a historical nexus of art and design. Open to the public from October 25-27, 2022, the inaugural exhibition will feature works from the upcoming auctions of 20th Century and Contemporary Art, Watches, and Design, including Jean-Michel Basquiat’s To Repel Ghosts. Photo by Eric Staudenmaier.