We build
spaces
that endure.
Founded in New York in 2007, ArchStudio is an architecture and design practice driven by the belief that the built environment shapes how people feel, think, and connect. We work across scales — from intimate residences to civic institutions — always with the same rigour.
18
Years of Practice
140+
Projects Built
32
Design Awards
Editorial
Team
Four principals. One shared conviction: that architecture is a form of long-form thinking about how people inhabit the world.
Elena Marchetti
Founding Principal
Residential · Cultural
Elena trained at the Architectural Association in London before founding ArchStudio in 2007. Her work is defined by a rigorous attention to material honesty and the relationship between interior light and exterior landscape. She has lectured at Harvard GSD, ETH Zürich, and the Berlage Institute.
AA London · Harvard GSD
James Okafor
Design Director
Commercial · Civic
James joined ArchStudio in 2011 after a decade at Snøhetta and Kengo Kuma & Associates. He leads the studio's commercial and civic portfolio, bringing a deep interest in how public buildings negotiate identity, memory, and community. His approach fuses structural clarity with cultural narrative.
Columbia GSAPP · TU Delft
Soo-Jin Park
Technical Principal
Technical · Sustainability
Soo-Jin oversees the technical and delivery side of every ArchStudio project, ensuring that design intent is faithfully realised through construction. With a background in structural engineering and a Masters in Sustainable Architecture, she has pioneered the studio's approach to low-carbon material systems.
Seoul National University · UCL Bartlett
Rafael Domínguez
Interior Design Lead
Interiors · Hospitality
Rafael leads ArchStudio's interior design practice, working at the intersection of architecture and the decorative arts. His interiors are characterised by a restrained palette, bespoke joinery, and a collector's eye for craft. He previously ran his own studio in Barcelona before joining ArchStudio in 2016.
ESARQ Barcelona · Pratt Institute
Four
convictions
we build by.
Our philosophy is not a manifesto. It is a set of working principles that have been tested, refined, and occasionally broken across eighteen years of practice. These are the four that have endured.
Est. New York, 2007
Site as Teacher
Every project begins with an extended period of site observation — studying light angles across seasons, prevailing winds, the grain of the surrounding urban fabric. The site is not a constraint; it is the primary design collaborator.
Material Honesty
We do not dress structures. Concrete reads as concrete. Timber ages. Steel oxidises. The passage of time is not an enemy of our buildings — it is written into them from the first drawing.
Silence as Space
The most powerful rooms are those that contain nothing unnecessary. We design for the quality of emptiness — the pause between walls, the threshold between inside and outside, the moment before a view opens.
Long-Term Thinking
Architecture outlives its architects. We design for a hundred years, not a decade. This means structural generosity, adaptable plans, and a refusal to chase trends that will feel dated before the building is complete.
Awards
& Honours
Eighteen years of recognition from the institutions that matter most to us — not as validation, but as evidence that rigour and restraint still resonate.
Architectural Review House Award
Lakeshore Retreat, Ontario
AIA Honor Award for Architecture
Meridian Cultural Centre, Chicago
World Architecture Festival — Shortlist
Harbour Library, Auckland
Dezeen Awards — Interior of the Year
The Residence, Tokyo
Pritzker Architecture Prize — Nomination
Studio Practice
Frame Awards — Best Workplace
Atelier HQ, Amsterdam
RIBA International Prize — Longlist
Casa Pietra, Sardinia
Wallpaper* Design Award
Hillside House, Los Angeles
Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Community Pavilion, Marrakech
Architectural Record Design Vanguard
Studio ArchStudio
AIA Young Architects Award
Elena Marchetti
Emerging Architecture Award — RIBA
The Fold House, Hudson Valley
Our
architectural
approach.
Architecture is a slow art. We resist the pressure to produce images before we have earned them. Our process is deliberate, iterative, and deeply collaborative — and it shows in the buildings we make.
"We do not design buildings. We design the conditions for life to unfold."
— Elena Marchetti, Founding Principal
We begin by asking questions, not drawing lines.
Before a single sketch is made, we spend weeks in research — reading the history of a site, studying the client's daily rituals, analysing the climate data, and walking the land at different hours. Architecture that skips this phase tends to look like architecture.
The best buildings are made with their future inhabitants.
We run intensive co-design workshops with clients, engineers, landscape architects, and craftspeople from the earliest stages. Our role is not to deliver a vision but to facilitate the emergence of one that belongs to everyone involved.
Details are not decoration — they are the building's grammar.
We draw every junction, every threshold, every reveal. We visit fabricators. We mock up connections at full scale. The quality of a building is determined not by its concept but by the ten thousand decisions made between concept and completion.