Luca Andrisani Architect
It takes a certain amount of audacity for a 26-year-old Italian architecture school student to write a letter to Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron detailing the reasons why they should hire him. Luca Andrisani was that plucky student, and went to work at the famed Swiss firm right after receiving his M.Arch.

Photo courtesy Luca Andrisani Architect

Graypants
Sitting in a softly lit café in New York or San Francisco, you would probably never guess that the exotic, handmade light fixture you’ve been admiring used to be a cardboard box. Repurposing discarded items into something both useful and elegant is what truly inspires the resourceful young designers of Graypants.

Photo © Sean Watson

Atelier Manferdini
She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Civil Engineering in Bologna, Italy, and an M.Arch. from SCI-Arc, but don’t try to pigeonhole Elena Manferdini. With her firm, Atelier Manferdini, Manferdini switches hats easily from engineer, architect, product designer, fashion designer, and artist.

Photo © Lisa Wyatt

Archiculture, 2010
Many have mused that architecture studio would make the perfect setting for reality television: the combination of caffeine-fueled all-nighters, high stress, and unsympathetic critics is sure to produce dramatic footage. Ian Harris and David Krantz are taking this idea a step further by making a feature-length documentary about studio culture.

Photo © Meghan Roberts

LAN Architecture
Umberto Napolitano wanted to be a musician, and Benoit Jallon, a doctor. Years later they both turned to architecture, and are now into their seventh year as co-principals of Paris-based, 20-person firm LAN Architecture.

Photo courtesy LAN Architecture

Future Cities Lab
Just off the heels of their Van Alen Institute New York Prize fellowship exhibit, The Aurora Project, Nataly Gattegno and Jason Johnson, principals of Future Cities Lab, are putting their lives back together after nearly three years on the road.

Photo © Future Cities Lab

Studio Urnod: Urban nomads refine their craft in New York City
Thirty somethings Koray Duman and Laith Sayigh may have found similarities in their Middle Eastern roots, but both say it’s their belief that big ideas can come from a small, focused practice that really keeps their New York City based firm Studio Urnod (the name comes from a merging of urban and nomad) busy.

Photo courtesy Studio Urnod

MEx: A Design Cooperative Grows in Brooklyn
Welcome to Metropolitan Exchange (MEx) in New York City, “an architecture, urban planning, and research cooperative” where members “collaborate on architecture and planning projects, pursue development opportunities, and sponsor lectures, film screenings, and exhibitions.”

Photo courtesy Al Atarra

Burton Baldridge Architects: No detail is too small
What is an architect to do when he wants complete control over the construction and details of every project he designs? Start his own construction company, of course! At least, that was the answer for Burton Baldridge, principal of three-year-old, Austin, Texas, design firm Burton Baldridge Architects and construction firm BBA-DB.

Photo courtesy Burton Baldridge Architects

Nous Gallery promotes design and more: Founder Melissa Woolford sleeplessly inspires
Meet designer Melissa Woolford. After earning her M.Arch. with honors from the Pratt Institute in New York in 2006, Woolford moved to London to work for Zaha Hadid. In 2007, she teamed up with Paul Coates, architecture educator since 1970, and Christian Derix, founder of Aedas Architects, and founded Nous Gallery.

Photo © Tom Birkett

Tacklebox: Finding the tools to create enticing environs for the art and design world, and then some
Growing up in Roanoke, Virginia, Jeremy Barbour says architecture was never on his radar. Now the principal of three-year-old New York City—based firm Tacklebox, as well as a teacher at Columbia’s School of Architecture (where he received his master’s) and Parsons The New School For Design, he lives and breathes it.

Photo courtesy Tacklebox

M1/dtw: Mixing architecture and graphics
Detroit-based architectural designer Christian Unverzagt was doing interdisciplinary work before he knew the phrase. As a skateboarding teenager in the ’80s, he says, “We had to create our own landscape, so I would design and build all these backyard ramps. And I would design all the flyers to raise money for them. I was producing a brand.”

Photo courtesy M1/dtw

Wilk Salinas: Filling Berlin’s lost spaces with realized vision
“Stupid projects.” The phrase comes up repeatedly in conversation with German-born Gil Wilk and Spaniard Ana Salinas, whose eponymous studio is based in Berlin. “It is something that is fun for us,” Wilk explains, but he adds, “These are projects that everyone says will not work.”

Photo courtesy Wilk Salinas

Lukas Petrash’s MCD House: Trash becomes a family’s treasure
To describe the house Lukas Petrash designed and built in Huntsville, Texas, requires a certain breathless tone. MCD House cost only $24,500 to build. It measures only 484 square feet. And Petrash was only 23 years old when he finished it.

Photo courtesy Lukas Petrash

Gage / Clemenceau Architects: Making their Mark(c)s
While many emerging architects feel they wear their hearts on their sleeves, Mark Foster Gage and Marc Clemenceau Bailly display theirs in Times Square. Commissioned to design a Valentine to the famous intersection, Gage and Clemenceau created an intricate, 12-foot tall stainless steel and luminescent Corian heart.

Photo courtesy Gage / Clemenceau

Changes at NCARB: The Six-Month Rule and other news
Are you ready for the changes at NCARB? Harry M. Falconer, AIA, director of the agency's Intern Development Program, discusses the Six-Month Rule and other new developments.

Photo courtesy NCARB

Pb Elemental: A portfolio full of built work and no boundaries
At 32 and 30 years old, Seattle-based Pb Elemental's founders skipped the typical young firm's rights of passage, and now have dozens of projects built around Seattle and several under construction around the world.

Photo courtesy Pb Elemental

studiomake: Careful craft, from objects to architecture
Recent Cranbrook graduates David and Im Schafer are bound for Bangkok this summer, where they will launch their firm studiomake full-time. Both say their crafts education will influence architectural output.

Photo courtesy studiomake

Raising Architectural Spectres
RECORD’s Suzanne Stephens visits the unusually named Ghost International Architectural Laboratory. The design-build workshop in Nova Scotia celebrated its tenth session in 2008.

Photo © Greg Richardson

Rodriguez Studio: Designing the lines, then coloring within them
Carlos Rodriguez went from studying architecture to accounting before coming back to architecture with a vengeance. Now the principal of New York City based Rodriguez Studio, he puts all his training to good use.

Photo courtesy Rodriguez Studio

UW landscape architecture students take on public works
The University of Washington’s landscape architecture students are putting their studies into practice with a number of non-profit projects as a part of its design build program.

Photo courtesy University of Washington

SPINE Architects: An architectural backbone in a challenging land
It’s probably safe to say that most architects get into the business of architecture because of a creative urge, not because of the money. Amelie Chai and Stephen Zawmoe Shwe, principals of SPINE Architects, took that reasoning to another level when they moved to Shwe’s home country of Myanmar and began their firm in 2003. “We’re not here to make money,” says Chai. "We’re here to build a lot."

Photo courtesy SPINE Architects

Laid off? How emerging design professionals are coping
Although this situation can’t be sugar-coated, these six emerging professionals prove that a temporary setback can become an opportunity to reevaluate life, and career path, and to accomplish goals not possible while working full time.

Images courtesy Scott Gustafson, Brian Jones and Karl-Erik Larson

Maggie Peng Studio: Flexible, and in fashion
Maggie Peng says that her old employers, LOT-EK, influenced her work because, as she puts it, "the office is interested in designing for flexibility. Whether it's using modular systems or preexisting units, it's about tapping into the built-in intelligence of preexisting products. And that is very much something I still work with."

Photo courtesy Maggie Peng Studio

Grand House Cooperative: University of Waterloo, Ontario, students built and live in it
The brainchild of Chantal Cornu, who holds an M.Arch. degree from the University of Waterloo, the $1.1 million (Canadian) Grand House Cooperative in Cambridge, Ontario was the perfect opportunity to connect people in the building trades, and give students an inspired place to live.

Photo courtesy University of Waterloo

Hierve Diseñeria: Boiled Over by Design
Alejandro Villarreal named his Mexico City firm Hierve, the Spanish word for "boiling.” It was an apropos decision for a firm that brings an ebullient mix of social responsibility, functionality, and spirituality to its projects.

Photo courtesy Hierve Diseñeria

Wesleyan University’s SplitFrame: Architecture Research Design Build
Learn about a wildlife sanctuary created by Wesleyan University's year-old design/build studio.

Photo courtesy Wesleyan University