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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AEDS: Life in plastic, it’s fantastic
Lebanese-born architect Ammar Eloueini established Ammar Eloueini Digit-All Studio (AEDS) in Paris in 1997. Although the Museum of Modern Art owns Eloueini’s work and the New York Architectural League, AIA Chicago, and the French Ministry of Culture have showered him with accolades, this forward thinker admits it is taking time to fully realize his talents.

Photo courtesy AEDS

FPmod: Where the wild things are made
Florencia Pita thinks cities should have more sleeping monsters. At least one, maybe two, just a few at the most. “We haven’t been able to move past Modernism,” says the architect, professor, and principal of three-person Los Angeles–based architecture firm FPmod, which she founded in 2006.

Photo courtesy FPmod

Scalar Architecture: Urban scale, small world
Julio Salcedo, principal of architecture firm Scalar Architecture, is taking back the word generic.  He uses the word freely, and to him, especially when coupled with the term generative, it doesn't mean bland and personalityfree.

Photo courtesy Scalar Architecture

Houser Walker Architecture: Half a glass, full plate
Whatever Gregory Walker, AIA, and Hank Houser, AIA, bring to the mix that makes up their seven-person firm, it's working, and despite equivalent shares of optimism and pessimism, they're both equally surprised at their success.

Photo courtesy Houser Walker Architecture

PRA: Young power players in China
Meet Philippe Rondeau, a Frenchman who has joined up with a Chinese partner, Li Yun, to make his mark on the Eastern skyline.

Photo courtesy PRA

wHY: It’s a rhetorical question
With a museum under its belt and a full plate of work, the Los Angeles–based firm wHY doesn’t have cause for doubt, but still keeps questioning.

Photo courtesy wHY

Redtop Architects: Three Heads Are Better
When the three founders of Redtop Architects, met while working for a New York firm, they found that they had a lot more in common than red hair. "We had a mutual admiration for each other," says Shakespeare, "as well as a similar aesthetic and goals."

Photo courtesy Electric Dreams

Electric Dreams: Wake up!
The phrase "Swedish design" calls up images of spare spaces laid by careful masons or rendered from local woods. Not mini-spectacles, such as the ceiling of Pleasant Bar in Stockholm, which is covered in convex security mirrors. "We often get that comment, that we're not what one expects from a Swedish design studio," says Joel Degermark, one half of Electric Dreams.

Photo courtesy Electric Dreams

Grzywinski Pons Architects takes Manhattan
Challenged with the constraints of working within New York City, including laying the foundations for a hotel just 29 inches above a subway line, Grzywinski Pons Architects have defined their design approach based on their location.

Photo courtesy Grzywinski Pons Architects

Bauenstudio: Exploring container and contained
Some young architects feel it's time to start their solo practices when they have a client. Others wait until they win a competition. For Marc Roehrle and Mo Zell, both happy circumstances came to pass, one after the other, and, in 2006, Boston-based Bauenstudio was born.

Photo courtesy Bauenstudio

Architecture in Formation: Dream projects, all real
When architect Matthew Bremer, AIA, isn’t busy designing cool projects like a VIP lounge in New York’s JFK Airport, a showroom for an upscale purveyor of Brazilian design, Manhattan apartments, or the redevelopment of a 103,000-square-foot former prison site in Brooklyn, New York, he’s working on his dream project—developing his family’s ranch land in Bulverde, Texas, into a walkable, modern, mixed-use community. “It doesn’t matter where you are,” says Bremer, “the Texas creeps back into your blood.”

Photo courtesy Architecture in Formation

Techentin Buckingham Architecture: Keeping it real-world
Techentin Buckingham will pass on paper architecture. The Los Angeles studio, founded by college friends Warren Techentin, AIA, and Henry Buckingham, AIA, has focused its six years so precisely on real-world building that the partners only recently decided to enter one competition annually—if only to keep staff spirits high and creative juices flowing.

Photo courtesy Techentin Buckingham Architecture

LeanArch: Adding whimsy to sophisticated design
He doesn’t wear a cape, but architect James Meyer, AIA, principal of Los Angeles firm LeanArch, has a superhero thing going on nonetheless. Having started his solo practice in 2000 with small projects like bathroom remodels and room additions, Meyer says he began his fledgling firm with a passionate concept.

Photo courtesy LeanArch

The Galante Architecture Studio
When you come from a family of builders, what choice is there but to be an architect? For Theodore Galante, AIA, his family members' capacity to make things both inspired and contributed to what he calls a "mystic assumption" that he'd follow that route.

Photo courtesy The Galante Architecture Studio