We design buildings the way cars are designed: sculpted by hand, then engineered to be built.
We are architects, not builders. We author the concept and its form, we keep control of it through every stage, and we deliver it together with the local team that builds it. The method comes from the automotive industry, where a shape is sculpted first and then engineered in every detail without losing it.
One idea, three moves
Sketch. Every project starts with a concept drawn and modelled by hand. Sketches and physical models fix the form and the character of the place before any software decides for us.
Model and translate. The hand-made form becomes a precise 3D model. We rationalise its geometry (panels, nodes, steel) so that a free shape is made from repeatable parts, and we coordinate it in BIM. Structural engineers and façade specialists join us from the first sketches, so structure, glass and cladding are solved around the concept, never the other way round.
Build. We follow the project into the workshop and onto the site, with specialist fabrication partners such as LANIK, or just as well with the client’s own contractor and local architect of record.
The whole building, or the element that makes it
We design complete buildings. We are also invited to design one defined element that gives a complex its identity: a canopy, an entrance, a roof, a public space. It is a focused piece of work with a clear scope, and the concept phase takes about a month.
We add the one gesture that people will remember and photograph, and we design it so that it can be built where the project is.
Where a signature belongs
Not everywhere. A signature element earns its place where people arrive, gather or pass under: the entrance, the covered space between buildings, the roofline seen from far away. That is where a small part of the investment changes how the whole place is seen.
Two examples
Onda Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, 2014. Asked to cover a car park at CasaShopping, we designed a wave-shaped canopy in glass and steel. At about 5% of the total investment, design and construction included, it gave the whole complex its identity. Today it is CasaShopping’s official symbol.
Kfar Saba Hayeruka, Israel, 2017. A 3,600 m² gridshell canopy. Design and Build by LANIK, partner Nir Sivan Architects.
Start a project
Tell us what you are planning, where, and which moment of the building you would like people to remember. Contact the studio.
We sculpt architecture.