Kinship Architecture

The Studio

At Kinship, we listen to our clients to understand their lives

Kinship Architecture works in two ways:

First, we work as a full services design and architecture firm, offering our expertise through research and feasibility studies, conceptual design, architecture and interiors, design development, construction documents, bidding, permitting, and construction administration. We act as construction managers, coordinating with consultants, contractors, city and state agencies, expediters and specialty designers.

Second, we work as consultants and collaborate with architects and designers to design, detail, and execute parts of larger projects, to perform code checks, or as architect of record, producing permit and construction documents and taking care of the permitting process.

For us, collaboration is the best part of design: collaboration with our clients to design a great home for them, collaboration with other designers to generate the best solutions for our clients, and collaboration with other firms to make projects run smoothly.

BREN, RA, LEED AP BD+C 

Hello! I am an architect and interior designer with over 15 years of experience. I have always loved architecture, and considered the impact of the built environment on our lives and the cultural legacy of place.

I was born in Lima, Peru. I started my architecture studies there and moved to California, where I attended UC Berkeley, graduating summa cum laude. After working in San Francisco for a few years, I packed up and moved again, to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a graduate student. My thesis ‘Stealth Agents’ dealt with public space and technologies of surveillance. I soon became increasingly interested in public space - even within the private realm. This is what Kinship is all about: the creation of places of exchange and positive interaction, whether a kitchen island in a home or a meeting space in an office setting.

I have had the good luck of working at great offices: Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill in Washington DC. Smart Design, RAAD Studio, A+I and Alda Ly Architecture in New York. I have learned great things from all of them, which I apply daily into my work.

TEACHING

I have been teaching at the university level since 2008. The design studios I teach have a public space component, and address marginalized or underrepresented communities. I have taught at Catholic University in DC; And NYIT, NYSID, and Parsons in New York. I currently teach at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, and at the California State University in Sacramento. I love my students and I strive to evolve as a teacher and understand the way they learn best. They keep me honest.