Not volume.
Not efficiency.
Something worth building.
There is a large category of commercial architecture defined by speed, repetition, and cost reduction. Prototype buildings. Value-engineered interiors. Projects where the goal is output, not outcome. That work has its place — but it isn't what we do.
The commercial projects we take on are the ones where design intelligence genuinely matters — where the building has a specific identity, a specific community, a specific piece of ground it needs to belong to. Where the client wants something that feels right, not just something that meets code.
We bring the same understanding-first approach to commercial work that we bring to every home. Before design begins, we want to understand what you're building, why it matters, and what it needs to become for the people who will use it.
That approach is more useful in commercial work than it might seem. Most commercial clients arrive with a use, a budget, and a site — but not always a clear picture of what the building needs to do beyond the program. The questions that surface in that early conversation often reshape the project in ways that make it more successful, not just more interesting.
What does this neighborhood need from a building on this corner? What does the experience of arrival communicate about the business inside? How does the building serve the people who use it daily, not just the people who see it from the street?
Those are design questions. They're also business questions. The best commercial buildings answer both.
Local clients.
Boutique projects.
Real stakes.
A restaurant, a studio, a retail space, a professional office — building or renovating a space that reflects what the business actually is. Not a generic shell, but a place with genuine character.
Smaller-scale mixed-use and multifamily projects where design quality is part of the value proposition — where doing it well is how you differentiate, not a cost to be minimized.
Nonprofits, civic groups, and community-focused projects where the building needs to hold something more than a program — a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of what the organization values.
Buildings that contribute to a neighborhood's fabric rather than simply occupying a lot — where the relationship between the building, the street, and the community around it is part of the brief.
Boutique in scale.
Not in ambition.
We don't work at the scale of large commercial development. We work at the scale where design decisions are still personal — where the person who owns the building cares about every room.
Small offices, studios, and professional spaces — designed to support how people actually work, not how an office is assumed to function.
Restaurants, cafes, boutique retail, and food hall concepts where the spatial experience is inseparable from the business identity.
Ground-floor commercial with residential above — designed as a coherent building rather than two separate programs stacked on each other.
Small multifamily projects where livability, character, and craft are the differentiators — not unit count or cost-per-square-foot efficiency.
Existing commercial buildings brought forward thoughtfully — new use, new life, original character preserved where it earns its place.
Buildings with a public role — spaces that need to hold more than a program. Community centers, cultural venues, civic-minded organizations.
How do you design a food hall that holds Lafayette's most prominent corner — and gives the community a real reason to gather?
The Lafayette North Public Market is a mixed-use food hall and community gathering space in Old Town Lafayette — designed for the intersection of North Public Road and Baseline, one of the most visible corners in the city. The design brings together food vendors, a community bar, and indoor-outdoor gathering space under a signature butterfly roof that anchors the building to its corner and creates a recognizable presence in the neighborhood.
The brief was about more than program. It was about what Lafayette's north side needed — a place with genuine community identity, not simply a commercial building that happened to serve food. The design responds to that brief at every scale: the roof form, the patio orientation, the relationship between indoor and outdoor space, and the way the building holds its corner.
View the full case study →The same process.
A different brief.
Commercial clients are used to architects who treat their project as a production problem — how many square feet, how much budget, how fast. We approach commercial work the same way we approach residential work: by understanding the client's goals, the site's possibilities, and what the building needs to become before we start drawing.
Jesse's construction background is particularly relevant in commercial work. Commercial projects often involve more complex structural systems, more trades, more phasing, and more coordination than residential — and the drawings need to reflect that. We prepare commercial documents with the same completeness and coordination discipline that our residential work demands.
We stay involved through construction on commercial projects for the same reason we do on homes: the design either holds or it doesn't, and the only way to protect it is to remain engaged.
We also understand that commercial clients are making business decisions as well as design decisions. The building has to work financially, operationally, and experientially — and those three things are often in tension. Part of our job is helping clients navigate that tension clearly, so the decisions that shape the building are made deliberately rather than by default.
Most importantly: we take commercial work because we care about what it can become — not to fill capacity. We're drawn to projects where design can create meaningful value — something that adds to the neighborhood, serves the community, and holds up over time. We're generally not the right fit for speculative, developer-driven projects where design is treated as a commodity. We're at our best working directly with owners, organizations, and communities who believe the building itself is part of their long-term success.
We design across
every project type.
Custom Homes
Full-service custom home design — from first conversation through construction administration, designed around how you want to live.
Learn more →Renovations & Additions
Whole-home renovations and substantial additions — designed with a holistic view of what's working, what isn't, and what the home needs to become.
Learn more →ADU Design
Detached ADUs designed as part of a whole-property strategy — sited, designed, and permitted with the same care as the primary residence.
Learn more →Free Resource · Home Design Guide
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worth doing well?
A 30-minute discovery call. No commitment. Just a conversation about what you're trying to build, whether it sounds like a good fit, and what the next step might look like.