Ones to Watch: Solomonoff Architecture Studio

Alexa Stevenson -- Interior Design, 12/26/2012 12:00:00 AM

A townhouse in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood by architect Galia Solomonoff. Photo by Alex Guerrero.

The founder and creative director of Solomonoff Architecture Studio, Galia Solomonoff has been quietly making strides in the design world for years. Prior to founding SAS, Solomonoff worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Rafael Viñoly Architects, and Bernard Tschumi Architects, as well as OpenOffice, which she co-founded.

Solomonoff is also big on the academic front having taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Princeton University, The Cooper Union, Yale University, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

So what's Solomonoff got left to prove after she's done just about everything? A lot it seems. She's working at the challenging intersection of architecture, construction management and academia.

"What makes us different is that we follow the project from the beginning to end into one consistent package," says Solomonoff. This past year, they started work on a townhouse in the West Village. She's utilizing every inch and including such impressive features such as pool in the basement and outdoor dining on the roof. But what's most forward thinking about this project, and all of her work, is its focus on art and site-specific instillations.

"Art is something you should program with the architecture. Many people work with collections, but we work a lot with living artists," says Solomonoff. For a Japanese restaurant slated for completion in 2013, the technicalities of metal are part of the concept and building of the design. For exmpale, says Solomonoff, "The way you need a specific type of blade to cut a certain part of sushi. . .We integrate art into our projects in almost every way possible," she continues. "Many times it is the artists' first work of its kind. We are the ones developing a space for it."

Next year, Solomonoff hopes to add even more impressive projects to her resume. "The jobs we are thinking about now are larger and away from New York. I hope that we do our first standalone building."

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