Katherine Chia FAIA and her partner Arjun Desai have built Desai Chia Architecture to be a studio that creates inspiring environments expressive of light, materials, and collaborative spaces. Chia grew up in New York State and Belgium and earned her Master of Architecture from M.I.T. and a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College. Prior to founding Desai Chia, she worked for Maya Lin on numerous art and architecture commissions. Chia is a board member at the New York Center for Architecture and the International Center of Photography, and a trustee emerita of Amherst College. The book The Women Who Changed Architecture by Princeton Architectural Press includes Chia’s work in the chapter “Raising the Roof.”

Desai Chia celebrates bold design, deliberate eloquence, and graceful simplicity driven by a guiding principle that architecture can transform communities. The studio is known for two things: its preference for social and humane architecture, and iconic projects that benefit from sustainable technical strategies and extensive knowledge of materials The firm blurs the boundaries between building and nature through its hallmark approach of integrating light as a unifying theme. Desai Chia’s projects have been published extensively in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Residential Architect, Dezeen, Dwell, Arch Daily, and the Architect Newspaper. The firm has also received many accolades including numerous AIA Design Awards and American Architecture Awards. ARCHITECT Magazine ranked Desai Chia Architecture one of the country’s top twenty design studios. Desai Chia has also been honored with an AIA Institute Honor Award and multiple Interior Design Best of Year Awards.

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