Studio Ma is an award-winning architecture and environmental design firm delivering innovative, sustainable and unique designs to forward thinking institutions and individuals. Founded in Phoenix, Arizona in 2003, Studio Ma’s four partners, Christiana Moss, Jason Boyer, Christopher Alt, and Tim Keil foster a creative and growing practice centered in the essence of the desert southwest.

The philosophy of the Studio is embodied by the concept of Ma, a Japanese term that acknowledges the dynamic relationship between objects and their surrounding environment. This concern extends our practice to multiple scales from the making of a residence to complex urban and natural contexts at universities and cultural institutions.

We are inspired by the stark profiles of the surrounding mountains, their jagged outlines and the play of light and shadow serving as an ever changing backdrop to the city. We are also taken by the delicate and variegated qualities of light that can be found under the native palo verde tree with its small leaves and luminous green bark. This combination of strong, simple forms animated by luminous, variegated surfaces creates the ever changing, spatial envelope of the valley. In a like manner, we strive to create forms and surfaces that resonate with the surrounding context, both large and small.