PRACTICE PROFILE
Domaine Public Architects was founded in 2012 by graduates from Harvard University. Our diverse portfolio of work includes projects in the United States, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Spain, Mexico and the Middle East.
The practice provides full architectural, landscape and interior design, masterplanning and furniture design services for public and private clients. 0ur experience ranges from galleries, apartments, private houses, hotels, to large scale residential projects.
The practice is driven by an analytical approach, rather than a specific architectural style. Domaine Public Architects creates spaces derived from the specificity of context, historical precedent, and an understanding of budget and functional needs.
VALUES
Our view of architectural conception is not solely shaped by the physicality of the site, the present moment and immediate place. Rather, is constantly shaped by evolving parameters and our own formal response to them.
Among many external variables, two constants influence the production of architecture: building code and the client’s personal code. The client’s code ties the project to their personal value. Building code ensures a standard of value to the public. We often mediate between the client’s perceived value in the future work and the code-imposed “guaranteed” public value. It is along the confluence of the two where potential arises.
By solely responding to perceived and imposed value we are trapped in the insular. Architecture is then confined to soulless repetition, formal adulation, profit maximization, idle ornamentation and ultimately waning its impact and failing to shape a better world. The value of architecture is then diminished.
Building Code, in a fast pace evolving world, is static in comparison. Code is also insular and reductive. The world is infinitely inter-connected and inter-reacting. By challenging the limitations of code, architecture becomes adaptive and responsive. It transforms into a discursive conception of context -- ideally borderless, inclusive and all encompassing.
Value there lies, in the generation of new typologies that preserve and integrate the natural landscape, minimize the built ecological footprint, adopt innovative hybrid programming. It is manifested in solutions that engage and integrate the public, provide affordable housing solutions, advocate community driven sustainable development and strive for human-centric, environmentally-conscious urban growth.