Studio BANAA founding partners Nastaran Mousavi and Dane Bunton, at their new studio space, a converted horse stable in San Francisco's Mission District. Photo: Katja Bresch. All images courtesy of Studio BANAA.

For our latest Studio Snapshot, Archinect had the pleasure of chatting with Nastaran Mousavi and Dane Bunton, founding partners of San Francisco-based architecture practice Studio BANAA.

Hailing from different corners of the world — Dane is a Bay Area native and Nastaran grew up in Northern Iran — the two have been steadily fusing their diverse backgrounds with the city's eclectic California blend to create fresh and dynamic spaces not shy of colors, patterns, and personality. We talked about their new housing research campaign, surviving the pandemic as a small practice, and launching new, innovative business endeavors.

Can you tell us how Studio BANAA was founded?

Nastaran Mousavi: Dane and I met in grad school and worked for a few years at different companies after graduating. It was back in 2014 when a friend approached us to design their parents' retirement home in Pebble Beach. Working at other firms while moonlighting on this project, we were assured that this is what we want to do. We both quit our jobs in late 2014, and Studio BANAA was born in early 2015.

Dane Bunton: We have a lot of architects in the family, and a few have also founded their own architectural practices: my father and uncle in the Bay Area and Nas's father in Iran. So when we decided to start our own practice, we were fortunate to have a lot of great guidance and a diversity of perspectives. But once we got the taste of doing our own work, it was all over from there! I couldn’t think of anything else but running our own practice, getting our own projects, and doing it our own way.

How many people are currently employed? How is your office structured?

NM: There are currently three of us in San Francisco and three others on the East Coast and other parts of the world. The six of us build the production and design team. Aside from that, we use a few different cloud-based services and independent consultants for our marketing, administrative, accounting, and business development needs. We are a very flexible office, we expand and shrink based on our needs for the projects, and we love working with people from all over the world. Dane and I are very engaged in the design process, as much as we are occupied with developing our business and bringing in new jobs. Our design process is very collaborative, and we bring our entire team to the table and tackle it together. Since we are small, our office structure is not as rigid as you see in bigger corporate offices, and each member of our team becomes involved in every aspect of a project.

When we decided to start our own practice, we were fortunate to have a lot of great guidance and a diversity of perspectives. But once we got the taste of doing our own work, it was all over from there!

DB: Nastaran and I typically handle the marketing and business development strategy together. After a client wants to start working with us, they’re assigned a Principal Architect — either myself or Nas — who acts as project manager and client point of contact throughout the whole job. Some clients naturally gravitate towards me and others towards Nas, and it typically is a judgment call who gets assigned the project; and other times, it's based on the project type or current workload.

We do love the collaborative environment of architectural school and try to emulate that as much as possible in the design phase. We’re pretty democratic and let everybody jump in during design charrettes and critiques to keep the perspectives fresh and new ideas flowing. As far as the production side, most projects are assigned a designer plus a more experienced architect; then one of the principals typically jumps back in to work with the contractors during the construction phase to make sure everything goes smoothly and decisions are made quickly in the field. We wear a lot of hats, but it keeps things interesting.

Would you like to scale up and grow your team? What do you consider the ideal size for your practice?

NM: Yes! We are currently hiring, but our intention is to remain small to medium-size. We enjoy and truly believe in connecting with our client directly and being involved in their story as much as we are now, and by keeping our size in the small/mid-level, we can ensure those connections are not lost. 

DB: Lately we’re thinking more about how we can improve the way our office is structured, especially how we can systemize our process and grow, while still retaining the individualized attention that each project and client is given. Our clients are also small businesses and don’t want to have to talk through an admin or project manager to ask their architect a question or make a decision. They want to deal with us directly and get sh*t done!

What have been the biggest challenges starting and running your own practice?

NM: There have been many challenges, but none have been unresolvable/manageable. I think the biggest challenge at the beginning for us was to balance life and work, considering we are married. The first year, we really had to understand and realize that work is going to get completely mixed up with our daily life, and that is O.K. The other ongoing challenge has been to allocate time to continuing education and research while running a business. We have recently started a research campaign called Imagine Housing, where we investigate the possibilities of creative housing solutions in densely populated cities and any other city that is dealing with a housing crisis, like San Francisco. We are hoping this campaign pushes us to continue our research endeavors and keeps us engaged with our community.

Since we are small, our office structure is not as rigid as you see in bigger corporate offices, and each member of our team becomes involved in every aspect of a project.

DB: One challenge has been focusing our work and honing in on the projects that we want to do, and enjoy doing, rather than just letting projects and clients come to us naturally, or because we felt like we needed the money. When we first started our practice, we were like wild animals — when we saw any opportunity for a project pop up, we would instinctively take it without thinking. While this led us to some interesting places with some 'interesting' clients, we are now trying to focus and filter the project types we’re good at instead of being so generalized.

What challenges have you faced during the past pandemic months? Has remote work been a solution?

NM: Remote work has started mid-March of 2020 for us. Considering we work with people outside of San Francisco, this hasn’t had a significant impact on our workflow. Our team is accustomed to using online platforms for collaboration, and we are managing it well. That being said, we all miss our studio and can’t wait to go back. The few challenges are not being able to discuss design face to face, making models, and sketching on big pieces of paper, all at the same time.

DB: A big portion of our clients are local restaurateurs and cafe owners, so clearly, their industry is hurting quite a bit with the closures, and even those who are keeping afloat are leaning towards smaller dining spaces or converting to cloud or take-away-only kitchens entirely. That said, we have a few risks taking clients who see the pandemic as an opportunity to find cheap space in ideal locations throughout the city as some struggling commercial businesses move on or go under. One of our largest restaurant clients to date came to us in March of 2020 looking to build a new location. We thought they were crazy at the time, but looking at where we are now, hopefully with a light at the end of the tunnel and the project only recently going into construction, it seems they couldn’t have timed the project more perfectly for when the world re-opens. 

As for our own business, we’ll be moving into a new studio location in the Mission District of San Francisco soon, and I can’t wait to be back in an office/studio environment instead of working at my kitchen table!

Describe your work. How do you define your own unique style and approach?

NM: We believe the best design comes from asking questions, creating conversation, and challenging assumptions. We go deep with our clients — meeting, sharing, sketching, and meeting again — so that the spaces we design are full of story and meaning. And we go deep within ourselves to make sure we’re always exploring every angle, immersing ourselves in the subject matter, and learning every lesson. When we think we have a solution, we’ll flip it and come at it again. With an open mind and fresh perspective. We’re all about drawing on the city’s heritage to build spaces that hold character and tell the stories that are authentic. Our team is as diverse as the spaces we design — we come at every project with multiple perspectives, and devote time and energy to supporting art, culture, and education causes that give cities their depth.

We have recently started a research campaign called "Imagine Housing," where we investigate the possibilities of creative housing solutions in densely populated cities and any other city that is dealing with a housing crisis, like San Francisco.

DB: Adding to that, we choose to work on projects that will meaningfully serve the city’s diverse bunch of people. Most of the time, those clients are chasing a dream of starting their own business venture and passion, and that’s something we can relate to on a personal level. Being in the Bay Area, many of our clients are immigrants who have colorful and interesting stories to bring to the world, and it’s our job to collate them into something meaningful but also physical, which will become the face of their business for years to come. In terms of style, I can’t hide the fact that we love colors, patterns, and generally busy and active spaces. Although we don’t think of our work as having a singular style but instead many different styles which are a result of being able to work with a wide array of clients from various backgrounds.

What do you want your firm to be known for?

DB: By seeking to tell the stories of our clients through design, we want our firm to be known as a kind of facilitator, designing without preconceptions, without 'standard' or reusable ideas, and without design 'signatures' — to bring authenticity and meaning into each and every project we do. To me, that approach feels thoughtful, purposeful, and selfless.

NM: We want to be known for creating buildings and spaces that make people feel good! We always look for ways to surface small moments of delight — for the chocolate that someone is serving, ice cream they are scooping, or the lifestyle they’re selling. We want people to not only remember their time in that particular place but to talk about it with their friends and return to it again and again.

Where do you see Studio BANAA in 5 years?

DB: I think Nastaran and I both agree that keeping our office small and personalized is the way to go, but I can see us expanding into a few other markets/cities with satellite offices of 5–6 people each. This way, we can have the resources and experience of a large to mid-sized architecture firm but with the personalized connection of a small boutique office.

We have recently acquired a new workshop space and founded a new company called MatLab, a Material Laboratory where we investigate, research, and experiment with new materials made of salvaged and recycled substances for the future of the construction industry.

We both are very interested in self-generating our own projects and want to start getting into the development side in the near future. While client work is fulfilling in many ways, as architects, we are often forced to leave many of our creative ideas and solutions on the table where they are never realized. Developing our own work would come with its own set of challenges, but it creates the ultimate sense of freedom in terms of creativity and control when it comes to the big-picture direction of a project.

NM: We have recently acquired a new workshop space and founded a new company called MatLab, a Material Laboratory where we investigate, research, and experiment with new materials made of salvaged and recycled substances for the future of the construction industry. In 5 years, I want us to have a fully equipped workshop where we can produce prototypes and take our research to the next level.

Do you have a favorite project? Completed or in progress.

DB: My favorite project is the 55th Street Live-Work building we did in Oakland. Not only is this one of our first projects as a studio, but the history of this building was fascinating. At the turn of the 19th century, it was a masonic lodge with a dance hall and kitchen upstairs and a row of commercial spaces down below. When our client purchased the property, it was in complete shambles, and we ended up preserving or reconstructing most of the historic facade, triple gable roof, and all. I’ve always loved exploring abandoned buildings and imagining what they could become, and when they have unique architectural details, we get excited to preserve and restore those elements as a way to honor the building’s history and pay homage to what the building once was.

NM: Not a complete project, a few years ago, we collaborated with a nonprofit dance theater company here in San Francisco called Deborah Slater Dance Theater. The project was never realized, but the result was an ongoing relationship with the founder Deborah Slater, and I have been a board member of the company ever since. I see architecture going beyond creation of a physical matter. To me, it is oftentimes a means to connect with people and the community. My involvement with this nonprofit organization is just as enriching as seeing a project getting built.

If you could describe your work/practice in three words, what would they be?

NM: Curiosity, Diversity, and Pleasure.