Laura Burkhalter was born and raised in Switzerland and admitted to the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) at age 18, where she graduated in 2000 with AIA gold medal award top of her year. After graduating she worked for several design-centric architecture and design firms on very large scale projects ranging from a boutique hotel in Miami to high-tech office headquarters for ten thousand people in Munich, Germany and in Singapore to mixed use buildings, high rises and shopping malls in China. In 2007 she founded her own practice where she has focused on boutique residential and commercial projects in the Los Angeles area. One of her particular strengths is to be able to problem solve and re-envision any property without preconceptions while drawing from a very broad memory bank of international travel since her early childhood. Although her overall architectural expression is unmistakably modern, it always includes an ethnic-rustic, texture rich touch that is uniquely inviting and warm. Laura Burkhalter is also passionate and engaged in the question of our common urban future and has co-written and published articles and lectured at international forums on ways to catalyze more humane, socially, economically and ecologically sustainable conditions for our current and future generations.