GRAFT is a design studio conceived as a ‘label’ for architecture, urban planning, exhibition design, music and the “pursuit of happiness”. Graft was founded in 1998 in Los Angeles, California by Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz and Thomas Willemeit, and headed by partner Alejandra Lillo from 2007 until early 2011. A second Graft office was opened 2001 in Berlin, followed by a third office in Beijing in 2004, which is headed by founding partner Gregor Hoheisel.
The name GRAFT was derived from the terminology of botany, the grafting of one shoot onto another genetically different host. The practice believed that the traditional boundaries of architecture needed to be questioned, as it continually changes when it engages with global and local environments.