modus studio is an idea.

It is an idea that the patterns, perceptions, senses, and notions of our daily experiences can create a process, a way to do things, which leads to architecture and good design. modus is built on the idea that relevant and inspiring architecture can be sourced from simple, everyday experiences. This conception allows us to depart from the general rule of form to create thoughtful architecture that begins to shape the present landscape and plan for a sustainable future. We believe the experience of architecture can be inspiring to all people in a daily and practical way. All people deserve good space derived from good ideas, and this is the mode in which modus studio operates. 

Our work is rooted in Northwest Arkansas, far from the nation’s fashionable centers of culture and art, where even decaying places have interminable meaning. We believe that through observation, the world reveals itself as an inspirational primer for design and an unwritten instruction manual for living. In a region where the terms rural and urban are almost interchangeable, modus champions architecture as a means of navigating the threshold between the natural and manmade world. We have chosen to embrace simple, low-tech design solutions to improve the quality of life for our clients and community. 

modus studio is a young, progressive, and talented design-thinking collective that bridges the design profession with architecture, graphic, prototyping, and fabrication work. We understand that there is a disconnect that often exists between a classic architectural process and hands-on fabrication. Thinking and Making should not be separate. A designer sitting at a desk can model something in three dimensions, but they don’t have the benefit of being informed by the actual making of the part. Our fabrication shop gives us the ability to feed on the prototyping process and fabricate things we really believe in, to the level of craft we seek, and within parameters that can be realized. 

As a design studio, modus draws inspiration from our region’s creative culture. We have made a renewed commitment to engage in the community in our craft through a series of community events. By opening our shop and studio to the public on a regular basis for educational lectures, hands-on workshops, and professional collaborations, we hope to position ourselves as a generator of artistic expression in our own studio and the community at large. 

When modus was founded in late 2008, partners Chris Baribeau and Josh Siebert were back to back in Baribeau’s 9’ x 11’ home office. We are now a firm of 23 working in our self-designed, LEED Platinum certified, 1,800 square foot studio and 2,000 square foot fabrication shop. Our firm seeks to operate in a modern format, a studio atmosphere, where ideas and exchange are essential to our process. We are passionately connected to our work, and we believe in the work we produce. We provide a fresh, energetic focus and approach to design. Times are changing, we must adapt, and we must be mutable. modus studio generates a collaborative process allowing architect, client, and builder to come together as thinkers, makers and cohabitants of the modern world.