WHAT
A firm dedicated to the poetic exploration of sustainable architecture.
Founded in 1991, we are an architectural studio that explores a wide range of project types and scales. We design forms, lead processes and large multidisciplinary teams, and invent original project typologies to shape new human activity. We are creative agents of social and environmental change for institutions and communities seeking to improve 21st-century life.
A quick look at Paul Murdoch Architects’ ethos and impact.
HOW
Our projects span geographies, typologies, sizes and clients, but share common traits of rigor, resolution and craft. A series of guiding principles ensure that the firm remains true to its design roots but flexible to the needs and demands of clients and users.
To view our work visit our PROJECTS page.
WHO
Paul Murdoch is founder and president of Paul Murdoch Architects, bringing over thirty years of experience in the design and management of a wide variety of building projects. He has worked in Los Angeles with AIA Gold Medalists Arthur Erickson and Charles Moore: and in Philadelphia with AIA Firm of the Year, Geddes Brecher Qualls and Cunningham. Paul’s project background includes the design of public libraries, university and college facilities, and civic buildings. Paul has taught at USC’s School of Architecture and has been a guest critic at UCLA and Sci-Arc. He has spoken extensively on the critical role of design in improving life through topics such as sustainable development, ecological urban planning, building re-use, and the poetics of practicality of recycling. His background and travel experience includes research of vernacular architecture in traditional cultures.
Milena Murdoch joined Paul Murdoch Architects as Vice President in 2001, after sixteen years of professional experience as project architect, manager, and designer. She has worked with AIA Gold Medalist Richard Meier, where she was project architect for the Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center. With Ted Tokio Tanaka, FAIA, she served as project manager on projects including the LAX Gateway Enhancement. At Albert C. Martin & Associates, with Tim Vreeland, FAIA, Milena designed facilities for Caltech, UCLA, Whittier College and Chapmen College. Milena’s prior experience also includes numerous custom homes with Franklin D. Israel. She is a licensed architect in California.
WHY
Because it's necessary we expand our clients’ expectations through direct inquiry, tough questions, and persistent rigor; to broaden a project’s definition, to fully explore its community of constituents; its ramifications in time; to examine full value for limited resources; to find innovative responses to challenges; and to transform a client’s capability to meet historic needs of a new, evolving civilization.
We nurture the emergence of form through a visionary process of observation, open dialogue and analysis guided by the following principles:
We rejoice in the mysterious process of nature.
We explore resonance through light, shadow, color and sound.
We nurture emergent form more than promote spectacle.
We appreciate ritual as a way of connecting human and natural worlds.
We feel before creating form.
We tell stories and translate patterns.
We distill experience into symbols.
We organize and communicate through concepts.
We create by entering a cloud of unknowing, each time.
We struggle through complexity and contradiction to foster simple, timeless design.
We are artists interested in paradox.
We search for expression that is both bold and understated.
We respect that history is personal.
We value new collaborations to meet unprecedented needs.
We recognize science is no longer fiction.
We trust the scientific process.
We allow compassion to quietly guide our actions.
We are diligently passionate and joyful about our work.
WHERE
Paul Murdoch Architects
6310 San Vicente Boulevard, Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 358-0993
For press and business development inquiries email info@paulmurdocharchitects.com
