At the heart of San Francisco studio Figure, sits the concept of collaboration. Co-founders James Leng and Jennifer Ly explain: ‘We have been as large as five people, and as small as just the two of us. However, over half of the projects we do are design collaborations with other architects and designers, so it feels like our team is big even though our organisation is quite small.’
Leng and Ly, who came together to established Figure in 2018, both teach as well as practice, and take a particularly humble and flexible approach to their profession: ‘Perhaps for the moment we’re more aware of the events that have redefined the world around us - COVID, BLM, The Climate Crisis - they forced us and our peers to confront the limitations of the architectural medium, and as a consequence, also reevaluate the value of architecture,’ they say.
