After 15 years of practice, Boston-based Office dA has recently won overdue recognition for its progressive projects. The multidisciplinary firm synthesizes green consciousness, respect for craft, and a love of iterating forms. Office dA's most outlandish combination of eco-friendly and algorithmic methods is the new Helios House, a LEED-certified BP gas station in Los Angeles. The silvery, multi-faceted form is a notable departure from the firm's characteristic, understated elegance.

Led by Venezuelan-born Monica Ponce de Leon and London-born Nader Tehrani — professors at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and MIT, respectively — Office dA got its start in the early '90s after the duo graduated from the GSD. In several of their early residential projects — notably the Toledo House in Bilbao, Casa la Roca in Caracas, and the Zahedi Residence in Massachusetts — they crafted fluid structural skins from standard materials. These dynamic forms wrap portions of the buildings to obfuscate the relationship between interior and exterior.

More recently, Office dA has won numerous competitions and commissions, including a luxury condo tower in South Boston and the Tongxian Gatehouse, a multipurpose arts center in Beijing. For its redesign of the RISD library, the firm added two multi-level pavilions to the existing barrel-vaulted, 19th-century space. The influence of Louis Kahn's pared-down spiritualism is evident in Office dA's design for the Interfaith Spiritual Center at Northeastern University, a worship hall that achieves a transcendent atmosphere with suspended apertures and luminous panels. Alongside these architectural projects, Office dA also experiments with urban planning, conceptual furniture, and prototypes for radical forms. In an exhibition organized by the ICA Boston, Office dA showcased Voromuro, a contorting wall of translucent, honeycombed cells based on the Voronoi diagram, embodying the firm's commitment to innovation through unconventional pragmatism.

-HGM