02 / Studio — Est. 2009, Paris · Zürich
Studio
01 / Philosophy
We work by subtraction.
Ferro is a studio organised around a single conviction: that the strongest architecture is what survives relentless editing. We are suspicious of gesture, of the novel for its own sake, of anything a building does not need.
What remains, when the excess is gone, is not austerity but clarity — light entering a room at the right angle, a wall bearing exactly the load it appears to bear, a proportion you feel before you can name.
We design across scales, from a 150 m² studio to a 14-hectare district, with the same method and the same restraint.
02 / Method
Four movements.
Listen
We begin with the brief, the site, and a long conversation. The most important work happens before a single line is drawn — defining what the project is, and what it refuses to be.
Reduce
Every proposal is interrogated against a single question: can this be removed? Structure, circulation, and program are pared until each remaining element is load-bearing — literally or conceptually.
Resolve
Detailing is where restraint is proven. Junctions, reveals, and materials are drawn at 1:1. Nothing is decorative; the building's expression is the honest sum of how it is made.
Deliver
We stay on site to the final handover. A drawing is a promise; we consider it kept only when the built room matches the proportion and light we first imagined.
03 / People
Six hands, one studio.
- 01Elena FerroFounding Principal2009
- 02Mateo BrunPrincipal, Urban2012
- 03Sora TanakaAssociate, Interiors2015
- 04Lukas VanceAssociate, Technical2017
- 05Amara DiazSenior Architect2019
- 06Jonas HoltArchitect2021
04 / Timeline
- 2009
Elena Ferro founds the studio in a single room in Paris.
- 2012
First built work, House on the Ridge, opens in the Engadin.
- 2015
Zürich studio established; interiors practice formed.
- 2018
Riverline masterplan wins open competition in Porto.
- 2021
Mies van der Rohe Award nomination for the Gallery of Quiet Rooms.
- 2024
Sixteen years, eighty-four built works, nine countries.
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In the studio