ABOUT
Our practice is a process of riffing.
Riff Studio grew out of a support system formed between design students in 2017.
We leverage backgrounds outside of traditional design practice, including building construction, historical research, and architectural pedagogy. Our designs are riffs produced from dialogues between these distinct realms, as we contemplate the future of housing.
Within Riff, we leverage the technical knowledge and skills garnered through furniture making, digital fabrication, and construction management. Riff Studio was formally incorporated in 2021, amidst a nationwide reexamination of pre-pandemic housing paradigms.
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Farnoosh Rafaie
Principal
Farnoosh Rafaie is a practicing designer in Los Angeles and former Assistant Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture. A native Californian, she retains an innate interest in exploring an architecture of unique and peculiar congeries of everyday suburbia from remarkable to unremarkable ways of living. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with honors and a MArch II with distinction from the Harvard GSD. Rafaie is from Los Angeles.Rekha Auguste-Nelson
Principal
Rekha Auguste-Nelson is a designer of protective housing, encompassing secret compartments, hidden rooms, and escape mechanisms. She received a MArch I with distinction from the Harvard GSD in 2018. Auguste-Nelson was a Dean’s Merit Scholar and recipient of the Alpha Rho Chi Medal. Auguste-Nelson received a Bachelor of Arts in history with honors from Harvard College in 2013. Trained in furniture-making at the North Bennet Street School, she is a superintendent with Consigli Construction Co., Inc. Auguste-Nelson is from New York City.*In August 2023, Isabel Strauss stepped away from Riff Studio to continue curatorial work at The National Museum of African American History and Culture and further her book project, “The Architecture of Reparations.”
Learn more about her work here.