Studio Shaffer Lutsko is a Los Angeles-based design collaborative working at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and creative consultancy. Founded in 2022, with active projects in the U.S. and Mexico, our practice explores the dialogue between material systems, climatic processes, and cultural re-signification. Our work spans private residential projects, institutional buildings, and masterplanning initiatives, engaging diverse communities and contexts through design that is both grounded and open to speculation. Through cross-scalar design inquiry and collaborative processes, we pursue clarity in form, flexibility over time, and spaces that foster collective agency. Each project is shaped by site specificity and cultural context, while seeking new possibilities for social cohesion and shared futures.
Gillian Shaffer is an architect, educator, and principal of Studio Shaffer Lutsko. Her design work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and her projects have been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale Fundamentals (2014), the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2017), and in numerous galleries in New York. She is currently on faculty at the USC School of Architecture and has previously taught at UCLA Architecture & Urban Design, Princeton University, and Pratt Institute’s Berlin program. In 2022, she was named the Citizen Architect Fellow. Prior to founding her practice, Shaffer worked with international firms including J. Mayer H. (Berlin), Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (Berlin), Junya Ishigami + Associates (Tokyo), and Höweler + Yoon (Boston). She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, where she also received a Certificate in Media + Modernity.
Past–Current Team & Collaborators: Paul Ruppert, Ilija Bentscheff, John Yurchyk, Cosa Buena, Taiyo Minami, Christian Maskrey, Daniel Yoo, Claudia Mejia Villalobos, Kaitelyn Haynes, Madison Rusch, Sean Wozniak, Kiara Sanchez, Annalyn Boothe, Florian Lepinard, Ruchi Singhania, Chinmayi Suri, Alex Schweder