Montalba Architects

Founded in 2004 by David Montalba, Montalba Architects is a multi-disciplinary firm with studios in Santa Monica, CA and Lausanne, Switzerland producing select architecture and urban design-related projects. Project works range in scope and context, from rural landscapes in the Swiss Alps to the dense urban scapes of New York and Los Angeles. By embracing a humanistic approach that considers not only a client’s needs and site considerations, but also the cultural and economic environment, solutions are realized that are contextual, yet conceptual and visionary in their intent, effect, and appeal. Each project emphasizes experiences by creating environments that are both socially responsive and aesthetically progressive.

The studio approach to design goes beyond architecture to encompass all elements of making, bringing a more complete cohesion to each project. Montalba Architects works with artists, builders and clients collectively to find new design expressions to solve problems. Rather than apply aesthetics, solutions are conceived to solve pragmatic requirements, constructability and context. Montalba Architects approaches design in terms of the big ideas that shape the project and begin to magnify the scope from there.

Over the last 15 years, Montalba Architects has continued to refine its craft through a set of values including the forces of volumetric landscapes, material integrity, natural light and pure spatial volumes to create solutions to pragmatic requirements of the client, constructibility and context. Design solutions are frequently inspired by these values, which find physical expression in ways directly related to particular clients, programs and design problems. Overall, Montalba Architects has compiled an acclaimed and diverse collection of projects ranging in scale from commercial office campuses to residential homes, retail stores, mixed-use buildings and master planning.