Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Names: Rustam-Marc Mehta and Tal Schori
Occupation: Founding architects of GRT Architects.
Instagram: @grtarchitects
Hometown:
Rustam: Guilford, CT
Tal: Valle de Bravo, Mexico
Studio Location: New York City and Mexico City.
Describe what you make: We are architects. We add new things to old things. We future-proof. We create spaces for people to experience culture, rest, and connection.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: Our transformation of the Rectory of St. Thomas in Harlem into a private home and artist’s studio was definitely a turning point for our studio. Working with artists has become a through-line in our work, and this was one of the more complex spatial reconfigurations within an historic building we had done to date.
Describe the problem your work solves: Our work addresses the issue of how to design in dialog with a historical fabric. While not all our work involves restoration, everything we do has an awareness of the vast visual and material culture in which it is situated.
Share the project you are working on now: We are working on houses in France, Mexico, a synagogue in Brooklyn, and an addition to a museum in Maryland.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: We recently completed a mixed-use arts complex at the Amant Foundation, which now houses the restaurant Zoli. This project in particular was great because it combined so many core components of our practice: adaptive reuse, transforming an existing industrial warehouse, and creating cohesion between this structure and the rest of Amant’s programmatic space; and collaborating with artists, working closely with chef Ned Baldwin and artist Pierre Huyghe to prime the environment for them to carry out their respective practices—chef Ned with his incredible menu, and Pierre with his site-specific installation, which serves as the focal point of the space.
What you absolutely have to have in your studio: Samples everywhere, mock-ups, organized inspirational chaos.
What you do when you’re not working: Read, weld, bike, raise kids, garden, cook, bake, do judo, restore cars.
Sources of creative envy (dead or alive): Sarfatti, Ponti, Mollino, Portaluppi, Mari—and those are just the Italians.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Smoke alarms, outlets, and light switches.
Concrete or marble? Both have some baggage. We prefer the unexpected: tile countertops, end-grain wood floors.
High-Rise Or Townhouse? Townhouse.
Remember or Forget? Remember; we like history too much and we don’t think anyone wants an architect who forgets.
Aliens or Ghosts? Haunting has a lot more architectural potential.
Dark Or Light? Light with 0-10 dimming.
