When Kristen Sidell and Rudabeh Pakravan were both solo practitioners in Berkeley, California, they sometimes met for lunch, often helping one another with troubleshooting or comparing notes on the challenges of juggling architectural teaching and practice with raising young children. Now and then, they even collaborated on projects. They’d become friends as grad students at University of Pennsylvania and recognized their rapport as designers. But it took years of lunchtime conversations before the two women, Sidell recalls, “suddenly asked: What are we doing? Why aren’t we practicing together?”