Determined to make interior design affordable for all, this 23-year-old Stanford graduate recently launched his own firm, 50 for Fifty. Photo courtesy Noa Santos Armed with a joint bachelor’s degree in architectural design and management science from Stanford, Noa Santos took his first job at a Madison Avenue interior design firm in New York shortly after graduating in 2010. Disenchanted with the work, the 23-year-old decided to launch his own company, 50 for Fifty. Established in August, the one-man firm charges a mere $50 for a 50-minute consultation (“It’s more like an hour,” he says). The service is geared toward

Mini-parks built atop parking spaces are cropping up throughout San Francisco. The trend is spreading to other cities, as well. Photo ' Søren Schaumberg Jensen/REBAR Rebar, a San Francisco firm, designed a parklet outside of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in the North Beach neighborhood. Related Links: NYC: They Unpaved Paradise and Took Out a Parking Lot It’s the ultimate revenge on the modern city: one less parking space, one more park. A century and a half after San Francisco city planner Jasper O’Farrell was driven out of town by a lynch mob for taking farmers’ land to widen Market Street, parklets

Three architects at established firms share how they land new projects when work is scarce. Photo ' Tim Bies/Olson Kundig Architects Alan Maskin Olson Kundig Alan Maskin William Bostwick: Your firm is best known for its residential work, and that sector was hit particularly hard by the recession. Have you branched out? Alan Maskin: We’ve just tried to hold onto our sectors. This wasn’t a time to start pursuing airports, for example. We’re into our fifth decade as a firm, and we have been through many other recessions. Our residential focus has always carried us through. But we reviewed all

Three architects at established firms share how they land new projects when work is scarce. Photo © SHoP Architects Gregg Pasquarelli SHoP Architects Gregg Pasquarelli William Bostwick: Did you have to reposition the SHoP brand when the recession hit? Gregg Pasquarelli: It wasn’t about repositioning ourselves. SHoP has always had a broad idea of the way architecture could be practiced. We’re not just a design studio—we’ve always ventured into other areas of business. WB: Where are those opportunities now? I know you’ve dabbled in real estate development with the Porter House condos in Manhattan. What else? GP: We’ve been doing

Three recent projects attract clients by offering design services in unconventional locations. Design.Starts.Here looked like any other architecture studio: whiteboards covering the walls, a gaggle of stylish stacking chairs, and what one designer called “a really great conference table.” But there was one big difference: You could see it. Photo © Michael Hanson Since he began offering consultations at a farmer’s market, John Morefield’s atypical tactics have brought clients ­— and criticism (top) Design.Starts.Here took a cue from major retail chains with its “pop-up” store (middle). Design99 opened its storefront on the main shopping street in Hamtramck, Michigan, near Detroit (above).

Architects discuss the pros and cons of self-employment during an economic downturn. How does Ginseng Chicken, a young architecture studio, save money in the recession? “You’re sitting on it,” says Sang Hwa Lee, 31, pointing to a futon against the wall of a modest room on the 22nd floor of an apartment tower near Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan. This is Ginseng Chicken’s office. To Lee’s business partner, Hosung Chun, it also is home. Photo courtesy Ginseng Chicken Sang Hwa Lee, Hosung Chun, and Jeeyong An, started their New York-based studio, Ginseng Chicken, last summer. Last summer, as

Photo © Oliver Helbig When SFMOMA gave J. Mayer H. a show, the Berlin-based studio couldn’t have been expected to do anything tame. No framed drawings, no models here. After all, this is the firm that designed a Danish science museum in the shape of a hot rod flame, and stretched out an old German house like silly putty to make a new one. The buildings wouldn’t feel out of place in a Dr. Seuss book. So when J. Mayer H. designs a museum show—Patterns of Speculation: J. Mayer H., curated by Henry Urbach and up now through July 7—this

Image courtesy of the New Museum Urban China editor, Jiang Jun Image courtesy of the New Museum New Museum curator, Benjamin Godsill Cities are four-dimensional universes. Places and spaces at once, they’re always too big to fully grasp, and they’re always changing. If the contemporary apex of this incomprehensibility is anywhere, it’s in China, where cities are blurs of government control and ground-level commotion. They’re huge and sprawling, overpopulated, misunderstood, and growing fast. And a new show at the New Museum in New York packs all that into one room. Jiang Jun edits the Shanghai-based magazine Urban China, and his