March 22nd, 2023
Karin Payson AIA, LEED AP Principal, Karin Payson Architecture + Design (KPa+d)
Karin Payson is the principal architect of Karin Payson Architecture + Design (KPa+d), a design-oriented, San Francisco-based firm with projects completed throughout Northern California as well as Wyoming and New York.
At KPa+d, Karin has been engaged as an architect and interior designer in a wide variety of new buildings and substantial renovation projects for homeowners, public libraries, and various commercial and institutional clients. She brings a rich set of skills and interests to her work. Drawing, clothing design and fabrication as well as frequent travel in search of fresh experiences are essential to her practice as an architect and inform her continuing study of the characteristics of natural light and materials.
Before founding KPa+d in 1992, Karin’s professional experience included several years in the New York office of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates where, as a Project Architect, her work focused on the planning, programming and design of large-scale commercial buildings and adaptive re-use of historically significant buildings.
Karin holds degrees from Columbia University and UC Berkeley, and is a licensed architect in California and New York. Her work has appeared in several exhibitions and publications, including California Homes; Science & Spirit; Architectural Digest; San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine; Sunset Magazine; The Sacramento Bee; The San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine; and The New York Times.
Ensuring a Creatively Fulfilling Career
A healthy work-life balance is key to preserving one’s creative energy while building and sustaining a successful – and creatively satisfying practice. Karin will share how she has organized her life and work around that goal since the very beginning of her career and has been sustaining it within her eponymous and diverse practice for the last 30 years.
Suchi Reddy Founder, Reddymade Architecture and Design
Suchi Reddy founded Reddymade Architecture and Design in 2002 with a human-centric approach to design. The guiding principle of the practice is “form follows feeling,” a design ethos informed by neuroaesthetics, the study of how the brain responds to the design of our surroundings. The strong belief that good design, calibrated carefully to the human, positively influences wellbeing, creativity, and productivity informs all projects from conception to details. Reddy is the Fall 2022 Walton Critic at the Catholic University of America and she was the Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign–Urbana for the Fall 2019 semester. Reddy has presented and lectured on the firm’s work at numerous venues including The Salk Institute for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s annual conference, the WSJ Future of Everything Conference, the AWS Summit, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. She sits on the board of the Design Trust for Public Space, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Madame Architect; and she is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.
Confidence in Curiosity
Architecture is not just a container of culture, but a catalyst of culture. For architects to be vital leaders in this way, we need to exercise a boundaryless way of thinking that can offer transdisciplinary solutions to the complex problems we face. Hear from Suchi Reddy as she speaks about her start in the profession and its evolution over twenty years of practice to include works that define an “outside the box” approach to architecture. She will speak to the inspirations, life lessons, and course corrections that guide her as she grows the breadth of her practice.