Studio

StudioThe Team

What’s in a name? Red dots are ubiquitous, from a Bindi to a sold sign for artwork, each one a simple “solution” to complex requirements. Our design approach, akin to the simplicity of a red dot, looks for everyday beauty and meaning, drawing from the Bay Area Tradition, the natural world and an appreciation of craft.

Buildings grow. They absorb the vestiges of life and become places. The more thoughtful, the more spontaneous, the more revered, the more irreverent, the more precise, the more imperfect, the more sublime the place.

It is time to move beyond sustainability. It is time to create design practices that allow abundance- an abundance of clean water through onsite percolation systems, an abundance of light through day-lighting practices, an abundance of air through natural ventilation.

Our process elicits discovery and fun, a synthesis shared among studio, client and construction team. Red Dot Studio believes that the built environment can support, enhance, uplift, enlighten and foster good for people and the community. Our projects are narratives allowing the life that occurs within to continue to shape the space.

We would like to thank our Alumni: Alix Daguin, Alan Dougherty, Alex Waterston, Henry Gao, Lina Bondarenko, Geetika Rohra.

PHOTOGRAPHY Thomas Heinser

Publications,  Awards & Exhibits

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Karen Curtiss

Karen Curtiss Principal

Born and raised on the East Coast of the United States, Karen Curtiss studied in Scotland, and then lived in Hungary, before settling in San Francisco.  Her cultural explorations, intellectual pursuits and participation in competitive fencing eventually led her to architecture and inform her unconventional approach to the practice.

Since founding Red Dot Studio in 2005, Karen has championed a design thinking and engagement based on a belief in the profoundness of the prosaic in elevating the human experience and creating spaces imbued with the feeling of good design.

Karen holds an MA in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, an MA in Interior Architecture and a California Architect’s License.

Jackie Adams

Jackie Adams

Jackie has provided integral support to staple San Francisco organizations such as SFMOMA, Project Open Hand, ACLU, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center and the Community Music Center, in their development and administrative efforts for over fifteen years.

At Community Music Center she was involved with the capital campaign and supported a 95-year-old organization’s goal of expanding its campus and bringing more accessibility to its community of learners and musicians. This experience has reinforced her belief that a well-conceived, creatively-designed and efficiently-produced physical space can bring a community together and increase its inclusivity.

Jackie holds a BA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in printmaking and photography.

Lyda Cort

Lyda Cort

Lyda has been working in the design and art world for over 3 decades. With a background in fashion, photo styling, interiors, art and textiles, Lyda is intrigued by textures and colors and the ways they mix and layer in life and space. Working in architecture libraries since 2000, allows her to combine her interest in materials and her affinity to organize.

Lyda holds a MFA in Fiber Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a BS in Fashion Design from the University of Cinncinati School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning in Ohio. Some of the company’s she has worked with throughout her career include: Esprit de Corp, Levi Strauss, Smith and Hawken, Helly Henson, Lundberg Design, Sagan Piechota Architecture and Boor Bridges Architecture.

Camille Peignet

Camille Peignet

Growing up in France, Camille always dreamed of designing houses and creating spaces according to people’s own habits and dreams. She has worked at interior architecture firms in France and in New York and loves to discover the valued habits of everyday living wherever she travels. To make meaningful spaces, Camille has learned to analyze the users’ needs, to answer them, and to realize the projects at a human scale.

Camille received a Bachelor’s in Interior Architecture and a Master’s in Sustainable Cities from L’École de Design Nantes Atlantique. Her thesis focused on vacant urban spaces, and her project aimed to inhabit them, with the creation of a minimally-sized, livable structure that could be placed in unoccupied commercial spaces.

Mark Myers

Mark Myers

Mark was raised in suburban Kansas and later moved to metropolitan Boston. He was drawn into architecture after viewing images of Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion in a high school art history class. The images lead to questioning the physical world we inhabit, and opened the possibilities of the man-made environment.

After graduating from the Boston Architecture College in 1998 he worked for several design oriented practices in Boston, New York and San Francisco. His Clara street project was on the 2013 San Francisco AIA home tour as well as receiving an honorable mention in the Portland Living Smart housing competition. 

Mark is committed to understanding how the physical world interacts with our emotional well-being, and thus how design plays an important role in our daily life. He currently lives with his partner, son, and dog in San Francisco.

Nicole Levy

Nicole Levy

Growing up in San Francisco, Nicole has always been invested in the fabric of a well designed city. She is interested in creating welcoming and unique places both large and small, and loves to design a space looking at all the details. She has studied and worked in architecture across multiple countries, and loves to bring back inspiration from her continued travels across the world.

Nicole studied architecture and interior architecture at the University of Oregon, and later received a Master’s in Design from the University of Bergen in Norway in furniture design.
She loves to get her hands dirty in the wood shop or ceramics studio and works to lend each project a hand crafted touch.

LOCATIONRED DOT STUDIO

We are in the heart of the Mission at The Archery. Come for a coffee, Front Cafe is downstairs.