New Buildings

Architect's Studio

A 1,000-square-foot working prototype in Montopolis

Type: Office / Architect's Studio
Location: Montopolis, Austin, Texas
Size: 1,000 SF
Year: 2024
Status: Built

The Architect's Studio is the building Derrington Building Studio designed and built for itself — a 1,000 SF working prototype on a corner lot in Austin's Montopolis neighborhood. The brief was a hypothesis: that a small commercial building can be built without cavity walls, can read as architecture rather than as construction, and can be detailed so that conversion to a residence requires no demolition. The completed studio is the cleanest argument the practice has for the construction approach it now recommends to commercial clients.

Side porch view of the Architect's Studio at evening, showing the deep canopy on slender white columns, full-height window, and a planter wall in the foreground filled with tall grasses and flowering perennials — The deep porch is the building's primary outdoor room — a planter wall does the work of a balustrade. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Street-front view of the Architect's Studio from across the road, showing the modest gable form set behind a low concrete planter wall and against a neighboring single-family house — From the street the building reads as a neighbor — its scale and gable form pulled directly from the surrounding mid-century houses. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Wide exterior view of the Architect's Studio from the gravel court, showing the long elevation with the porch at right and the closed corrugated wall at left — One thousand square feet, sized at the scale of the adjacent houses — and detailed at the scale of an instrument. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Detail of the corrugated metal exterior wall in late afternoon light, with dappled shadows from an overhead tree falling across the ribbed surface and a small wall-mounted light fixture below — The corrugated metal wall as a screen for what time of day it is. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Detail of the porch's underside, looking up at the exposed timber ceiling supported on slender white columns, with views into the studio interior beyond and gravel ground at the foot of the columns — Porch ceiling — exposed framing carries the same logic from inside the building out. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Tight corridor between two corrugated-metal volumes of the building, looking out toward the street with a timber ceiling overhead and concrete underfoot — The corridor between the two volumes — a single architectural moment that organizes how the building reads. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Interior dining and meeting area with exposed pine framing, plywood walls, a wall-hung map of Texas, a clean walnut table with chairs, and a fiddle-leaf fig at right beside a deep-blue accent wall — Meeting area — the visible structure is the room's only ornament. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Vertical interior view of the studio's pine roof framing, showing exposed ceiling joists and rafters above plywood-clad walls, a small window at center, and the corner of a table at the bottom of the frame — The framing is the finish. There are no cavity walls, no concealed assemblies — what holds the building up is what you see. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Wide interior view of the main workspace under the gable roof, with two members of the studio team in conversation over drawings on the long white work table, bookshelves at left, and a wall of windows looking out onto the neighborhood at right — The studio at work — the building is the team's headquarters and its longest-running prototype. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Interior view of the workspace looking toward the kitchen, with deep blue accent wall, a piece of artwork mounted at the gable peak, and the white work table with rolling chair in the foreground — Blue accent wall — one chromatic move per room, never two. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Wide view of the studio's kitchen with floor-to-ceiling deep blue cabinets, a marble counter and backsplash, exposed pine ceiling above, and a door to a back hallway at right — The kitchen as one continuous wall — every utility folded into a single elevation. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Bathroom interior with white tile walls, a marble counter and basin set against a corrugated metal screen wall, exposed timber ceiling overhead, and a person arranging fresh-cut flowers in a vase on the counter — The bathroom keeps the corrugated wall — the same exterior material that wraps the building enters the wettest room. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Library nook with a wall of bookshelves on plywood-clad wall, plants on shelves, a black sleeping dog at the foot of the desk, and a skylight in the gable ceiling pouring daylight onto a designer working at a laptop — The library nook gets the building's only skylight — direct overhead daylight on the desk, the books, and Osa. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Detail of the studio's library bookshelf with rainbow-spined Domus magazine archives, plants in white pots, and the exposed pine framing of the gable above — Library detail — the studio's reading is its primary research instrument. Photo: Leonid Furmansky

Process: Design 4 drawings

Design-phase artifacts — sketches, massing studies, schematic boards, and the drawings that informed the building's organization.

Aerial schematic rendering of the Architect's Studio site plan, showing the building's L-shaped footprint with porch and outdoor courtyard, surrounding gravel and lawn, and the relationship to neighboring fences — Site-plan rendering — building, porch, and courtyard worked as one continuous indoor-outdoor surface from the first study.

Schematic front-perspective rendering of the Architect's Studio, showing the porch, slender columns, full-height windows, gable roof, and rocking chairs on the porch slab — Front-perspective rendering during schematic design — the porch read as the building's primary public face from the start.

Rendering of the rear elevation showing the closed corrugated back wall, a small clerestory volume above, and an outdoor dining table on a paved terrace adjacent to the building — The back elevation is closed — every interior daylight strategy is held to the front and the gable ends.

Closer perspective rendering of the porch and entry sequence, with the slender columns, exposed timber ceiling, rocking chairs, and the planter wall at right — Porch-and-entry study — the planter wall does the work of a railing without becoming a railing.

Client and program

The studio designed its own headquarters with a brief written backwards from a hypothesis: that a small commercial building can be built without cavity walls, can read as architecture rather than as construction, and can be detailed so that conversion to a residence — should the practice eventually outgrow the lot — requires no demolition. One thousand square feet, two work zones, a small meeting area, and the ability to keep the team productive while the wider studio grew.

Site and constraint

The site is a corner lot in Austin’s Montopolis neighborhood, surrounded by mid-century single-family houses. The constraints were budget (a real one — this was a self-funded prototype), the scale of the surrounding fabric, and a skeptical building department whose familiarity with conventional stick-built assemblies did not extend to the cavity-free wall section we wanted to test.

Design move

The building has no cavity walls. The framing is left exposed inside, transformed from a hidden structural assembly into a visible architectural one. Insulation is placed exterior to the framing, the way Japanese, Scandinavian, and Alpine traditions have done for centuries — but rendered through the lens of American industrial practicality, with off-the-shelf members and accessible fasteners. The form echoes the gable scale of the surrounding houses; the detailing is what makes the building feel deliberate rather than vernacular.

Construction approach

The studio built much of the project itself, which let us refine details on the floor rather than at the desk and produced a closer record of how the assembly performs. The exposed structure removes the most common sources of building failure — concealed moisture, hidden pest pathways, inaccessible mechanical work — and pushes maintenance decisions out into the open where they can be addressed early.

Outcome

The Architect’s Studio is the studio’s most direct argument for the rest of its work. Dezeen featured it in October 2025 as an example of “intentionally practical” architecture; the project has since become a working test case for the cavity-free assembly we now propose to other clients evaluating low-maintenance commercial structures. It is also the only building in the portfolio in which the architect is also the contractor, the client, and the resident-elect.

Process: Construction 5 photos

On-site progress photos — sequence, detail, and the moments where drawing meets material.

Two members of the studio team working at a folding table on the construction site, with the early framing of the studio building visible behind them and surrounding trees — Studio team on-site at an early construction phase — the project was self-built, so design review and construction administration happened at the same table. Photo: Derrington Building Studio

Active framing on the construction site, with three workers raising and securing wall studs and a fourth worker standing on the partially-framed roof against a clear blue sky — Framing day — the assembly we'd be detailing for months took shape in a single morning. Photo: Derrington Building Studio

View of the studio's gable roof structure being raised, with one worker on top installing rafters and the framed walls below sitting on a fresh concrete slab — Gable framing going up — the cavity-free assembly meant every joint had to land precisely the first time. Photo: Derrington Building Studio

The framed shell with corrugated metal walls partially installed, plywood doors and openings visible, a porch slab in front, and the timber roof ceiling exposed overhead — Walls complete — this is the assembly we now propose to commercial clients evaluating low-maintenance buildings. Photo: Derrington Building Studio

Late-stage site work with a black dump truck delivering a large pile of pea gravel for the courtyard, with the nearly-finished studio building visible behind and a worker in a high-vis vest in the background — Gravel delivery — site work is the final architectural decision on a project this small. Photo: Derrington Building Studio

Credits

Client: Derrington Building Studio
Photography: Leonid Furmansky
Structural Engineer: [Structural Engineer of Record — drop in]
Contractor: Derrington Building Studio (self-built)
Consultants: [MEP — drop in]

Recognition

Dezeen · October 4, 2025

Derrington Building Studio designs "intentionally practical" offices in Austin

Related projects

New Buildings

Crux Pflugerville

Climbing Gym · Pflugerville, Texas · 2024

A ground-up climbing gym for the Crux network — bouldering, 55-foot top-rope walls, yoga, fitness, retail, and a landscaped courtyard organized around a single covered exterior room.

New Buildings

Crux Houston

Climbing Gym · Houston, Texas · 2025

A purpose-built climbing facility for Crux's first Houston location — a daylit volume of bouldering, top-rope, training, and yoga organized around a public-facing arrival sequence.

New Buildings

Rush Racquets

Racquet Sport Club · Austin, Texas · 2022

A pickleball-focused racquet club — courts, a beer garden, and a clubhouse organized so that play and gathering share the same architectural foreground.