KB » Kate Barbaria

I’m an insatiably curious architect looking to uncover the “why” behind every project. You can expect me to always be asking you to “tell me more!” With a Master of Architecture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in Art History and Medieval Studies from the University of British Columbia, my education and background focused on the delight and agony of both creating and critiquing art and architecture. I’ve worked at both very large and very small firms, and teach architecture at Portland State University. I have led projects ranging from new schools to commercial T.I.s to single family homes.

Contact: kate@kb-ba.com

BA » Brendan Albano

As an artist and an architect, my interests range from the conceptual world of performance art to the concrete details of building performance. After receiving my B.F.A. in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia, where I focussed on performance and installation art, I continued my exploration of creating environments for human interaction in my Master of Architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Along the way, I developed an interest in building performance, and worked for Argonne National Lab’s Building Energy Decision and Technology Research team and taught the course “Nodes, Networks and Interactivity in Practice” at SAIC. I’ve been the lead architect on many projects, including co-housing developments, single family homes, cafes, new commercial construction, and community centers.

Contact: brendan@kb-ba.com

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We met in Vancouver, BC and have developed a partnership and practice since our early days in undergrad where we were exploring performance and installation art focussed on intra-audience interaction. Our performance art was described as “groovy, unpretentious… intimate and elemental” (Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight).

This led us to architecture. We’ve cultivated a design practice that takes an expansive view of space-making and user interaction that is sweet and curious, useful and cerebral, and of course, groovy and elemental.