FORMA

FORMA named as one of @archpaper ’s 20 firms to watch!!! We are honored to be in such great company - congratulations to all and thank you to the AN team for the recognition. Join us to celebrate at The A&D Building @adbuilding on March 5 at 6:00pm. Photo: Beto de Freitas RSVP today —> twentytowatch26.eventbrite.com

We are thrilled to find out that our self-developed #upstatenewyork project - House on a Hill - landed on the cover of @abitare_magazine 💫✨ Thank you editorial team and @dannatiarchitettipodcast for the wonderfully written and meticulously composed cover story. 🙏🙏

Perched high above the Hudson Valley, Forma’s ‘House on a Hill’ is a study in radical simplicity: a perfect cube clad in blackened timber, sitting like a dark jewel against the rolling New York landscape. Its sharp lines and sheer façades give way to luminous interiors, where vast panes of glass frame cinematic views of the surrounding woods. The project began when @forma.ny founders Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz, longtime friends and collaborators, purchased a nine-acre lot in Hillsdale, two hours north of New York City. Conceived as a weekend retreat, the journey from vision to reality spanned five years. Minimal yet commanding, the result balances restraint with drama: a monolithic exterior concealing a sanctuary that feels both rooted in nature and strikingly apart from it. Read the full story online at wallpaper.com or via the link in bio. 📷: @devon_banks 🖊: @annaa.solomon

It took a few seconds. The ideas behind this project have developed, evolved, and transformed during several years. Through many iterations. Over and over again. Seemingly never finished. The previous carefully composed images depicted colors, materials, the life of the building. In Stamford, Connecticut. During summer. It took days, weeks, months. To model, draw, pause and put on hold, only to pick it up again at a later time. Snow was time consuming to image well. Until now. It took a few seconds. Still not sure about this. The removal of friction from the design process. The ease of execution. The rapid speed. The seductiveness of the output. The elimination of the repetitive tasks. The thoughts materialized before they have time to settle and sink in. But then again, some dormant ideas resurfacing, springing new thoughts to life. What will the extreme acceleration of the design processes do to our thought processes? To our creativity? To our sense of meaning? Our understanding of the world? Will they expand? Diminish? Will they flatten across the globe or become infinitely deep? Will our appreciation of the physical environment increase as our mastery of the digital peaks? Will we be so enamored by the newly amplified possibilities that the old, slow and painfully inefficient ways of making and designing cease to exist? As our work becomes more physical, entangled in the excitement and realities of building construction, we continue to explore what got us here in the first place - the beauty and joy of making, creating, thinking, imagining.

A new geothermal ground-up house coming up in Denver!!! 💫💥✨ #wip

Facade is up in Philly! 💥 @optimal_construction_group @cnc.philly @annarindos

Though this mountain getaway in Hudson Valley is a tidy 1,500 square feet, architects Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz—cofounders of Forma—are able to pack three bedroom suites, a cedar-lined covered deck, and an open-plan living-dining-kitchen area, into the cubic structure. The home's unusual apertures help break up the structure's height while affording panoramic vistas of the Berkshire and Catskill Mountains. After five years of development, it’s now ready for guests! Read more about this project at the link in bio. Featured work by @forma.ny Article by @lilerr Photography by @devon_banks

Blue Curved Bath | 2025 | Manhattan, NY An exercise in material precision. Or, how a curve meets a corner. 📷: @devonbanksphoto 🚧: @think_construction

Chicago Architecture Biennial SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change Sept 19, 2025 – Feb 28, 2026 24-foot by 8-foot vector drawing, printed on 12 large panels, accompanies our interactive floor installation displayed at this year’s @chicagoarchitecturebiennial The project re-imagines FORMA’s previously-designed 16,000 SF proposal for an Early Education and Community Center located along Mill River in Stamford, Connecticut. Stitching together multiple projection methods – from perspectival and axonometric to orthographic plan – the project invites participants to reimagine public space not as something fixed, but as something flexible and multifaceted – designed for curiosity, creativity, and collective experience. The exhibition centers on the idea of the commons – public spaces designed to serve the collective, promote inclusivity, and create new opportunities for interaction and collaboration. A meditation on the role of groundscape in architecture, a character-driven civic space – The Playscapes – is used as a case study and transformed into a participatory installation that fosters collective experience and shared interaction. The term playscape suggests a more ambiguous relationship with terms like ‘ground’, ‘community’, or even ‘nature’ and provides a chance to rethink them on a more fundamental level. Inspired by the experimental playgrounds of Isamu Noguchi and Aldo van Eyck, the project challenges rigid notions of function, form, and scale, proposing play as a creative framework for rethinking public space and architecture’s role in shaping collective futures. Big THANK YOU goes to @emaleedavidson.arch who worked tirelessly for weeks to make sure every inch of the drawing and the entire exhibition is impeccable. Our gratitude goes to @flor_ness for the warm invitation and continuous support; we are thrilled to be included among such a fantastic group of architects, artists, thinkers and makers, and have the opportunity to participate in this rich cultural exchange. We also want to extend our thank yous to the entire CAB team, especially Sandy Guttman who made the coordination and installation process seamless.

Opening today! Chicago Architecture Biennial SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change Sept 19, 2025 – Feb 28, 2026   ‘Commons Reimagined: Collectivity Through Space’ – designed to be touched, rearranged, and shared, this participatory installation for this year’s @chicagoarchitecturebiennial transforms the exhibition space of the @chicagoculturalcenter into an interactive playscape that invites visitors to move, sit, gather, and play. At its center is a custom-designed rug that ties the entire space together, encouraging physical engagement and social interaction. Inspired by visionary playgrounds from designers like Isamu Noguchi and Aldo van Eyck, the project reimagines public space not as something fixed, but as something flexible – designed for curiosity, creativity, and collective experience. By centering on the idea of the commons – spaces that serve everyone – the project invites us to reflect on how architecture can create joy, connection, and belonging. Enormous THANK YOU goes to @emaleedavidson.arch who worked tirelessly for weeks to make sure every inch of the exhibition is impeccable – from the 24-foot-long rug and 19-foot-long reconfigurable modular seating to the intricately designed and drawn 8’ x 24’ drawing. You are the best! Our gratitude goes to @flor_ness for the warm invitation and continuous support; we are thrilled to be included among such a fantastic group of architects, artists, thinkers and makers, and have the opportunity to participate in this rich cultural exchange. We also want to extend our thank yous to the entire CAB team, especially Sandy Guttman who made the coordination and installation process seamless. Lastly, this would not be possible without the support and flawless fabrication of our beautiful rug made by @artoffloors and the impeccable craftsmanship and rapid production by the wonderful team at @wallywoolbc – it’s been a true pleasure to collaborate with both. We loved seeing people’s interactions with the piece and the energy of the whole place. Congratulations to all the participants!

We couldn’t be happier with our first self-developed ground up project – House on a Hill in Hillsdale, New York!!! Conceived during the pandemic - a moment of global pause and reflection - this project explores the potential of compact living as a means to reconnect with nature and rethink domestic space. Set within a wooded, nine-acre site in Upstate New York, the house is designed to renew focus on the surrounding landscape—prioritizing views, daylight, and the immersive qualities of its setting. A modest footprint and efficient planning strategy allow the architecture to sit lightly on the land while offering a rich spatial experience from within. More images coming soon! Additional information on our website, link above.

Our award-winning proposal ‘Slim GIM’ - Gradually Inclined Multi-Family - prototype reconsiders the residential duplex typology within a tall and skinny volume punctured by exterior balconies and bold color play (see previous post). Taking advantage of the long lot and generous height limit, the narrow structure pulls away from the side setbacks for increased access to light and air within its interiors. In part a fire-separation strategy and in part an exercise in compact density, the bar volume houses two multi-level primary units stacked atop a one-car garage and a JADU for increased programmatic flexibility and income generation. The compact footprint is lodged into the sloping hillside, firmly rooting the house in the ground. The drought-tolerant landscape of cascading terraces, retaining walls, stairs and ramps provides defensible space, acting as a hardscape break, and aids in water-retention strategy during scarce but increasingly severe rainstorms. The Small Lots, Big Impacts is an ambitious, first-of-its-kind initiative to turn vacant small lots into new starter homes, organized by cityLAB-UCLA @citylabucla in collaboration with LA4LA, and the City of Los Angeles, including the Mayor’s office @mayorofla , the Housing Department, and City Council. The competition demonstrates ideas for designing and building a type of housing that is sorely needed in Los Angeles today: new starter homes for the 21st century. Our proposal was highlighted among 14 professional teams based in L.A. who received Special Recognition for their exemplary work on both sites within the Gentle Density category, demonstrating how 2-9 units can better utilize infill sites in the city. We are very happy to receive this recognition among the total of 350+ submissions from 36 countries and big congrats to all the winners!!! In collaboration with @studiozimmphl