Process is a loaded word in architecture. Despite what studio professors might insist, it isn’t just the sketches, models, or diagrams we use to justify ideas. Process is about the choices that shape a practice: how you work, who you collaborate with, and what you decide is worth your time. Once you leave the structure of someone else’s office, those questions become your own to answer. Making ends meet is always part of the equation, but if the work itself doesn’t feel right, the steady paycheck you left behind can start to look tempting.

By Design is an ongoing series where I sit down with architects running their own practices while navigating the early days of my own. The first installment, “The Catalyst,” was about going out on your own. This one explores what comes after.

On a recent visit to Chicago, I reached out to a handful of architects to get their take on the city as a potential landing spot. At the very top of my list were Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow. 

I first learned about the Chicago-based studio, Kwong Von Glinow, as a graduate student when they lectured at the University of Washington. Their work was striking. It was somehow both playful and restrained; an unexpected yet clear rethinking of vernacular forms and space-making. 

Despite a packed schedule of teaching, lecturing, curating, and running a busy practice, they welcomed me with warm, distinctly Midwestern hospitality. We first met at their solo exhibition, Models Off-Site, where dozens of hand-made 1/2” = 1’-0” scale models, central to their approach, were on display. Soon after, they invited me to their home-studio, and we sat down to talk shop. 

What followed was a conversation about process in its fullest sense. Not just the act of thinking and making, but the ongoing work of building a fulfilling life and practice. 

Indulge.

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Solomon Cohen: How soon after your time at the Harvard Graduate School of Design did you start working together? 

Lap Chi Kwong: I went back to work at Herzog & de Meuron after we graduated, and Alison joined the office a year later. We weren’t on the same projects, so it really began when we started the practice. We just went for it. 

Alison Von Glinow: This was about three months after we got married. Our whole family was very concerned. 

SC: What motivated you to form the studio? Was there a central idea or creative process you aligned on? 

LCK: We enjoyed working at Herzog & de Meuron. We still have great friends there. We also enjoyed living in Basel, but we weren’t sure about staying long-term. 

AVG: It really was a personal decision. We wanted to have kids and didn't see our families being able to visit very often.

LCK: We travelled to several cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, New York, but we felt Chicago’s potential for us as architects. 

AVG: There's a design heritage here, but we also visited during the first Chicago Biennial. We just felt something happening.

SC: It definitely feels like a city that's proud of its architectural legacy. Every neighborhood has its own collection of old and new gems.

AVG: There are literally two Frank Lloyd Wrights two blocks away from us. 

SC: After relocating to Chicago, what were you hoping to achieve as founders? 

LCK: I'm not sure what the goals were exactly, but when you tell people you're an architect, they always ask what kind of work you do. Residential, commercial, institutional. At Herzog & de Meuron, the beauty was the diversity of projects. They design houses, but also stadiums and hospitals. The spectrum is incredible. From the beginning, we wanted to work with different programs.

AVG: The goal was to never do something twice. I worked at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) before joining Herzog & de Meuron. We wanted to bring those two methods of making, finding, and testing spaces together. 

SC: Looking back to the first year, how did the expectations of running the firm compare to the realities? 

LCK: We didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves. Starting the firm was the easy part. We didn’t have many commissions for the first six months. Since we never really worked together before, we decided to do what we called the “Seven-Day Competition.” There aren’t many that you could win and actually build, so we mostly entered ideas competitions. Those week-long projects trained us to work together. 

AVG: And to communicate ideas quickly. 

LCK: And figure out how our interests aligned. The first six months were helpful. We worked on about 15 projects.

AVG: That was value-setting time. We knew Herzog & de Meuron and SOM’s values, but we had to find out what we were interested in. It was just us for the first six months, then we added three interns to our team. We kept working on competitions and started teaching at IIT and SAIC. It was hard to balance when both of us were teaching. We made some difficult decisions to prioritize a certain direction for the practice. We learned to say no. That was big. It became clear that at least one of us had to focus on the practice full-time. 

LCK: The practice had to be the focus. We wanted to learn enough to build the things we were designing. It was important for us to know our contractors and consultants. We were new here, so we had to meet a lot of people.

SC: Can you talk about how those early experiences evolved into the Smuggling Architecture thesis? 

LCK: We had to change the way we worked. Going from large international offices to a two-person practice, we couldn’t apply the same logic. We had to reinvent how we communicated ideas. We were living in a Chicago suburb, so we were exposed to a specific type of housing. It’s such a common condition, but we were frustrated by the lack of architecture in those neighborhoods.

AVG: It's a territory where architects aren’t typically involved. 

LCK: And there’s nothing wrong with that. They clearly offer things people like. We just struggled with how little design was involved, so we came up with the idea of “smuggling architecture.” We like the tension in the ordinary and generic. The challenge was to provide more spatial moments. So we devised slight modifications that our clients could recognize as familiar, but also see from a different perspective. There are always multiple readings of “smuggling architecture.”

SC: Is there a relationship between that approach to housing design and your other commissions? Having seen the work on display at your exhibition the other day, there’s a truly insane range of projects on the boards.

LCK: It started because so many of the competitions we entered were about the housing crisis. We spent a lot of time looking at multi-family housing, so that got us interested in domestic space. Most of our commissions at the time were residential. There was a laundry room renovation, an en suite bathroom, a kitchen. We slowly built up our portfolio with the conceptual work and remodels. 

That led to referrals from other architects. Institutional projects like the Swiss Consulate in Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Library renovation. Now we’re doing a lot of work with Rice University. Looking back, every new project was built upon lessons we learned from the last. 

AVG: The values translate across programs. We’re interested in space, in avoiding redundancy, in providing light and air, in making sure all of those qualities are present in our projects. 

When we studied multi-family housing, we analyzed every component to understand the typology. I think that helped us understand the basic spatial elements. Everything is a spatial element. That's how we break things down to the most essential components. We think a lot about carving space. It's not so additive. We’re interested in finding spaces within. 

SC: Was the shift from designing larger-scale complexes at your previous offices to Jack-and-Jill bathrooms in the suburbs challenging?

AVG: We insisted that every bathroom and laundry room have a concept. We made concepts out of everything. I think that was our way of keeping clients engaged while we looked for spatial clarity. That’s how we drove the point home right away. We figured out how to express big ideas, and then everything else fell into place around them.

SC: Do you think there was a project or a sequence of projects that shaped that approach? 

AVG: I feel like we talk about the Ardmore House too much, but it’s helped solidify our ideas of domestic space as individual living components. The next thing was testing our approach to these spatial components for a totally different project—the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Library. The house and the library have very similar plans. They both have spaces organized behind a central curve. 

Seeing ideas applied to a 1,000 square foot floor plate have a similar impact on a 10,000 square foot floor plate was reassuring. The spatial values we were developing held through. You can maintain a similar sense of light, openness, and clarity. It was important to see how our design process for finding space in a house could translate across programs.

LCK: It would have been difficult to secure some of those projects without referrals from architects who knew our work. Most clients want specialists. They don’t want a generalist who says they can do everything. 

AVG: We have a client in Highland Park who we were called to help renovate their 18,000-square-foot landmark home. The first time we met, he said, “I've never heard of you before, so I'm not sure why I'm talking with you.” It was a funny, honest thing to hear. They have to be able to trust us. So we had to explain that yes, we hadn’t worked on a project that big as an independent firm, but we were capable, and this is how we would approach it. The tricky part of running an office is always having to prove yourself or find ways to express your capabilities.

SC: As you approach a decade of running a practice together, have you thought about what you hope to accomplish by the 10-year mark? By the 20th? 

LCK: We’ve missed commemorating almost every year since we started, so it’s hard to say. We can’t predict the future. Projects start and stop on their own schedules. The goal is always diversity of programs. It keeps us excited, especially now that we’ve delivered a few institutional projects. We’d love to work on commercial spaces or different types of housing. 

AVG: Or larger-scale cultural spaces. We've gotten to work with artists on small studio renovations and also on art collectors’ homes, but never on galleries or museums. Every project leads to something else. That’s how we think about it, even if it's some loose connection.

SC: What have been your favorite parts of running a practice? What’s been the most challenging or frustrating? 

AVG: We love what we do. But it wasn’t until we had kids that we consciously started limiting how much time we dedicated to the office. I think we've been able to strike a much healthier balance these days. 

LCK: Getting to build our projects has been exciting. Seeing them evolve from our models to construction drawings and then the work on site. That's the most satisfying part. I don’t like constantly having to prove ourselves to win projects, though. It feels like a never-ending process, but I'm sure even big firms have to do it.

SC: If you could go back to 2017 and give yourselves a piece of advice on day one, what would you say? 

AVG: Patience, but I'm not sure I would listen. It's a hard one. We have very different outlooks. I need the immediate result. He can see the longer-term picture. That something is happening. 

LCK: Architecture takes so long. From the design process through permitting and construction. You need time to let things settle. Patience is so important. There are so many unknowns. As long as you keep yourself busy, with commissions or with your own research, as long as those efforts align with your overall practice, it can all be very fruitful.

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Running a practice isn’t just about designing and delivering work. It’s just as much about what you do while waiting. Waiting for projects to come online, for clients to call you back, for ideas to find their moment. Those stretches can be frustrating, but they don’t have to be idle. Staying curious, making, and learning make their own kind of momentum.

In the early days of my own studio, I’m finding it’s less about filling time and more about shaping it. Every sketch, email, meeting, and half-formed idea is a step toward the practice you want to build. During slower stretches, the work you choose to keep doing points you forward. And if you can stay patient, those small, steady efforts stop feeling like preparation and start becoming the practice itself.