Homes, additions and small cultural buildings in Santa Fe, designed from where the sun lands on your site.
Low winter sun reaches deep into the bedroom.
Simplified east to west section. Sun angles are true profile angles for Santa Fe, 35.7° N.
Santa Fe sun is generous and blunt. Put the glass in the wrong place and the west bedroom bakes every July evening, while the living room misses the winter light it needed. So every project here starts with a sun study of your own lot, before we draw a single wall.
We keep the studio small on purpose. Two architects, a few projects at a time, and every drawing comes from the same table.
A house placed on the lot by the sun, the view and the wind, then drawn room by room. Thick walls, deep portals and glass where it pays you back in January.
Our usual timeline: 6 to 9 months of design, then the build.
A bedroom wing, a studio, a second story or a guest casita. We match the house you love and borrow its light instead of stealing it.
Our usual timeline: 3 to 5 months of design.
Opening up dark rooms, cutting in skylights and light wells, adding a portal to the west glass that cooks every summer. Older Santa Fe houses have good bones. We work with them.
Our usual timeline: 2 to 4 months of design.
Small galleries, artist studios, libraries and community rooms, where the light has to be beautiful and also kept off the work. We draw for boards and committees, with clear options and costs at every step.
Fixed fee proposal after a scoping meeting.
The same house from the study above. Scroll and it comes apart layer by layer, then goes back together, the way we check every project before it is built.
Five stretches of work, each one ending with something you can hold, look at and say yes or no to.
We meet you on site in the morning and again late in the day. We measure, photograph and note where the sun, the views and the wind come from.
1 to 2 weeksA sun study like the one at the top of this page, plus three quick site plans. You pick a direction before anything is drawn in detail.
2 to 3 weeksWhite study models, then plans, sections and a cost check with a local builder, so the design and the budget grow up together.
2 to 4 monthsCity or county permit sets, and the Historic Districts Review Board submittal when your lot sits inside a historic district.
1 to 3 monthsWe help you choose a builder, compare bids line by line and visit the site every week until the keys change hands.
8 to 14 months
Lucía Fold and Daniel Field started the studio in a converted garage off Camino Luz Quieta. It is still two architects and a model table, which means the person who walks your lot is the person who draws your house.
Every project gets a sun note: one fact from its daylight study that changed the design.
We turned the whole house 11 degrees so the great room catches winter sun by 9 am.
The light lands on the entry wall, never on the art.
Two light wells cut through the old roof brought sun to a hallway that never had any.
A studio wing with no west glass at all, and a clerestory that faces the morning.
We moved the bedroom after the sun study. Best decision of the whole build.
They drew the gallery around the light we did not want.
Design fees are a share of the construction cost, fixed in a written proposal after the first consult. Here is how ours usually land.
$90,000 to $108,000
Design fee range at 10 to 12% of construction
Rough demo estimate with stated assumptions, not a quote. Excludes engineering, surveys and permit fees.
Inside Santa Fe’s historic districts we prepare the Historic Districts Review Board submittal and present it with you.
Thirty minutes on the phone or an hour at the model table. Free, no drawings needed. Bring a photo of your lot if you have one.
Yes. A kitchen, a bedroom with better light or a new portal are all good projects. Small jobs get a smaller, fixed fee and drawings sized to the work.
For a new home, design and permits usually take us 6 to 9 months. Additions run 3 to 5 months and renovations 2 to 4. Historic district review can add a month or two, and we plan for it from the start.
Of course. If you already trust a builder, we bring them in early for cost checks. If you don’t, we invite two or three to bid and walk you through the numbers line by line.
Yes. We prepare the drawings, photos and written description for the Historic Districts Review Board and present the project at the hearing with you.
Whatever you have: a plat, photos of the lot or the house, a list of rooms, a budget range. A phone photo of the view from where the living room might go is plenty to start.
Yes, and there is no obligation. If we are a good fit, the next step is the flat fee sun and site study, which is credited to the design fee if you go ahead.
