Architect Maya Halden on Building Less and Listening More

Maya Halden turns down half the commissions she is offered. She says the best decision an architect can make is sometimes not to build. It is an unusual position for someone who runs a busy practice, and an even more unusual one for an architect whose work has been widely published. But after twenty years of designing houses, schools and small public buildings across California, Halden has come to believe that restraint is the most valuable thing she offers.

Interview by Theo Grant · Studio Studio Halden Rowe · Projects 41 built

We met at her studio in a converted warehouse in Oakland, a long, bright room filled with cardboard models, rolls of tracing paper and a single enormous table where the whole team eats lunch together. Halden founded Studio Halden Rowe with her longtime collaborator Daniel Rowe, and the practice now employs fourteen people. In two decades it has completed 41 buildings. That is not a large number by industry standards, and she likes it that way. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.