Studio

As a team of like-minded architects, designers, and strategists, we work through a rigorous, iterative design process to create original residential, commercial, and cultural projects for owners, tenants, friends, investors, organizations, institutions, and brands.

Our diverse network of collaborators include brilliant builders, fabricators, curators, filmmakers, photographers, artists, fellow designers, and clients. Many hands touch each of our projects, deliberately.

Though our work is grounded in conceptual ideals, we are realists. Therefore, we strive to blend the obsessive energy of a boutique design studio with the practicality and professionalism of a structured outfit.

Our favorite projects embody a thoughtful response to each project's context — climate, geography, culture, materiality, and history each play a part. From this foundation, we prioritize warmth, simplicity, craft, and wit in the spaces we create.

Our team's broad creative expertise fuels capabilities across interiors, furniture design, real estate, exhibitions, and publications, in addition to architecture. While each project's tailored scope of work differs, our services on any given project may include:

Pre-Design
⎯ Site Analysis
⎯ Feasibility Studies
⎯ Code Investigation
⎯ Preliminary Budgeting
⎯ Program + Circulation Analysis

Design
⎯ Interior Design
⎯ Architectural Design + Development
⎯ Custom Furnishings
⎯ Artist Collaborations
⎯ Environmental Graphics
⎯ Exhibition Design
⎯ Creative Direction
⎯ Finishes, Fixtures & Equipment Selections
⎯ Precedent Research
⎯ Physical and Digital 3D Modeling
⎯ Material Palettes
⎯ Renderings + Representation

SSP is a Women-Owned Business (WBE).

Project Management
⎯ Client Communications
⎯ Project Budgeting
⎯ Project Scheduling
⎯ Consultant Coordination
⎯ Owner Representation

Approvals
⎯ Permit Drawings
⎯ Schedules + Specification Publications
⎯ Agency Submittal Services (Expediting)
⎯ HPOZ and Mills Act Approvals
⎯ HOA Presentations

Construction
⎯ Construction Drawing Production
⎯ Bid Solicitation, Negotiation + Leveling
⎯ Value Engineering
⎯ Coordination of Specialty Fabricators
⎯ Construction Administration + Support

Our approach is rooted in the following core beliefs:

Research + Education

We love information—programmatic, historic, logistical, aesthetic, legal, environmental, social, cultural. We ask questions. We listen. We dig into the constraints of each project and mine so-called challenges for opportunities to enrich the work.

Character

We believe in the power of the well-crafted, the specifically curated, and the one-of-a-kind, developed through innovative details and combinations of textures. We don’t believe in typical projects; but our work frequently layers materials, objects, and fixtures from multiple eras to produce tactile spaces that feel as though they've been collected and evolved slowly, over time.

Collaboration

Our team’s diverse skill set and range of experiences forge a unique vision for each of our projects. We foster conversations across multiple perspectives, from our diverse library of design inspiration to our client-focused and feedback-driven approach to our engagement with collaborators, contractors, and fabricators to our broad network of vendors and suppliers; our work is the better for it.

Service

We value our clients and want them to enjoy the process of making. To that end, we are organized, communicative and suppportive throughout our time working together.

Community

We strive to build highly tailored, original spaces that serve the kind of diversity that strengthens our collective experience. From the outset, we understand the power inherent in shaping the way our clients connect with their communities, their families, and their environments. We also believe space can transform those relationships for the better.

As an organization, we cultivate relationships with vendors, consultants, and fabricators that mirror our values for social connection, craftsmanship, sustainable business practices, and creative innovation.

Mary Casper, AIA
Principal + Creative Director

Mary received her M.Arch from Rice University and a B.A. in Sociology from Vassar College. Mary has 12 years of experience in the architecture and design field. She has worked as a Lead Designer and Project Manager for numerous award-winning offices, including Johnston Marklee, WW Architecture, and Interloop Architecture, served as Director of Architecture for The Archers, and was a Consulting Partner of Design & Interiors for Chet Architecture. Mary is a licensed architect in California and Wisconsin.

Mary is currently on faculty at the USC School of Architecture, has taught previously at the Harvard GSD and has served as a visiting critic at University of Michigan, University of Kentucky, CalPoly Pomona, Woodbury University, UCLA, and Sci-Arc. She co-edited Plat Journal 2.5 and 3.0 with Chimaobi Izeogu and The Petropolis of Tomorrow with Neeraj Bhatia, published by Actar in 2013.

Maggie Angelini
Interior Designer + Strategist

Maggie received her B.A. (Plan II) from the University of Texas at Austin. She previously worked as a designer with Lisa Koch Design, crafting boutique and large scale hospitality projects, as well as high-end residential interiors. Prior to design, Maggie worked in finance, as a trader and real estate investor. She remains active in real estate development projects.

Chloe Davis
Junior Designer

Chloe received her B.S. in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. She previously worked as a technical designer in Los Angeles, creating fabrication drawings for custom furniture and architectural components. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a monitor in the wood, metal, and ceramic shops, gaining experience with hands-on building techniques.

Angel Firmalino
Senior Project Designer

Angel received her Master of Architecture from Princeton University and her Bachelor in Architectural Studies from UCLA with an emphasis in Geography. She has 7 years of design experience working with Los Angeles-based offices such as Subtila, Part Office and Michael Maltzan Architecture, as well as internationally with Mexico City-based PRODUCTORA. Her design experience spans across residential, retail, exhibition design, award-winning institutional projects and campus design. Alongside her experience as a designer, Angel has also held teaching positions at the University of Virginia as a visiting studio professor and at Princeton University as assistant instructor.

Francesca Leventis
Project Designer

Francesca received her B.S. in Interior Design from the University of Cincinnati. She has previously worked as a collaborator with Ware Malcomb in San Diego, HDR in Chicago and Studio UNLTD in Los Angeles, where she most recently worked on hospitality and restaurant projects. She has also volunteered her time on archival and photography projects with Hood Century, a modernist historic preservation organization.

Zack Parker
Operations Coordinator

Zack received his B.F.A from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is currently enrolled in the Architecture and Interior Design Certificate Program at UCLA Extension. He previously worked at Glenstone Museum in Potomac, MD, and Tortoise General Store in Los Angeles, specializing in visitor experience, arts administration, and digital content.

672 South La Fayette Park Place, Suite 38
Los Angeles, California 90057

Social Studies Projects is located in the historic Granada Buildings at the perimeter of Lafayette Park on the east side of Koreatown.

Land Acknowledgement

Social Studies Projects is based in Tovaangar (the Los Angeles Basin and Southern Channel Islands), the traditional and unceded homelands of the Gabrielino-Tongva people. We acknowledge these Indigenous people as the original and ongoing inhabitants of this land, whose relationship to place continues through ceremony, culture, and care.

We pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (ancestors), ’Ahiihirom (elders), and ’Eyoohiinkem (relatives) past, present, and emerging. In the spirit of kuuy nahwá’a, a Tongva practice of guest exchange grounded in relationship and reciprocity, we are proud to offer financial support to the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, the first land trust in Los Angeles County where land has returned to Tongva stewardship.

Land acknowledgment is just one step. We recognize our presence here as guests, and strive to act with respect, reflection, and gratitude. This statement marks the beginning of our ongoing commitment to learning and meaningful action in solidarity with Native self-determination.

To learn more and make your own guest exchange, visit tongva.land.