T.W. Ryan Architecture is a design-led studio based in San Francisco and New York. Founded by Thomas Ryan in 2013, the practice engages with construction and craft as cultural pursuits to design contemporary spaces with permanence.
Excited by the elemental beginnings of architecture and the exchange of fundamental questions and ideas across generations, T.W. Ryan Architecture’s work speaks a contemporary language without the rhetoric and honors tradition while embracing technology. The studio’s process is driven by an economy of means and clarity of concept, seeking to innovate through a distortion of the familiar. From art galleries and office buildings to private homes, T.W. Ryan Architecture thoughtfully and critically engages each client and context to create projects defined by authenticity.
The studio’s most recognized projects include Three Chimney House (2020); Surf House (2015); and Adrian Rosenfeld Gallery (2017). In 2020, T.W. Ryan Architecture was named one of the Top 50 Interior Firms in the US by AN Interior and added to the Wallpaper* Architects Directory, an annual global index of emerging architectural talent and promising practices.
Three Chimney House was honored as a 2020 Record House by Architectural Record, received The Architect’s Newspaper’s 2020 Best of Design Editor’s Pick in the Single-Unit Residential category, won an honorable mention in the 2020 Residential Architect Design Awards for Custom Homes over 3,000 square feet, and nominated for ArchDaily’s Building of the Year award for Houses.
Most recently, T.W. Ryan Architecture completed a 3,300 square foot top-floor exhibition and workspace for Christie’s San Francisco.
This year, T.W. Ryan Architecture will complete two major houses in Montana and Virginia, marking Thomas Ryan’s rise as one of the top architects for contemporary homes.
Follow our work: @twryanarchitecture
Thomas W. Ryan, AIA, NCARB
Founder and Principal
Licensed in New York State
Thomas Ryan leads all phases of T.W. Ryan Architecture’s projects and is a Senior Lecturer at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He has been a licensed architect since 2013, and brings over 17 years of national experience designing and leading institutional and private residential projects.
Originally from North Carolina, Thomas Ryan studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London and received his Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and Master of Architecture from the College of Design at North Carolina State University (NCSU).
Prior to founding TWRA in 2013, Thomas Ryan was an Associate at Christoff:Finio Architecture and Richard Meier & Partners in New York. While there, he led award-winning projects for institutions such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Socrates Sculpture Center, The Brooklyn Historical Society, and The Philadelphia Art Museum in addition to completing a number of private residential commissions.
Thomas Ryan is a recipient of the Deborah Norden Prize from The Architectural League of New York, and a Design Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. At NCSU, he was co-editor of The Student Publication and was awarded the Faculty Design Prize and Henry Kamphoefner Fellowship for highest graduate achievement.
Thomas Ryan has been an invited juror at the University of Southern California, University of California at Berkeley, North Carolina State University, The Architectural League of New York, and Yale University.
Luigi Grosso
Associate
Luigi Grosso joined TWRA in 2018. Since that time, he has played an integral role in the design and management of the Gagosian Gallery, Marine Layer Workshop and is currently overseeing Construction Administration for the Four Roof House in Montana.
Prior to joining TWRA, Grosso was an integral member of the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg Headquarters in London with Foster & Partners and an Architectural Assistant at David Chipperfield Architects in Milan.
Originally from Sicily, Italy, Grosso received his Bachelor and Masters of Architecture degrees from the Politecnico di Milano in Italy along with additional graduate studies at TU Delft in the Netherlands.