Studio MDA

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Who we are

studioMDA is an international group of designers with a wide range of skills and perspectives working in an open studio that encourages collaboration. We are architects, interior designers, graphic designers, builders and artists. We work at multiple scales, from product design to urban planning, and we collaborate with a wide range of arts, engineers and construction professionals from the very beginning of each project. We generate designs that are site specific and that address the unique requirements of each client and program.

Who he is

studioMDA was founded by Markus Dochantschi in New York City in 2002 with the mission of challenging the boundaries of design. Markus was trained in Germany, where he graduated in 1995. He worked with Arata Isozaki and Fumihiko Maki in Tokyo during his academic term, and then with Zaha Hadid in London from 1995 to 2002. He has taught an Advanced Studio at Yale University with Zaha Hadid, Stefan Behnisch and Gerald Hines (2003), and has taught an Advanced Studio at Columbia University’s Graduate School for Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) from 2008 until now. Markus is also the director of the Global Cities Architecture Program (GCAP) at GSAPP. He has been a Guest Lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) and a guest critic at the AA London; Columbia University, NY; The Cooper Union, NY; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Princeton University, Princeton; the ETH Zurich, Switzerland; the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst Vienna, Austria.

What we do

Since 2002 studioMDA has worked on projects in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont, Alaska, Florida, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Turkey, Peru, Chile, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. studioMDA has developed an expertise in sustainable design, project management, high end interior design and the design of educational facilities. The office has experience in successfully guiding new construction through the Landmark Preservation review process in New York City. Calling on a wide range of consultants beyond the designer's typical collaboration, studioMDA has teamed with artists, video artists, and choreographers, among others, to define cutting edge architectural space. Within this context, the developed design language can become layered into micro and macro scales, balancing from the smallest detail to the urban fabric.