Founded 2006 in New York, NY.
Common Room is an architectural collective operating from the modernist Emigrant Bank Building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Originally a space occupied by three independent architects (Lars Fischer, Maria Ibañez de Sendadiano, and Todd Rouhe), their office has evolved into a co-working space for the designers to collaborate and tackle joint projects. They approach each commission as a way to reevaluate what it means to inhabit a “common” or “shared” space, finding architectural solutions that encourage teamwork, social interaction, and reciprocity. Asked to design CANADA (completed 2007), a gallery on the Lower East Side, the architects created a space where both the art and the gallery operations are exposed to the public. Thus, “the space of display bleeds into the space of work” and the presentation of operations becomes as meaningful as the presentation of art. To continue to explore the constantly evolving relationship between workspace and community, Common Room also organizes public dialogues and exhibitions in its lobby, known as Common Room 2. The architects’ projects have brought these social aspects of design to built environments across New York and New Jersey, as well as England, Denmark, Ecuador, and Austria.
