APPROACH

Our Story

SPAN Architecture LLC is the award winning, international architecture and design studio led by Karen Stonely AIA LEED AP and Peter Pelsinski AIA LEED AP.

With a multi-faceted and collaborative approach, our studio creates ageless work that is responsive and inventive, oscillating between natural world and man-made to create spaces that are truly extraordinary, demonstrative of the breadth of skills in our studio and reflective of our commitment to exploration and re-invigoration of place.

Our work encompasses an expansive collection of project types, from residential to commercial, development to high-end retail, and combines the craft of custom objects including furniture, hardware, lighting and art, graphic design and branding. Each project is undertaken collaboratively in a dialogue between the client, craftsmen and artisans. The narratives that develop in these relationships are the vital thread of design inception and creation. 

Experimenting across the scale, from the minutiae details to vast masterplans, it is our work in these intricate moments that reveal the defining core of projects. We revel in the possibility of the impossible and strive to make it a reality, using non traditional processes to solve problems for non traditional conundrums.

Our work, be it ground up or interiors, is a fast-paced laboratory in which to explore new building techniques and construction details.

As a collective, SPAN is personable, grounded in our collective attitude and approachable, delivering responsible design that is thoughtful and elevated. We design for people and places. We are curators, collectors, collaborators and designers, and as such are astute at collating diverse catalogs of inspiration for our clients who are aspirational and regard us as evolutionary, not revolutionary, in our work. 

SPAN continues to be recognized, with awards including Architecture MasterPrize, the American Institute of Architecture, FX International Interior Design Awards, BOY (Interior Design Best of Year), Dwell 15 Years of the Best 15 Modern Homes, and Architizer A+. SPAN has also graced the covers of Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Interiors and Aspire and is included in many books ranging from New York Architecture, urbanism in Envisioning Hudson Square to the international publication, Architecture Houses: Now.  

In our work we think equally about the relevance of history as much as the impact of a future world and as such, position our studio in the same way; preparing for the next generation to sphere the next phase. Future thinking, for the now. 

The SPAN studio is comprised of two principals, a studio director, associates, project managers & drafts persons, interior designers, and an office manager/marketing director. Each project team is expertly tailored to the scale, complexity and specialism of the work to be carried out. Located in the White Star Building, in Manhattan’s financial district, SPAN lives and breathes the city of New York, with an outlook that draws inspiration on a global scale.