Architecture Competition Yoga House in the Bog 3rd and Sustainability Award winner – SHANER & CO.

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the 3rd and Sustainability prize winner of our "Yoga House in the Bog" competition – Evan Shaner from United States!

Evan Shaner from United States

Shaner & Co. is a design practice founded by Evan Shaner in January 2023 in Los Angeles, CA. We design buildings, spaces, and objects that are both characterized by and cultivate simplicity, beauty, and the atmosphere of place. Our benchmark is a product that is both formally compelling, and that exemplifies an exceptional sensibility for light, material, and space. We strive to create architecture and design that prove to be necessary and iconic, that maintain design intent from ideation to realization, and that are at the forefront of design and construction techniques, sustainable practices, human-centric design standards, and market requirements and projections.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Evan received his Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2015, and his Master of Architecture from the highly competitive and avant-garde Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 2018. He worked for prestigious international firms such as UNStudio in Amsterdam and MAD Architects in Los Angeles before founding his own practice in 2023.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been involved?

Shaner & Co. is a young practice working across the private and public sectors, cultivating a diverse conceptual design portfolio that includes cultural, residential, retail, and civic projects.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

Good architecture, to us, is an elegant reconciliation of the form and function of a built place. We believe that the role of an architect is – in collaboration with clients – to balance ambition with social and physical context to help create buildings and environments that improve well-being, optimize requisite programs and/or processes, and contribute to the character of the place.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

We participate in architecture competitions because they provide us with an arena in which we can play gracefully with ideas. Competitions challenge us to make design decisions always in relation to people and to place, and they encourage us to consider the material, structural, and anthropological implications of architecture. We feel that this process sharpens our representational toolbox and in turn makes us better equipped to contribute to the built environment.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

Although we feel that the return on our time invested in architecture competitions is worthwhile, we understand that this may not be the case for other architects and designers. To those that are uncertain about whether to participate in architecture competitions we would humbly note that it is important for one to find an outlet for his or her creativity as it relates to real-world conditions and/or circumstances, and competitions for us have been some of the most fruitful outlets for and explorations into our creativity thus far.