BASIC released its 2026 Fastest-Growing Studios list this morning. We are on it.
What BASIC tracks
BASIC, the architecture index based in New York, runs a yearly survey of design-build practices across North America. They score by completed-project count year over year, market reach, and signed-but-not-yet-broken work in the pipeline. The 2026 list features twelve studios. We are the only Bay Area firm named.
How it lands from where we sit
The honest version: we doubled our project count from 2024 to 2025 without doubling the team. That happened because the eleven-phase model we built in 2023 finally cleared its first full cycle. Permitting timelines that used to take six months now take three. Material sourcing that used to flake in Phase 8 now flakes in Phase 5, where it costs nothing to recover from.
When the BASIC editor called for the fact-check, we were on a job walk in Mill Valley. The kitchen had a single-slab marble island still in transit from Brisbane. The conversation took twelve minutes. Nothing in the BASIC writeup is wrong; nothing in it captures what made the year actually feel like.
What we are watching now
Three things, for anyone wondering where we put our attention next:
Wine country residential. We took on two ground-up builds in Napa Valley last spring and a renovation in Healdsburg this winter. The climate envelope is different from the inland East Bay. The detailing is different. We are still calibrating.
Peninsula expansion. Atherton and Portola Valley project counts have tripled. The Peninsula client tends to want quieter detailing than the East Bay client. We are learning where the lines actually fall.
Material lead times. The bottleneck for high-end residential in 2026 is not labor or permits. It is materials. A single rift-sawn white oak slab is now an eleven-week lead time. Honed Calacatta from the right yard is sixteen. We are building deeper relationships with suppliers in Brisbane, Boston, and Bellingham.
Thanks
To every client who let us figure things out on their house. To the trades who showed up in fog at six in the morning. To Marija, Reggie, Raina, Marija (yes there are two), Zoran, and Alex.
If you are starting a project anywhere from Sausalito to Healdsburg, from Pacific Heights to Palo Alto, get in touch.
