Formed in 1990, Fung + Blatt Architects is committed to creating environments that endure and that inspire optimism and a sense of wonder.
We design environments for living, learning and creating. Our work is rooted in the human experience, inventiveness of structure, and connection to place.
Our goal is to locate the underlying spirit of a project and to deliver thoughtful and uplifting spaces of habitation; whether for a community or a single individual.
Practice
We are a small practice firmly grounded in both structural design and ongoing investigation in the creative process, which equips us to navigate the boundary between the pragmatic and poetic.
We see ourselves as custodians of collaborative processes, each one a unique challenge. Our expertise in navigating structure and code issues allows the pragmatic parameters to be addressed early on, freeing us up to develop creative solutions and follow them through into engaging and integrated places of habitation.
Our Services
We begin pragmatically, through an analysis of the inherent forces of a site and with a focus on sustainable living and building practices. We balance the client’s needs, desires and budget with code and site limitations.
Once the practical boundaries are set, we work to locate the inner spirit of the project and to uncover the possibilities of place.
Our services may begin with pre-design and pre-purchase consultations to help solidify the program and assess feasibility. Our complete architectural services guide each project from design, construction documents, permitting and bidding to construction administration and project completion.
We would love to hear about your project.
Our People
Alice is motivated by the power of Architecture to shape experience and create community.
Her interest in the environment began as a child in Hong Kong, where she fashioned make-believe shelters from diaphanous saris on clothes lines while witnessing a city struggle under unprecedented growth at the collision of social, economic and cultural forces.
In college, she studied art, urbanism and dance. She carried these concerns for the social aspects of habitation and concepts of spatial choreography with her to graduate school.
Alice holds a BA from Oberlin College and M.Arch from UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. She has served as a professor of design practice at USC from 2015 to 2021 and Art Center College from 2003 to 2015.
Her teaching has informed a practice that explores material and pattern-generation at the intersection of machine and craft, and where the product and the by-product command equal focus. From the urban to the tactile, Alice relishes opportunities to bridge these scales.
As a young child of school teacher parents, Michael benefited from a sabbatical year spent traveling through Europe and Africa in a VW Camper. His journey as an architect is driven by wanderlust and a yearning for place. He holds an openness to different modalities of dwelling and a strong connection to his native Los Angeles.
Michael pursued art and theater at UC Santa Cruz and graduate studies at SCI-Arc. While soliciting structural advice on an art studio for his father, he landed a position at the engineering office of Gordon Polon.
Michael is interested in how engineering principles and a spirit of experimentation contributed to California Modernism. His own architectural principles took shape while engineering groundbreaking projects by numerous LA firms in the 1990s.
Michael continues to hone an aesthetic language that is guided by the efficient use of resources and in which material and structure are celebrated as an integral part of how the environment is made.
CURRENT COLLABORATORS
Michael Johnson
Mark Blanco
Greg Shirk
Eric Garnica
PAST COLLABORATORS
Eric Lin
Maria Mastroyannis
Daniella Gorny
Mathew Scarlett
Chris Pilikyan
Cathy Pack
Ellen Kuch
Donna Pungprechawat
Earl Parson
Miki Iwasaki
John Colter
Berit Eisenman
Jared Levy
Elizabeth Martin
Nicole Johnson
Recognition
12.19.2022 : KINFOLK’s Winter Issue features Blodgett-Calvin Residence “California Cool: A mid-century post-and-beam house that blends with the nature around it.” Written by George Upton, photographed by Justin Chung.
10.21.2022 : We’re honored to be among the six finalists, selected by Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, for the Memorial to the Victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles.
09.2021 : F+B ADU included in Napa Sonoma’s ADU Standard Plans Program.
09.2021 : THE PLAN 132 article “Creative Housing Options for Los Angeles” spotlights F+B ADU.
03.23.2021 : DWELL “Los Angeles Fast-Tracks New ADUs by Offering Homeowners Pre-Approved Plans” spotlights F+B ADU. Read more here.
03.05.2021 : F+B ADU selected by the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office as part of its pilot pre-approved plan program for Accessory Dwelling Units. As part of the Standard Plan Program launch, F+B ADU was featured in Los Angeles Times 03.05.2021, Architectural Record 09.2021, Wallpaper 04.16.2021, Architect Magazine 03.26.2021.
10.01.2020 : Our proposal for increase housing density within the existing zoning fabric is featured in “Bold, Affordable Housing Solutions from LA’s Top Architects” Los Angeles Magazine. Read more here.
08.11.2020 : Austria’s DER STANDARD looks in on the Schmalix Residence at 20 years in its featured article “California Dreamin’: Hubert Schmalix’s house in LA”. Read more here.
02.25.2019 UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, Distinguished Alumni Lecture. Lecture published here.
08.13.2017 : Blodgett-Calvin Residence featured in “Verwilderte Moderne”, Welt Am Sonntag, the award-winning Sunday editon of DIE WELT, Germany.
09.2016 : DWELL feature story “Compound Interest” spotlights Blodgett-Calvin Residence. Link to article here.
2016 : AIA Los Angeles Residential Architecture Award from AIA|LA for the Blodgett-Calvin Residence.
2015 : AIA California Council : Residential Merit Award from the AIA California Council for the Blodgett-Calvin Residence in San Marino, CA.
01.2015 : Sequoyah School Expansion was featured in the January issue of ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. Link to article here
2014 : AIA Pasadena Foothill Chapter has awarded Sequoyah School Expansion its highest design award, the Honor Award. In addition, the project received a Savings By Design Award in the Sustainable Buildings Catagory.
2006 : CityHoodHome receives Small Lots Smart Design – Mayor’s Choice Award sponsored by the LA City Planning Department and Enterprise Foundation.”Fung + Blatt’s entry of six housing units on three lots combines elegant density and affordability in one innovative design” said Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in honoring the winners of the Small Lots, Smart Design competition.