Manifesting ideas in everyday building
Now Here approaches architecture as a practice of productive tension—between ideas and things, abstraction and construction, the one thing and many things. Founded in Los Angeles in 2021 by Katy Barkan, the office works across buildings, interiors, installations, exhibitions, and furniture. Both “nowhere” and “now Here” the work is at once speculative and grounded, conceptual and materially exacting.
We are drawn to the familiar—the house, the gallery, the monument, the doorway—and to the unspoken rules these forms carry about how we live and gather. Rather than treating them as neutral, we seek to rethink, reshuffle, and loosen what is given to produce something unexpected. Working within the constraints of building codes, zoning envelopes, limited budgets, existing structures, the office to both amplify and reconsider what is present in ordinary conditions.
Now Here was named AIA LA Emerging Practice in 2026. Our work has been featured in Architectural Record, Dwell, AD, LA Times, and Log.
TEAM
KATY BARKAN formed Now Here as a studio that would bring together multiple modes of practice from drawings to objects, texts to buildings. She received the Rome Prize in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome in 2020 and has exhibited her work widely, including at the Venice Biennale, the UCLA galleries, and at the American Academy in Rome. Her built projects and writing have been published in Architectural Record, Architect’s Newspaper, and Log Magazine, among others. Katy is faculty at UCLA where she has been teaching since 2014. Before joining the faculty of UCLA, Katy taught at Harvard Graduate School of Design where she also received her M.Arch.
HANNAH HORTICK joined Now Here in 2021. She received a B.S. in Architecture from UIC and worked for several years at Canopy Architecture + Design focusing on affordable multi-family projects in Chicago. She received her M.Arch from UCLA and is currently faculty at Woodbury University.
JINGBO HUANG joined Now Here in 2025. Prior to joining Now Here, he contributed to several landmark projects in the U.S. and China while working with Michael Maltzan Architecture and Zaha Hadid Architects. He earned his Master of Architecture from SCI-Arc and a Bachelor of Design in Architecture from the University of Minnesota. His design projects have been exhibited in the U.S., Italy, and China.
RECENT COLLABORATORS
Laura Grombone
Michael Deprez
Zephyr Zhu
Sana Jahani
Sarah Caluag
Eric Wall
Christina Moushoul
Melinda Denn
Chihiro Isono
Kristen Fong
Casey Knudsen
Nick Miller
Vanessa Villegas
Photo by Catherine Opie
Website and Identity by Still Room Studio