Office
A practice of leaders, collaborators, and innovators.
Machado Silvetti is an architecture and urban design firm known for creating distinctive buildings and spaces in the United States and throughout the world. Our approach explores and celebrates that which is unique within each project, expressed in designs that are original for their conceptual clarity, visual intensity, and generous public spaces.
Our approach offers the sustained personal involvement of our principals in every commission from concept through construction. The collective knowledge and experience of our entire team is the strength of Machado Silvetti, enabling us to respond to the unique needs and desires of new clients and varied projects.
We have been working out of our office in the South End Neighborhood of Boston since our founding in 1985. Our open-studios concept is indicative of the way we work: collaboratively and openly with shared discussions, charettes, design pin-ups, and activity happening in all corners of the space.
With three of the four principals as lifetime educators, and several of the staff often engaged in teaching opportunities throughout Boston, we are a culture of learners that always seeks to share new insights with each-other through informal conversations and our very own “Machado Silvetti University” where the staff shares technical knowledge with the entire office on a regular basis. Occasionally, we even take a break to enjoy each other’s company outside the office with summer trips and evening outings.
We are a group of designers who want to see things built and who support each other in this pursuit.
History
The office was founded in 1985 by Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti, recipients of the first ever Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for “boldly conceived and brilliantly executed projects” and for being “uncompromisingly dedicated to envisioning a meaningful architecture of the public realm.”
Rodolfo and Jorge were both born in Argentina and received their Bachelor’s degrees from the National University of Buenos Aires followed by the Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Following their time in California they moved east to teach and hold leadership positions at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Their influence over the theory and practice of architecture extends well beyond the office. They designed many built and unbuilt seminal projects that remain contemporary precedents such as the Fountain House and the House in Tunisia. Their writing on architecture is a recognized part of the architectural zeitgeist of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. In 2021, Rodolfo and Jorge gifted their immense archives of drawings, models, and records to the Harvard GSD Loeb Library. The gift was celebrated in a retrospective exhibition held at the GSD.
In 2015, Stephanie Randazzo Dwyer and Jeffry Burchard were named Partners and Design Principals. Today, they lead the office, continuing the tradition of design excellence across all projects, and expanding into new areas of practice. After nearly four decades of steady, successful practice, our portfolio reflects the diverse scope, scale and breadth of the firm's experience, displaying special expertise in Art and Teaching Museums, Education and Institutional environments and facilities, Conservation, Cultural Heritage, Re-Use, Urban Design and Planning. Internationally recognized, we have worked in Berlin, Beirut, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Singapore, Rome, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Vietnam and across the United States.
