Our work at Studio Works stems from a believe that work learns from things outside the disciplines that we work within. A kind of 'genetic' strengthening occurs when the many layered world we occupy is experienced, looked at, and learned from. Architecture and design must look at its own condition - of course. But the real advances for us occur through seeing things outside of design. Our wanderings and collections continue to inspire our work. Sometimes we think that our wanderings and collections are more valuable than the work itself.

The first buildings known date from 300,000 years ago (Terra Amota in France). It is clear that the formation of our humanness is entwined with the making of buildings and furniture, the making of tools and utensils, and the making of clothing. When a cat jumps over a threshold (or fingernails strike a chalkboard), a deep instinct remains intact. We carry these same instincts with regards to the use of space and the things that occupy space. Our work attempts to always speak to these fundamental and deep instincts.

At the sam time, we believe that work needs to have a strong foot leaping toward the future. The future sometimes means changes in life patterns achieved through technology. Not always. Our work attempts to scope out that future, but tries to respond broadly. Thus, sometimes the work will embrace the newest and latest. Other times, the work will react to the complexity of modern life and posit an antidote. At yet other times, it stands in a funny zone between these two.

Studio Works has always had to make the most out of the least. We believe that work doesn't have to be expensive. This has become a principle of action.

Mary-Ann Ray

Mary-Ann Ray was born in 1958 in Seattle, Washington, where in 1981, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Washington. She went on to receive a Masters degree in Architecture from Princeton University in 1987, and the Rome Prize of 1987-1988. Ms. Ray's professional experience includes work with Michael Graves, Architect, James Turrell, Artist, and Richard Meier and Partners. Currently, and since 1985, she is a principal along with Robert Mangurian, at Studio Works in Los Angeles. Studio Works has designed and successfully completed projects ranging from furniture, buildings, publications, and urban design to a major work of archaeology- an in progress new plan for Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli.

Awards, Grants and Honors include PA Design Awards, Architecture Magazines's Visionary Design Awards, Graham Foundation and Ford Foundations Grants. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Gagosian/Castelli Gallery in New York, the Phillipe Uzzan Galerie in Paris, the Des Moines Art Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Ms. Ray has lectured widely, has taught at Rice University as Visiting Wortham Professor, Yale University as visiting Saarinen Professor, and continues as a full time graduate design studio and seminar faculty member at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. She is currently the Chair of the Environmental Arts program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

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