OOMBRA
oom·bra \ üm-brə \ noun

1. a collaborative design practice crafting thoughtful architecture and unique environments with care.

2. a commitment to people, place and community.

3. the play of light and shadow that gives form - and the "OO" of everyone the work is made with and for: clients, partners, communities, and the people who come next.
   - from umbra (Latin) and ombra (Italian): shadow.

OOMBRA Architects is a design studio that turns complex and challenging sites into clear, beautiful, and memorable places. Founded in 2017 and based in Philadelphia, with work in Detroit, we make thoughtful buildings — designed with care and built to last — that shape communities and bring people together.

Our portfolio spans mixed-use and multifamily housing, affordable and mixed-income housing, theaters and cultural spaces, hospitality, and adaptive reuse, where the most sustainable building is often the one that already exists — reused structure, fewer new foundations, lower carbon, and a story that continues. Our work runs from the Frank Furness–designed Kensington National Bank in Philadelphia to the New American Theatre reviving the performing arts in Pittston, to award-winning mixed-income housing across Detroit's Brush Park. We are licensed across Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Texas, with the institutional and student-housing experience to deliver complex public and university work.

We believe successful architecture and placemaking happen when complexity is distilled through the design process into a clear expression of purpose, material, light, shadow, and form. Our process always begins with a conversation — to define the project's goals, but more importantly to understand and empathize with what motivates the people we serve. From there we test ideas rigorously, draw and model and build to communicate clearly, and stay engaged through cost analysis, bidding, and construction.

APPROACH
Our work begins with a conversation. We listen closely to understand our clients’ goals, constraints and aspirations, using design as a tool to reveal what matters most. Each project is shaped by its physical, historical and social context and developed through a rigorous process that allows ideas to evolve with clarity.

As visual designers we use a variety of tools - drawing, modeling and building - to connect the team to the design process in a clear and concise way. We explore and test multiple spatial and planning scenarios to realize the full potential of each project, inviting clients to participate from conception through completion. Working closely with clients, consultants, builders and communities, we identify challenges, ask the right questions and develop a shared vision. By bringing together like-minded collaborators and collective expertise, we arrive at thoughtful solutions aligned with common goals. Collaboration is central to our work and ensures each project is executed with care and clarity, delivering long-term value to our clients and the communities we serve.

OOMBRA — from ombra, the shade a real thing casts. Architecture is the art of light and shadow, and we have always worked in its depth: slowly, deliberately, paying attention.

We earn the next project with the last. And we measure success one way: we succeed when all succeed.

[Read our full ethos →]