ABOUT STUDIO GRAF
Switzerland taught me the fundamentals. The years abroad tested them. California is where they come together.
I founded Studio Graf on a simple belief: great architecture begins with listening. Listening to how someone wants to feel in their home, how they move through their days, what they need from the spaces around them.
From there it becomes a rigorous process of design thinking and craft. The result, when everything aligns, is a home that doesn't just look remarkable, it changes the way you live in it.
As a child, my grandfather's architecture office felt like another world. Years later, I realised it had become mine.
My grandfather, Heinrich Graf, was a renowned Swiss architect whose practice flourished in the 1960s and 70s. His work was deeply rooted in the modernist tradition. Rigorous, clear, resolved. As a child I spent time in his office, surrounded by models and drawings, absorbing a world where ideas became buildings. I didn't have the language for it then, but something about that environment never left me.
When I designed my first project, a house for my mother in Switzerland, I had the opportunity to sit with Heinrich and exchange ideas. For a young architecture student, that conversation meant a great deal.
A book about his life and work still sits on my shelf. The visual language is different. The principles are not.
House for Austrian actor O.W. Fischer by Heinrich Graf - Vernate, Switzerland, 1959/60
Large firms taught me the discipline. Leaving them taught me what I actually cared about.
Before founding Studio Graf I spent years leading design teams at international award-winning firms, on projects that ranged from luxury resorts and high-rise commercial developments to large urban masterplans across the Middle East and Asia.
That experience gave me technical rigour and the ability to hold complexity without losing clarity. But it also made clear what I was most drawn to: the direct relationship between a space and the person who lives in it. That is what I came to the Bay Area to build.
Kempinski Resort Hotel - Muscat, Oman (Design lead for Woods Bagot)
The person who understands your brief is the person who protects it on site.
Studio Graf is deliberately small, because scale is a design decision. I lead every project personally, from the first conversation to the final site walkthrough. The work itself is delivered by a small team of designers and specialists working under my direct coordination, expanded on each project by longstanding collaborators in engineering, lighting, landscape, and interiors. I remain the constant across every phase. Every decision runs through the same hand. Bigger firms trade principal attention for volume. Studio Graf is deliberately built the other way.
The principles behind the work do not shift with fashion: clarity of plan, honest materials, spaces scaled to how people actually live. Budget discipline is part of good design, not a limit on it. And your vision drives the project.
My job is to test it, sharpen it, and build it.
What our clients and collaborators have to say.
“Working with Studio Graf was a great pleasure, we thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative design process. Creating our dream home came with the challenges of integrating highly specialized systems and extensive customization. Not only did the team focus on the big picture results, but also attended to the most refined details. In all, working with Studio Graf has exceeded our expectations on many levels and our home has immensely shaped the way we live and enhances our appreciation for good design and technology. Without hesitation, we give the team our highest recommendation as an exceptional architecture studio looking after the desires and needs of their clients.”
Client & Owner
Glen Park Residence · San Francisco
“As a CM professional I have worked closely with Fabian on several high end residential projects in the city. I can and do highly recommend Studio Graf to clients considering such projects. Fabian’s design sensibilities, I have found, are leading edge and internationally inspired. We have enjoyed working with him and Trisha closely on these projects and found them responsive, collaborative, and detailed. Traits that new clients should consider, as these traits in my three decades of experience, lead to successful, exciting one of a kind building projects that are truly works of art.”
Doug Spooner
Owner’s Rep · SF
“Studio Graf was great to work with, largely in part to their professionalism, solutions based approach and responsiveness at every stage of the project. The challenges of our roof deck addition that Studio Graf inherited midway were quite significant, but yet they were able to step in to redesign and manage the project efficiently and with great success. The roof deck turned out to be an invaluable addition to our home with prime views of the city and well planned design. It has dramatically changed the way we use the house. I would definitely work with Studio Graf in the future because they proved to be an effective team leader.”
Client & Owner
Hill Street · San Francisco
Testing, sharpening and building your vision are three very different jobs. Here is how they actually run.
Six phases, what gets decided in each one, what I need from you along the way, and roughly how long it all takes.
See how we work →
