Studio

Speranza Architecture + Urban Design is a professional design office that aims to bring people closer to the changing phenomena around them.

We believe in the power of new everyday technologies during both the: 1) design processes and 2) informed decision making after occupation.

Our data-driven design processes are applied across scales for residences, mixed-used developments, public spaces, adaptive reuse and master plans.


260 Ferry Street is an example of our intersection of data and design. A four-story downtown adaptive-reuse, mixed-used project in Eugene, Oregon uses a custom SA+UD sensor array to measure sound, light, heat and humidity to inform passive cooling and communal spaces using innovative cross-laminated timber construction. The AIA awarded Push Pull House and Hudson House in construction also use these methods. Our office was awarded four of eight American Institute of Architects SWO four-year Chapter Awards in 2018. SA+UD believes in community and performs pro-bono work for the City of Eugene and the Kesey Farm Artist-in-Residence program.

The office's approach is informed by new ways to collect and visualize environmental data from a human scale are transforming site analysis from small spaces to larger communities. With this in mind, SA+UD principal Philip Speranza tests the use of data acquisition workflows to produce human-scaled analyses of social and natural phenomena at both dense urban superblock and exurban residential sites. A recent article “A human-scaled GIS: measuring and visualizing social interaction in Barcelona’s Superilles” in the Journal of Urbanism uses data acquired at the resolution of individual street addresses using forty-eight indicators in three-by-three block Superilles incorporating urban ecologist Salvador Rueda's framework of urban sustainability. Another recent article relating data driven design in practice and teaching, “Atmosphere InFormed: Design Awareness of Small-scale Differences of Atmosphere in Architecture and Urban Design” received Best Paper Award for Environmental Design Research Association 2018. Other venues include the Journal of Urban Design (democractic), Architectural Design, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction and Oregon Energy Trust Net-Zero Award.