Firm Profile

Marble Fairbanks is a design-driven, client-focused architecture firm founded in 1992 by partners, Scott Marble and Karen Fairbanks in New York. Through our ongoing involvement with architectural education around design innovation, we are recognized leaders in creating connections between university research and professional practice. We are the recipient of over 40 local, national and international design awards and our work is regularly published in books, journals and magazines. Our work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including the Architectural Association in London, the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art in Japan and the Museum of Modern Art in New York where our drawings are part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Building on the combined experience of our completed work and ongoing research, we approach every project as unique and search for original solutions. We have an in-depth knowledge of several program types (libraries, education spaces and workplace, among others) but we consider this to be only part of the foundation to begin design, not the core value of what we offer our clients. Rather, it is the synthesis of this foundational knowledge with the unique conditions and constraints of a given project that forms the essential design challenge. The work of Marble Fairbanks is a matrix of new buildings, building renovations, interior design, planning studies and design research combined with educational, cultural, residential, institutional, retail and workplace programs.

After 30 years of practice, we have learned that the more transparent the process from the design side, the construction side and the client side, the better the result. There is no substitute for a collaborative, team-based approach to a project. We pride ourselves on listening closely to our clients to understand their needs and goals for a project as the basis of design. We engage stakeholders in the iterative process of developing design options and getting feedback as we work together toward the best solution. We have a proven record of maintaining sensitivity to multiple constituents while designing complex projects for a wide range of clients. We deploy a research-based design process where creative solutions are informed by shared knowledge and experience so our clients benefit from, yet go beyond, what has already been done.