The Office

!ndie architecture is a Denver based office that develops design for buildings, books, and exhibitions worldwide. As an alternative to mainstream, mass produced, and corporately funded architecture, the office embraces its fringe status, is associated with collegiate backpack intellectualism, and consistently seeks new ways of disseminating architectural and urban ideas.

Paul Andersen founded !ndie in 2008. He teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has previously been on the architecture faculties of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Cornell University. He has also been a guest curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and is the author of The Architecture of Patterns (W.W. Norton, 2010). Paul is a licensed architect (NCARB Cert., CA, CO, NY).

The Work

While !ndie's projects are located around around the world and take a variety of forms—including buildings, books, and exhibitions—there are threads that connect them.

Thematically, the office promotes dissemination as the driving force of 21st century urban and architectural design. Projects as diverse as suburban houses, retail environments, institutional buildings, and cultural programming evolve new forms of the dispersed growth that characterizes contemporary cities. !ndie is developing an agenda for disseminated architecture through academic research and an emerging series of projects in the US and Europe.

Strategically, !ndie approaches design projects from multiple points of view, making connections between seemingly disparate enterprises. For example, a building integrates plant life, heating systems, and graffiti. A book examines the practices of Peruvian weavers along with the mathematics of crystal formations. An exhibition introduces weight loss as an issue of contemporary art. The office advocates energy efficiency in some circumstances while extolling the benefits of energy use in others.

!ndie architecture approaches each project with a mix of curiosity, intellectualism, and experience that allows the office to continually expand and improve its expertise.