Nature as Gesture
Architecture for life between earth and sky.
NO ARCHITECTURE
creates places where nature becomes spatial structure.
The work begins with the relationships already present in the world: ground, climate, horizon, vegetation, movement, privacy, family, gathering, and time. Rather than treating nature as background, scenery, or decoration, NO ARCHITECTURE transforms these relationships into spatial order.
Ground becomes plan. Sky becomes room. Weather becomes atmosphere. Vegetation becomes threshold. Horizon becomes orientation. Movement becomes sequence. Through courtyard, clearing, canopy, room, and path, the practice creates places where daily life can gather, withdraw, orient, return, and belong.
Founded by Andrew Heid in 2009, NO ARCHITECTURE is a minority-owned international architecture and design practice based in New York, Oregon, and London. The studio creates contemporary homes, retreats, cultural spaces, hospitality projects, and urban proposals shaped by landscape, climate, ecology, and modern life.
The result is not simply a building. It is a meaningful way of living within a world larger than ourselves.
“Nature is not background. Nature becomes spatial structure.”
PROCESS
NO ARCHITECTURE does not begin with form. It begins with observation.
Every project starts by studying the relationships already present in the site and in the life the project must support: topography, water, sun, wind, shade, vegetation, view, horizon, approach, privacy, season, program, family, and daily rituals.
From these relationships, the studio looks for one clear spatial act capable of organizing the whole: a courtyard, a clearing, a canopy, a threshold, a room, a path, a horizon. This act becomes the internal order of the project.
The design process transforms site, climate, landscape, structure, material, and daily life into one coherent spatial world. The goal is not to impose a style, but to refine each project until it feels inevitable.
APPROACH
Architecture creates belonging through order.
Order is not control or rigidity. Order is the meaningful organization of relationships. It allows people to understand where they are, how they move, where they gather, where they withdraw, and how they belong within a larger world.
For NO ARCHITECTURE, nature is not something outside the building. Nature becomes the structure of the project. A courtyard gathers sky, weather, vegetation, privacy, and family life. A canopy shelters collective experience. A threshold connects dwelling to landscape. A room frames the world. A path gives movement memory.
The work is shaped by five recurring instruments: ground, void, canopy, horizon, and movement. Ground anchors. Void opens. Canopy shelters. Horizon orients. Movement connects.
Together, these instruments create architecture for life between earth and sky.
“Architecture creates belonging through order.”
Andrew Heid, AIA, NCARB, MBE
Founding Principal
Andrew Heid is the founding principal of NO ARCHITECTURE, an international architecture and design practice creating architecture for life between earth and sky. His work explores how ground, sky, climate, horizon, vegetation, movement, privacy, and daily life can become spatial structure.
Andrew’s work has been recognized by Architect’s Newspaper, Forbes’ Top 200 Residential Architects, Architect Magazine’s Next Progressives, the Boston Society of Architects Honor Award, AIA New York’s Honor Housing Design Award, the Union Internationale des Architectes’ Japan Institute of Architects Prize, and Princeton University’s Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize.
His work has been nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and Harvard University’s Wheelwright Prize, and has been featured in Architectural Digest, AD China, AD Germany, AD Italia, Architectural Record, Architect, ArchDaily, Cultured, Design Milk, Dwell, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Luxe, Mansion Global, NBC, Phaidon, PIN–UP, Taschen, Tatler Asia, The Aspen Times, The New York Times, Vogue China, Wallpaper*, and The Wall Street Journal.
Andrew is a contributing editor at Phaidon. He previously taught at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia GSAPP, and the New York Institute of Technology, and has lectured at the Aspen Art Museum, Yale Center Beijing, the University of Hong Kong, Tongji University, Shenzhen University, the Positive Economy Forum, and Beijing International Design Week.
Before founding NO ARCHITECTURE, Andrew practiced at OMA / Rem Koolhaas and REX in New York and Rotterdam. He co-edited Glass Houses for Phaidon and designed and edited Ten Canonical Buildings: 1950–2000 with Peter Eisenman for Rizzoli. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association, received his BA in Architecture with distinction from Yale University, and earned his M.Arch from Princeton University.
Founding Principal
Andrew Heid is the founding principal of NO ARCHITECTURE, an international architecture and design practice creating architecture for life between earth and sky. His work explores how ground, sky, climate, horizon, vegetation, movement, privacy, and daily life can become spatial structure.
Andrew’s work has been recognized by Architect’s Newspaper, Forbes’ Top 200 Residential Architects, Architect Magazine’s Next Progressives, the Boston Society of Architects Honor Award, AIA New York’s Honor Housing Design Award, the Union Internationale des Architectes’ Japan Institute of Architects Prize, and Princeton University’s Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize.
His work has been nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and Harvard University’s Wheelwright Prize, and has been featured in Architectural Digest, AD China, AD Germany, AD Italia, Architectural Record, Architect, ArchDaily, Cultured, Design Milk, Dwell, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Luxe, Mansion Global, NBC, Phaidon, PIN–UP, Taschen, Tatler Asia, The Aspen Times, The New York Times, Vogue China, Wallpaper*, and The Wall Street Journal.
Andrew is a contributing editor at Phaidon. He previously taught at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia GSAPP, and the New York Institute of Technology, and has lectured at the Aspen Art Museum, Yale Center Beijing, the University of Hong Kong, Tongji University, Shenzhen University, the Positive Economy Forum, and Beijing International Design Week.
Before founding NO ARCHITECTURE, Andrew practiced at OMA / Rem Koolhaas and REX in New York and Rotterdam. He co-edited Glass Houses for Phaidon and designed and edited Ten Canonical Buildings: 1950–2000 with Peter Eisenman for Rizzoli. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association, received his BA in Architecture with distinction from Yale University, and earned his M.Arch from Princeton University.
RECOGNITION
1st Prize, Nanchong Nature City
1st Prize, Qianjiang Nature Island
1st Prize, Tongzhou Grand Canal
Finalist, Qianhai New City Center
Finalist, Fantawild Headquarters
Boston Society of Architects Honor Award
AIA New York Honor Housing Design Award
Architect Magazine Next Progressives
Forbes Top 200 Residential Architects
Japan Institute of Architects Prize
Princeton University Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize
Nominated for Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize
Nominated for Harvard University Wheelwright Prize
Exhibited at Hong Kong and Shenzhen Biennale, Beijing Biennale, Beijing Design Week, MoMA, Storefront for Art and Architecture
PROJECTS
113 West 136th St1032 Cottage
165 Charles St
201 8th St
319 West 35th
350 Bowery Hotel
56N Canal St
630 9th Avenue
75 First Avenue
865 UN Plaza
913 Lafayette Avenue
Aalto University
Allegheny Mountain House
Aurora City Hall
Berkshire Artist Studio
Busan Opera House
Bytedance Headquarters
C40 Chicago Pershing Road
Casa Playa Hermosa
Chrisp Street Idea Store Library
Cloud Forest
Cluster Villas
Contemporary Art Museum
Cougar Ridge House
Courtyard House
Courtyard Housing
Culture Bridge
Dee and Charles Wyly Theater
Devil Lake House
Dubai Towers Tunis
Fantawild HQ
Flower House
Forest City
Forward Loft
Guggenheim Helsinki
Guoshen Museum
Hester Hotel
Hi-lo Line Wilderness
Klekovaca Mountain Resort
Lily Superpad
Lima Art Museum
Lishui Shangshui City Master Plan
Long House
Mediatheque Lausanne
Museum Plaza
Nanchong University
Natural History Museum
Nature Bridge
New Museum of Architecture and Design in Helsinki
Omniyat Towers
Oregon Wine Hotel
Qianjiang Nature Island
Qianhai New City Center
Rising Mountain
River House
Science City
Science Island
Shenzhen Biennale
Shenzhen Mangrove Wetland Museum
Shenzhen Opera House
Shenzhen Working People’s Cultural Palace
Sola Radhus
Sonnen Terrasse
Snow Mound
Taichung City Cultural Centre
Terrace House
The High Line
This Is Not A Park
Tongzhou Grand Canal
Trail House
Unitheque New Library
University of Manitoba
Urban Tree House
Vakko Media Headquarters
Vertical Medina
Watermill Center
PRESS
Architectural DigestAD China
AD Germany
AD Italia
Aspen Magazine
Architectural Record
Architect
ArchDaily
AREA
Civil Art
Cultured
DETAIL
Designboom
Dezeen
Divisare
Dwell
Forbes
Gaggenau
IGNANT
L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui
Le Journal du Design
Mansion Global
mooool
The New York Times
The Oregonian
Phaidon
PLAIN
ROOM Diseño 43
Taschen
The Aspen Times
Vogue China
Wallpaper*
The Wall Street Journal