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.
The result is not simply a building. It is a meaningful way of living within a world larger than ourselves.
AT A GLANCE
NO ARCHITECTURE is a minority-owned architecture and design practice founded by Andrew Heid in 2009, with studios in New York, Oregon and London. The studio designs homes, retreats, cultural, civic and hospitality projects in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Europe and Asia.
Built work includes Courtyard House in Aurora, Oregon (2013), Flower House in Berkshire County, Massachusetts (2020), Urban Tree House in New York (2021) and Devil Lake House in Ontario (2026). The practice is listed among Forbes' Top 200 Residential Architects and was named one of The Architect's Newspaper's Twenty to Watch in 2025.
Built work includes Courtyard House in Aurora, Oregon (2013), Flower House in Berkshire County, Massachusetts (2020), Urban Tree House in New York (2021) and Devil Lake House in Ontario (2026). The practice is listed among Forbes' Top 200 Residential Architects and was named one of The Architect's Newspaper's Twenty to Watch in 2025.
“Nature is not background. Nature becomes spatial structure.”
RECOGNITION
Featured in Architectural Digest, Dwell, Dezeen, The Wall Street Journal, Wallpaper*, PIN–UP, Phaidon and Taschen
PIN–UP × The World Around, NYC Architects, 2026
The Architect's Newspaper, Twenty to Watch, 2025
Forbes Best-in-State Residential Architects, 2025
Forbes Top 200 Residential Architects, 2024 and 2025
Grand Paris Express, architect and landscape architect roster, 2023
First Prize, Nanchong Nature City, 2022
First Prize, Qianjiang Nature Island, Hangzhou, 2022
Architect Magazine, Next Progressives, 2022
First Prize, Tongzhou Grand Canal, Beijing, 2020
Re-Source, Storefront for Art and Architecture, 2020
Boston Society of Architects / AIA New York Housing Design Honor Award, 2017
Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, MCHAP.emerge nomination, 2016
Wheelwright Prize nomination, Harvard GSD, 2015
Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize, Princeton University, 2006
New York Heritage Award, Designing the High Line, 2003
UIA / Japan Institute of Architects Award, Berlin, 2002
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
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 an American architect and the founding principal of NO ARCHITECTURE. His work explores how ground, sky, climate, vegetation, movement and daily life can become spatial structure.
Andrew is a contributing editor at Phaidon and was architecture editor of Cultured from 2016 to 2022. He has taught at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia GSAPP and the New York Institute of Technology, and has lectured at The Glass House, the Aspen Art Museum, NeueHouse, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Liljestrand House, Soho House, Yale Center Beijing, the University of Hong Kong, Tongji University, Shenzhen University, PLEA, the Positive Economy Forum and Beijing International Design Week.
Before founding NO ARCHITECTURE, Andrew practiced at OMA / Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, REX in New York and Adjaye Associates in London. He edited and wrote the introduction to Glass Houses (Phaidon, 2023) 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 with honors from Princeton University.
Founding Principal
Andrew Heid is an American architect and the founding principal of NO ARCHITECTURE. His work explores how ground, sky, climate, vegetation, movement and daily life can become spatial structure.
Andrew is a contributing editor at Phaidon and was architecture editor of Cultured from 2016 to 2022. He has taught at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia GSAPP and the New York Institute of Technology, and has lectured at The Glass House, the Aspen Art Museum, NeueHouse, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Liljestrand House, Soho House, Yale Center Beijing, the University of Hong Kong, Tongji University, Shenzhen University, PLEA, the Positive Economy Forum and Beijing International Design Week.
Before founding NO ARCHITECTURE, Andrew practiced at OMA / Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, REX in New York and Adjaye Associates in London. He edited and wrote the introduction to Glass Houses (Phaidon, 2023) 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 with honors from Princeton University.
PROJECTS
75 First Avenue317 West 35th Street
865 UN Plaza
Aalto University
Allegheny Mountain House
Aurora City Hall
Berkshire Artist Studio
Busan Opera House
Bytedance Headquarters
C40 Chicago Pershing Road
Casa Playa Hermosa
Champcella House
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
Four Canopy House
Guggenheim Helsinki
Guoshen Museum
Hester Hotel
Hi-lo Line Wilderness
Hill Country Steakhouse
Hotel Teresa
Klekovaca Mountain Resort
Lily Superpad
Lima Art Museum
Lishui Shangshui City Master Plan
Long House
Mediatheque Lausanne
Mountain Onsen
Museum Plaza
Nanchong University
Natural History Museum
Nature Bridge
New Hope House
New Museum of Architecture and Design in Helsinki
Omniyat Towers
Ontario Row Housing
Oregon Wine Hotel
Qianhai New City Center
Qianjiang Nature Island
Risingmountain
River House
Science City
Science Island
Shenzhen Biennale
Shenzhen International Qianhai
Shenzhen Mangrove Wetland Museum
Shenzhen Opera House
Shenzhen Working People’s Cultural Palace
Snow Mound
Sola Radhus
Sonnen Terrasse
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 Hutongs
Vertical Medina
Villa Windsor Pavilion
Watermill Center