sirota@akoaki.com farges@akoaki.com
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Akoaki, an award-winning architecture and urban design practice, specializes in public spaces and cultural infrastructure. At its core, our work seeks to push the boundaries of architecture beyond utility, shaping environments that engage, provoke, and invite society into dialogue. The goal is not just to build structures or organizational systems, but to create spaces where cultural shifts can be seeded and shared experiences find resonance. This ambition, unapologetically high-reaching, drives every project and positions design as more than a practice—it’s a medium for strengthening civic life and nurturing resilience in urban settings.
Founded in 2008, Akoaki has taken its vision across diverse contexts and scales, merging architecture, scenography, installation, and urban design. Our projects remain rooted in the particulars of place, all while holding an element of the untethered imaginary. The result is a body of work that challenges the familiar and invites communities to rethink their relationship with the existing, the inherited, and the possible. It’s an approach that blends pragmatism with the poetic, redefining what cities and public spaces can be.
Anya Sirota is a Ukrainian-born architectural designer and educator, serving as associate professor and associate dean at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions and publications, including the Vitra Design Museum, the Saint Etienne Design Biennale, and the Chicago Cultural Center. Sirota’s accolades include the Architecture League Prize, SXSW Eco: Place by Design Award, and the Araldo Cossutta Prize, among other accolades. She holds a degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a BA in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University. Anya Sirota is an architectural designer, researcher, and educator. Her work, situated at the intersection of architecture and urban design, explores how a distinct synthesis of aesthetics, social enterprise, and cultural programming can offer experimental strategies for equitable urban transformation. In parallel to her practice, Sirota is an associate professor and associate dean at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where she also directs the Michigan Architecture Prep Studio. Sirota holds a degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and BA in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University.
Jean Louis Farges is a self-taught critical ethnomusicologist whose design approach deliberately challenges cultural expectations, blending disciplines and testing assumptions to unearth new possibilities. His experience spans project management, building technology, and design research, underpinned by a steady focus on cultural observation. Before relocating to the United States, Farges worked as a photographer in Paris, France, where he developed his attention to the nuances of urban life and its intersections with culture.