Of Here is a studio focused on the research and design of architecture through the rearrangement of materials found on or near a site. We create spaces by combining vernacular and experimental building methodologies. The archaic yet contemporary methods are grounded in the universal desire to be in direct relationship to the land. 

The work is about viewing architecture from a material perspective. The practice perceives architecture not only in its present condition, but also its potential past and future states of existence. Architecture is defined as a composition of matter, moving in and out of states of human intention. Although its immediate condition presents itself as a space to house human life, its trajectory exists within a larger temporal context, affecting the mineral composition, fertility of soils, and habitat of all species.

Through this lens, the architectural conditions speak of the interconnectedness of land and life. Through a minimal rearrangement of materials found on site, Of Here envisions an architecture that tends to the calibrated balance of an existing terrain.






Laura Stargala

Laura is the founder and director of studio Of Here. She is an architect and artist with experience in design and construction. Stargala graduated with a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Science from AAP Cornell University. Prior to forming Of Here, Laura worked for Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Junya Ishigami & Associates, and Herzog and DeMeuron. She has won several awards including the Center for Architecture Eleanor Allwork Scholarship, Eschweiler Prize for Merit and Distinction, AIA Yann Weymouth Graduate Scholarship, Lyceum Travel Fellowship, Jerry A. Tishman Scholarship, and the Helen Fagan Tyler Graduate Fellowship. Most recently she received the Eidlitz Travel Fellowship, for which her work was titled "Our Hands Moved the Stone: Documenting Refuges in High Altitudes." The field research will be presented in an exhibition, lecture, and report later this year at AAP in Ithaca, NY.

Remaining active in academia, Laura has taught as a teaching assistant for both undergraduate and graduate students at AAP Cornell University and currently teaches as a Sessional Lecturer for undergraduate B.Arch students at Ravensbourne University. She held a Dry Stone Workshop at the AA School of Architecture and is working on a film for the AA Visiting School Program titled 'Earthbound Social Sculpture with Not Vital'. Laura is regularly invited as a guest critic at the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL. There she is currently participating in research on salvaged irregular stone for the BEAMS Positive Futures 2025-26 for UCL's Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. 

Recently she was invited to install an exhibition for Clerkenwell Design Week in London, titled "A Room of Stone Fragments." The limestone installation offered a dialogue around material's shifting states of composition - from microscopic sea life, to stone, and back to grains of sand, to be absorbed as minerals by life. 

Among multiple projects, her favourite ongoing work is the restoration of a farmstead in the Highlands of Scotland, for which she is working as a design consultant for the Mountain Bothy Association. This project is currently going through planning application and expected to begin construction in 2027.

Laura is a registered architect and member of the American Institute of Architects.