O·N·Architects is an architecture and design studio built around project-specific investigations into space, form, and material. Strangeness excites us when it appears, a sign that an inquiry has separated from the assumptions usually attached to it. Testing, learning, and play get us there.
Who we are

Davis Owen, RA
Davis Owen (he/him) is a licensed architect. Davis founded O·N in 2019. He oversees the design and construction of all projects within the office. From this experience, he draws a breadth of applied knowledge to ensure the execution of beautiful, thoughtful work. He has a keen appreciation for history and theory, and he approaches each project with rigor and precision.
Prior to forming O·N, he was a designer at Deborah Berke Partners, working on projects for significant US institutions. Davis trained in Paris with Philippe Rahm Architectes and contributed to the design and construction management of the Jade Eco Park. In Rotterdam at AMO, he participated in the “Countryside: The Future” research. This work was later exhibited at the Guggenheim New York and reprinted in “Countryside, a Report.”
Davis currently teaches architectural design at CUNY. He has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He earned his Masters of Architecture with Distinction at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

Irene Chung
Irene Chung (she/her) is an interdisciplinary thinker. She co-founded O·N where she focuses on designing thoughtful, caring spaces that support people’s aspirations. On every project, Irene brings her ideology that care and mindfulness for our clients’ goals are key to meaningful design.
Irene’s background in strategy and operations at Data & Society Research Institute (D&S)—an independent, nonprofit research institute that believes that technology policy must be grounded in empirical evidence, account for tech’s real-world impacts, and serve the public—has trained her to challenge assumptions of design solutions and surface underlying shared values that drive intention for impactful design. With that, she is committed to designing spaces that are true to clients’ values, while operating with a sense of playfulness to make rigorous design accessible to a broader community. Irene graduated from Fordham University with a B.A. in Anthropology and Psychology.
Approach
Our work carries across scale and type: furniture, interiors, ground-up buildings, and landscapes. A cabinet and a factory can pose the same design problem at different scales, and self-initiated projects let us test questions of geometry, human behavior, and place outside the pressure of a client or site. Many of our clients are at an inflection point of their own, and we treat design as an act of care for those goals — understanding what they value before giving it a form.
O·N·Architects was founded in 2019 by Irene Chung and Davis Owen. The office is based in New York, with projects across the US spanning many typologies. Davis, a licensed architect, worked at Deborah Berke Partners, Philippe Rahm Architectes, and AMO — contributing to the “Countryside: The Future” research shown at the Guggenheim — and now teaches at CUNY. Irene's background at the Data & Society Research Institute shapes her attention to the values behind a design decision. Current work includes a torpedo factory's adaptive reuse into a climbing gym, a vintage clothing store in Chinatown, and a hillside residence in the Shenandoah Valley.
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Services
Architecture
Feasibility Studies Programming Conceptual Design Schematic Design Design Development Construction Documents Permitting Construction Contract Procurement Construction Observation 3D Modelling Rendering and Visualization
Design
Furniture Lighting Industrial
Education
Writing Teaching Lecturing Workshops
Contact
Tell us about your project
Office
141 Canal Street, Floor 3, New York, New York, 10002

Studio members
Past and present
Davis Owen · Irene Chung · Julian Geltman · Leah Solomon · Ian Blashe · Dylan Crean · Clara Mu He · Kristine Chung
Job openings
There are no current vacancies but we love hearing from you. Please send through your portfolio (<20mb) and we will contact you as soon as any vacancy arise in the future.
- Site credit
Identity and website by Nick Hum & John Szetho