Co-Founder and President | XTEN Architecture
Shaped by an apprenticeship at her father's architecture firm in Switzerland, Monika moved to Los Angeles, then New York City for her studies. She moved back to Switzerland to work for Herzog and de Meuron, playing a key role in several award-winning projects. Then she returned to the US to work for DMJM/Keating on notable high-rise projects in Asia, before establishing XTEN Architecture in 2000 with her late husband, Austin Kelly.
Monika holds a MS in Advanced Architectural Design form Columbia University in NYC and a BArch from USC.
Courses
The Art of Collaboration & Getting Things Done
This session focuses on how A+D founders and leaders create their own culture with impactful design, and how this is nurtured by design teams, leadership styles, new ways of working, and even, ownership transitions. Join Think-Time Tuesdays host, and SO|arch founder Elisabeth Sporer, AIA CIC for a presentation on design culture that energizes the business of design.
Elisabeth provides an overview of the influencing factors of an office culture from the founder’s values and its impact on client and project selection to the way staff is hired, trained and mentored and how projects are executed in a hybrid work environment. Then Elisabeth is joined in conversation by Los Angeles-based A+D firm leaders Karin Liljegren [Omgvining], Georgina Huljich [P-A-T-T-T-E-R-N-S], Stephanie Ragle [office42], and Monika Haefelfinger [XTEN], who share stories that other founders and leaders of small studios and midsized firms in particular will find useful, on these topics:
- Applied values: Design culture manifested in client selection and project work
- Design teams: Growing the firm
- New ways of working: Collaboration in hybrid mode
- Leadership: Training, mentoring, and ownership transitions
Course expires 03/23/2025