About
AVV A is a St. Louis-based, forward-thinking architecture practice that believes in the transformative power of architecture and art to shape the future. Our mission is to approach architecture as a cultural practice, harnessing the collective creativity sparked through dynamic dialogues within our office and with the communities and clients we serve.
We work together to create across a wide spectrum of scales that impact daily life from expansive and intimate encounters—from public spaces and buildings to sculptures, scenic designs, and interiors. In an era marked by rapid technological advancement, AVV A is at the forefront of digital innovation. We harness computational design, digital fabrication, and artificial intelligence, employing these cutting-edge technologies in tandem with a deep respect for history and expertise in material processes.
Our collaborations reflect a commitment to design excellence, which is marked by innovation and. a sensitivity to each project’s unique cultural and geographical contexts. We are acutely aware of global challenges, particularly concerning environmental and social justice. AVV A is committed to realizing a more equitable and sustainable future and sees each project as an opportunity to respect, protect, and uplift people and the environment. Through our work, we aim to distribute the agency of architectural intervention, making sure that the spaces we design are not only places to be inhabited but also transformed by those who engage with them.
AVV A was founded by Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, Constance Vale, and Chandler Ahrens. Each member of our team brings a wide array of expertise. Together, we leverage our knowledge and experience to manage complex projects with technical precision and cultural and environmental sensitivity.
They have been the recipients of design awards from the AIA St. Louis, AIA Los Angeles, Chicago Athenaeum New American Architecture Awards, Chicago Athenaeum Good Green award, a Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Award, Muse Design award, ARCHITECT Light & Architecture Award, Architizer A+, Most Enhanced Awards Landmarks Association of St. Louis, the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, the Ann Arbor Arts Commission, and Eduwik Architecture Excellence Awards.
Their work has been published in the Architect Magazine, ACSA Conference Proceedings, Archinect, City Scene STL, Clog, Common Reader, Ladue News, Riverfront Times, Saint Louis Style, St. Louis Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Architect’s Newspaper, The LA Times, The Source, ACADIA, arcCA/the Journal of AIA California, the St. Louis Business Journal, and Washington Magazine.
Their work has also been exhibited nationally and internationally in A+D Museum, Des Lee Gallery, The Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, The Sheldon Galleries, Usagi Gallery, New York Design Week, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Tel Aviv Museum of Modern Art, École spéciale d’architecture, Paris, European Biennale of Industrial Design, Belgium, Architecture Biennale of Sevilla, Rice University, UCLA, USC, University of Houston, Southern Illinois University, University of Minnesota, MIT, WUHO Gallery, 24th International Biennale Interieur in Belgium, Craft Alliance Center of Art and Design, European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies in Athens, Virginia Commonwealth University and is part of the permanent collection at the Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) in Orleans, France.
AVVA Partners
Managing Partner
Kelley Van Dyck Murphy
Kelley Van Dyck Murphy is an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and a designer with over 15 years of experience working on projects including public art, exhibition design, adaptive reuse, urban infill, single family housing, cultural and commercial buildings, and interiors. Murphy is the faculty director for Wash U’s Alberti Program: Architecture for Young People, the pre-college Architecture Discovery Program (ADP) and the co-director of Fox Fridays, an interdisciplinary workshop series encouraging experimentation with tools, processes, and technology. She was selected by competition for two recently completed public art projects: LOOMROOM, awarded by the Ann Arbor Arts Commission, and Flora Field, a 3D-printed terracotta screen wall in the courtyard of Louis Sullivan’s Wainwright Building. Murphy is also a lead in the Mellon Foundation-funded collaborative interdisciplinary research project Beauty in Enormous Bleakness: The Legacies of the Interned Generation of Japanese American Designers. The research examines architecture’s relationship to issues of immigration, exclusion, and cultural identity in the 20th century, focusing on the design legacies of the mass incarceration of individuals of Japanese descent during WWII. Prior to co-founding AVV A, Kelley practiced architecture locally in St. Louis in the offices of UIC, HOK, Fox Architects, and Axi:Ome.
Founding Partner
Constance Vale
Constance Vale is is an Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a a registered architect with over 15 years of experience realizing projects that range from university, theater, exhibition, office, and single and multi-family residential projects. Vale is also an associate professor and the chair of undergraduate architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. She was selected by competition for the international housing project On Olive in St. Louis’s Grand Center. She is the editor and co-author of the Graham Foundation-supported book Mute Icons & Other Dichotomies of the Real in Architecture (Actar, 2021) and received a MacDowell Fellowship to develop her manuscript Digital Decoys: An Index of Architectural Deceptions (Actar, forthcoming). She has curated exhibitions like “The Autonomous Future of Mobility” at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, as well as “Decoys & Depictions: Images of the Digital” at the Des Lee Gallery, which coincided with the symposium she directed bearing the same title.
Founding Partner
Chandler Ahrens
Chandler Ahrens is an Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a registered architect with 30 years of experience leading university buildings, cultural buildings, office towers and complexes, government office and embassy projects, retail interiors, and single and multi-family residential projects. His projects have been based nationally across the United States and internationally in countries including France, Italy, England, China, Israel, Qatar, and South Korea. Before co-founding AVV A, Chandler was a co-founder and managing partner of OSA and has worked for several large international architectural firms including nine years as a senior project designer at Morphosis Architects where he was responsible for notable buildings such as the New Academic Building at Cooper Union, Hypo-Alpe Adria bank, Emerson College in Los Angeles, United States Embassy in London and Phare Tower. He is the editor of the book Instabilities and Potentialities, Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture (2019), co-curator and editor of the Gen(h)ome Project (2006), and co-chair and editor for the exhibition, Evolutive Means, ACADIA2010.