Lateral Office Inc

LATERAL OFFICE INC, founded in 2005 by Mason White and Lola Sheppard, is an experimental design practice that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. The studio describes its practice process as a commitment to “design as a research vehicle to pose and respond to complex, urgent questions in the built environment,” engaging in the “wider context and climate of a project– social, ecological, or political.” LATERAL OFFICE is committed to an architecture that responds directly to the demands of the 21st century - and the subsequent new typologies made possible by an architecture that brazenly confronts today. Recent work and research focuses on powerful design relationships between public realm, infrastructure, and the environment. LATERAL OFFICE's work has been exhibited in numerous venues across the United States and Canada, as well as Germany, Iceland, England, and the Faroe Islands. They have lectured extensively across the USA and Canada, as well as Norway, Germany, England, Belgium, and Colombia. And have been invited as external guest critics at several institutions including: Harvard GSD, Yale University, Columbia University, UCLA, UBC, McGill University, among many others. Clients and collaborators have included City of Memphis, City of Reykjavik, City of Toronto, Metis Garden, Harbourfront Centre, Culture and Heritage Nunavut, Holcim Foundation, among others. Lateral Office have been recognized with several awards and merits including: a 2016 National Urban Design Award; a 2013 Progressive Architecture Award; a 2011 Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Gold Award; a 2011 Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York; and the 2010 Canada Council for the Arts Professional Prix de Rome. The firm was selected to represent Canada with Arctic Adaptations at the 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture, where they received Special Mention - a first for Canada at the Architecture Biennale.