Adam Israel

I grew up in the paved-over Everglades of South Florida, where there are really only two seasons, wet and dry. I earned my Master’s degree in Architecture from Florida International University, surrounded by glass block, concrete, and an Art Deco sensibility. Hurricanes and heat make durability a requirement there, not a preference, and materials get chosen for what they can survive as much as for how they look. My journey in practicing architecture eventually brought me to Seattle, where the light is soft and filtered through cedar and fog, and restraint carries as much weight as boldness ever did in Miami. Here the climate asks for the opposite discipline, building for constant moisture and gray light rather than sudden extremes, so materials get chosen for how they age quietly over decades rather than how they hold up in a single event. Placing myself at both extremes was never an accident. It was the fastest way I knew to see more of what architecture could be.

I have not tried to resolve that contrast.
Rather, I am building a practice around it.

My practice is FEINSTEIN HOUSE, and it explores two foci: high-end single-family residential design, and wellness and spa design. On the surface, they look like different disciplines. In practice, they are the same question asked twice: how does a person actually live inside a space, moment to moment, and what does the architecture owe them because of it. A house has to hold an entire life, its routines and its quiet and its gathering. A wellness space has to hold something more concentrated: a short window of time where a person can genuinely let go, be around others, and feel something shift. I find both of these problems endlessly interesting, and I have come to believe that understanding one makes me sharper at the other.

I am a licensed architect in the State of Washington, and what I bring to a project is a willingness to sit with contrast. I’m drawn to what emerges in the juxtaposition of methods and materials between Miami and Seattle, or between a private home built for one family and a wellness space built for the public, and I let that tension shape the decisions I make on every project.