I went to France at eighteen to study painting. I heard meaning, a construct of culture, coded in language; the way we live is a collective choice.

In 2009 a Watson Fellowship took me to Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, the Middle East, and South America to research earth construction. I was not observing. I was laying stone, mixing adobe, working alongside builders whose knowledge of local materials put most formal training to shame. I spent the following years fabricating structural steel and cutting timber at Rammed Earth Works in Napa, then graduated from UBC's architecture school in 2014 and was recognized for academic excellence.

I learned to build from my father as he renovated our family home. My f2a co-founder, Florian Maurer, was also an architect who built with his own hands, including his own house, which is still published today. That lineage is part of what f2a is. The Steeps House represents the next evolution of that lineage.

The practice has grown into something that spans straw bale and rammed earth, mass timber and light wood frame, wineries, emergency shelters, multi-unit housing, and custom residences across BC. I guest lecture on mass timber at BCIT, solve complex design problems, coordinate consultants, run the excavator, and mill timber. Most weeks I am both in the studio and on site. The material teaches you things the drawings cannot. That is what this practice is built on.

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