3SIXØ Architecture was founded in 1997 and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. The Rhode Island chapter of the AIA has bestowed its top honors on 3SIXØ five times in the past decade and The Boston Society of Architects has recognized 3SIXØ with three awards. In 2002 Architectural Record named 3SIXØ one of ten “vanguard” architecture firms emerging worldwide and in 2008 Architectural Record recognized 3SIXØ’s STIX Restaurant as one of its annual “Record Interiors.” The work of 3SIXØ has also been widely published in magazines including Architectural Record; the Korean Magazine, Plus Architecture and Interior Design; the Japanese Journal, SPA-DE; Interior Design; Design New England; Residential Architect; Rhode Island Monthly; The Boston Globe; The Boston Herald; The Providence Journal and The Hartford Courant. Several books have featured the work of 3SIXØ: Salons and Spas, The Architecture of Beauty; Eat! The Best of Restaurant Design and Restaurant Design.
KYNA LESKI, Principal, Professor, Acting Department Head, Rower & Navigator of the Creative Process. Whether in her own work, or through her students’ work, Kyna Leski is drawn and dedicated to navigating the creative process. Over the last twenty one years of teaching, she has closely witnessed projects pursued and developed by students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Professor Leski is the author of the first semester core architecture design curriculum, given for sixteen years and to over 1500 students. A book on this pedagogy, The Making of Design Principles, was published in 2007. Professor Leski served as the head of the RISD European Honors Program in Rome from 1993 to 1995; she has taught in the Architecture, Foundation Studies and Industrial Design departments. The primary focus of her teaching research is the creative process and its workings across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Currently, she is writing a book called Design Intelligences, which focuses on the design mind. This year, Professor Leski is the Acting Head of the Department of Architecture.
Kyna Leski is a principal of 3SIXØ Architecture, in Providence, Rhode Island. 3SIXØ’s work includes a house to dwell in—in awe, a church which inspires and expands, a store that contracts itself into a restaurant bar, a salon that extends the life of the city inside and a porte cochère that bridges a historic past to today.
Kyna Leski’s project, “Dream House,” placed first in The Japan Architect’s Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition in 1998 and was published in Modern House 2 by Claire Melhuish (Phaidon Press, 2004). In 1997 the Architectural League of New York selected Kyna Leski as one of five winners of its annual “Young Architects Competition.” She has also served as the “City Architect Design Decision Review Advisor” to the Mayor of Providence, the Planning Department, and the City Planning Commission and Downcity Review Commission.
Kyna Leski earned a B.Arch from The Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1985 and a M.Arch from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 1988.
She is an avid rower who can be found most mornings before dawn on the Seekonk River and Narragansett Bay in Providence.
CHRIS BARDT, AIA, Principal, Professor, earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1983 and a Masters of Architecture II from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1988. He was a designer with James Stewart Polshek and senior designer with Kohn Pedersen Fox from 1983 to 1986. He has been a registered architect since 1988 and is licensed to practice in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Tennessee. In 1995, His project, “Sunwork,” was awarded a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and was selected for construction and exhibition by the “Convergence Arts Festival.” In 2007 His paper on the design of Masonry Units was published by and presented at the National Concrete Masonry Association conference. Chris’s professional work has been exhibited at the Cranbrook Academy, the ETH Swiss Technical University and The Architectural Association in London, which also published his research on the sun in the journal, A.A. Files. The project has since been published in the Journal of Architectural Education and VIA Arquitectura. Currently Chris serves as a member of the Quonset Development Corporation Design Review Board.
Professor Bardt has been a member of the Architecture Faculty at The Rhode Island School of Design since 1988. He teaches upper level studios, Architectural History, Foundation courses and has coordinated Design Principles and Degree Project. He has been a visiting Professor at Cornell University and at the National Academy of Design and Art, Slovakia.
JACK RYAN, RA, Associate, has been with 3SIXØ since 2000. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture with Honors from The Rhode Island School of Design, as well as the distinguished AIA Henry Adams Medal (Silver) for Excellence in 2000. He is licensed to practice architecture in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He has previous work experience at Lamoureux Pagano- Associates, Friedrich St. Florian, Architect and Stempelform. Recently he completed the “Bench Mark” competition in Westport, MA where he was commissioned to design and fabricate a pair of benches. He was the winner of the Boston Society of Architects Project Kiosk Competition and placed second in the YPAC Affordable Housing Completion sponsored by Boston Society of Architects and Habitat for Humanity. He has completed the schematic design of a corporate research headquarters for a sustainable paper company in Chong-Qing, China. He is an adjunct faculty member at Rhode Island School of Design in the Department of Architecture.
MANUEL CORDERO ALVARADO, Project Architect, earned his undergraduate degree from Yale College and received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was awarded the Sandy Hirschen Award, the Laub Fellowship and the prestigious John K. Branner Fellowship. He is licensed to practice architecture in Rhode Island. In 2005, he received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation and has helped shepherd several LEED projects through design and construction reviews toward certification. Manuel has worked for Lerner | Ladds + Bartels in Providence, Gelfand Partners in San Francisco and Erwin Rodriguez and Associates in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has several years of experience in large scale educational, institutional and hospitality projects.
AARON BRODE, Project Architect, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 1995 and his Master of Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design and was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal (Gold) for Excellence in 1999. He has previously worked with Marmol Radziner and Associates and Rees Studio in Los Angeles. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Rhode Island School of Design in the Department of Architecture.
OLGA MESA, Project Architect, received her bachelor of Fine Arts and Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design, as well as the AIA Henry Adams Medal (Gold) for Excellence in 2000. She has previous work experience in Los Angeles with Gensler: Architecture Design and Planning Worldwide, and with Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, designing and managing projects ranging from residential and renovation work to mixed-used buildings. She achieved her accreditation in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in 2002. She is an adjunct faculty at Rhode Island School of Design in the Department of Architecture and in 2007 & 2008 co-coordinated a core design studio.
ELEANOR LEE, Project Architect, received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999 and her Master of Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design in 2005. She has previously worked with Perkins & Will in Boston and Murdock Young Architects in New York City, designing and managing adaptive reuse projects.
NICHOLAS CROFT, Designer, received his Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies from the University of Washington in 2005 and his Master of Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design where he was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal (Gold) for Excellence in 2008. He has previously worked with Studio Luz Architects in Boston and for Daniel Libeskind in New York City.
Staff 1997-2010: Jack Ryan, Curtis Boivin, Bon Ho Koo, Marcel Madsen, Brandon Andow, Brian Callahan, Andrew Crocker, Grace Gihm, Colleen Hindarto, Hana Kim, Chris Nanning, Lilian Ng, Benjamin Pearce, Amy Thornton, Jacob Wangh, Jose Vargas, Kelly Ennis, Tim DeCoster, Michael Williams, Nick Croft, Shane Zhao, Yu Morishita, Aaron Brode, Olga Mesa, Eleanor Lee, Charlie Thorton, Joshua Fiedler, Markus Berger, Manuel Cordero, Jesen Tanadi, Alice Hsieh, Daniel Lee, Joshua Lantzy, Lucia Milini, Robert Williams, Rachel Stopka, Paul Woehl, Loren Howard, Jae-Hyun Choi, Michal Dziedziniewicz.
Studio Tour: Josh Lantzy
3SIXØ Logo: Jorge Martinez