Fabiola Minerali
Project Designer
fabiola@insitustudio.us
Fabiola grew up in Albania before moving to the U.S. to pursue her passion for design. She
earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture from UNC Greensboro, graduating with full honors and receiving the Provost Student Excellence Award. She is currently pursuing her Master of Architecture at NC State University, where her leadership and academic achievements have been recognized with the Eduardo Catalano Scholarship and an AIA Triangle Honor Award for design excellence.
Shaped by her multicultural background, Fabiola sees architecture as a balance of simplicity,
clarity, and creating spaces that enrich everyday life. She is driven by a love of learning in
academia and through hands-on experience, which continues to fuel her growth as a designer.
Outside of the studio, you will find her painting or enjoying a quiet moment with a good book
and a cup of coffee.
Harrison Kaufmann
Project Manager
harrison@insitustudio.us
Harrison was born in Austin, Texas, and grew up in the mountains of Montana and western North Carolina. These beautiful and unique places informed his sensibilities and priorities - connectedness to nature, place, and beauty.
In 2016, his interest in cars led him to NC State, where he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he also completed minors in both Design Studies and Art + Design.
Understanding the conflict between the output of the auto industry and the needs of our planet, he chose to follow a career in architecture - which he sees as a way to make positive changes in that impact both human lives and the natural world.
Harrison is a recent graduate from NC State’s M.Arch program. During this program, his work was nominated for multiple AIA Triangle Scholarships, with his project Infinity Thresholds: A Museum for Yayoi Kusama being recognized with an AIA Triangle Honor Award. He spent a semester studying at NC State’s office in Prague, and held internships at Hobgood Architects and Katherine Hogan Architects.
He remains an avid car enthusiast, with a focus on RAD-era vehicles and an obsession with his 28 year old BMW, which keeps him busy with more projects than any daily driver should.
João Freitas
Project Designer + Manager
joao@insitustudio.us
João is a Brazilian designer who completed his MArch at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, where he received the Frank Miles Day Memorial Prize for best essay in history and theory courses, attained an Honorable Mention in the Schenk-Woodman Competition, and had publications in UPenn’s Pressing Matters, issues 09, 10, and 11. Joao received a BArch from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017.
Between 2017-2020, João worked in Bridgehampton, NY with Oza Sabbeth Architects, where he refined his technical expertise and further cultivated an appreciation for material texture and formal exploration. A number of the projects he worked on at OSA have been recognized with AIA awards and publication. Between 2020-2023, while pursuing his MArch degree, Joao collaborated with WE+ Architects in Water Mill, NY.
João’s Brazilian heritage infuses his designs with a sense of warmth, creativity, and cultural richness. When not talking about or creating architecture, Joao is usually hiking, watching soccer, playing tennis, or reading a book.
Kelly Wu, AIA
Senior Manager
kelly@insitustudio.us
Kelly grew up in Cary, NC and is a BEDA graduate from the NCSU School of Architecture. Due to her interest in the interdisciplinary nature of architecture to shape society and the environment, she also minored in both sociology and landscape architecture.
While at NCSU, Kelly served on the board with AIAS and was nominated for the AIA Triangle Scholarship and the Shawcroft Hand-Drawing Competition. In 2024, she received AIA Triangle Scholarship Honorable Mention for her design of a new Tarboro Road Community Center, and again in 2023 for her project at St Agnes Hospital - a Health and Equity Campus, using Unreal Engine to visualize the project.
In Kelly’s free time, she enjoys crocheting, cooking, reading, and playing board games with her family!
Matthew Griffith, FAIA
Architect + Founding Principal
matt@insitustudio.us
Matthew Henning Griffith, FAIA, earned a BS in Mathematics from Davidson College and an MArch from the NCSU College of Design, where he concentrated in Urban Design and received numerous awards, including the Kamphoefner Fellowship and the AIA School Medal. His thesis project - a community center for Camden, New Jersey - received a 2004 Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture Award.
Before founding in situ studio in 2010, Matt served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Arkansas and worked in the offices of Marlon Blackwell Architect and Frank Harmon Architect. He currently serves as Associate Professor in Practice at the NCSU School of Architecture. Since 2010, Matt and his colleagues at in situ studio have received nearly 100 local, state, and regional AIA design awards. In 2012, the studio was recognized by Residential Architect magazine as one of 15 Young Firms to Watch, and their work is now widely published on line and in print. Matt regularly serves on professional awards juries, lectures throughout the country, and is a frequent visiting critic at schools of architecture. He was on the 2019 AIA National Small Projects Awards Jury and was Chair of the 2020 AIA SAR Awards Committee. In 2021, Matt was named the 20th recipient of the AIA NC Kamphoefner Prize. He was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2024.
Matt lives with his wife, the Reverend Ashley Griffith, just east of downtown Raleigh. Their three adult children are out in the world doing wonderful things.
Zach Hoffman, AIA
Architect + Principal
zach@insitustudio.us
Zach is a daydreamer and a wonderer. He was born in Lancaster, SC, but grew up climbing trees and exploring the woods of Union County, NC. He graduated with Honors from Appalachian State University in 2011 with a degree in Building Science. While there, he worked on the 2011 Solar Decathlon and received the Building Science Award for Design Achievement. He completed his Masters in Architecture at the NCSU College of Design in 2014, where he worked on the Benevolence Barn in Graham County with the 2014 Design Build Studio. Prior to joining in situ studio, he worked with Cannon Architects for three years, first as a student intern and then as a full-time designer. At Cannon, he worked on a variety of projects, including the Penland 2D2 Studio, and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Recreation Center.
Zach joined in situ studio in 2015, and has worked on projects across various scales and typologies in the office. Since 2016, he has served as a Lecturer at the NCSU College of Design and has taught at different times the 3 foundational design studios for undergraduates: environment, form, and technology. Zach works to remain connected with architectural education and architecture around the world. In 2019, he studied under RCR arquitectes in Olot, Spain - winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize in Architecture - investigating the connection between architecture, landscape, and architectural process.
Outside of the office Zach likes to travel with his wife Meredith, cycle, spoil his golden lab Cooper, and work on his second career as a weekend handyman on his post-war Cape Cod in East Raleigh. His ongoing love affair with nature remains.
2023
Best Small Practice Southeast
2023
NC Firm of the Year
2024
Triangle Firm of the Year
We are an intentionally small, design-based architecture practice located in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As both practitioners and teachers, we pursue work that matters in our community, seek unique outcomes for each client and site that elevate the imagination for design in our region, and have a leading voice in the still vital modernist narrative in the American South.
We have been nationally recognized for the quality of our work across many building types. We do not sell a “product,” instead relying on a time-intensive, collaborative design process to produce beautiful, well-functioning architecture. We value architecture that is timeless and permanent in the way it reflects a long-term commitment to the quality of a place.
The work we do is immensely fun and endlessly varied. We are very pragmatic in the fact that nearly every project we have designed has been built. We are insatiable students of precedent, building from local traditions of modernism and learning from current work farther afield. Most critically, we want to provoke our nearby building community to imagine a more thoughtful and well-made built environment.