2023 Best Small Practice Southeast
2023 NC Firm of the Year
Alyssa Halloran
Project Designer + Manager
alyssa@insitustudio.us
Alyssa was born and raised in central New Jersey before heading south to complete her BArch at Clemson University. At Clemson, she found her love for architecture and an interest in set design through a minor in Theatre. She was also a four-year member of the Clemson cheerleading team, winning the 2021 NCA National Championship.
After Clemson, Alyssa went on to complete her Master of Architecture at the Savannah College of Arts and Design, where she completed her thesis on the intersection of music and architecture, focused on Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN.
At SCAD she received an AIA Georgia Elevate Design Award and Honorable Mentions for the International Design Awards in three categories. Alyssa was included in the 2023 Metropolis Magazine Future100 cohort.
Away from the office, Alyssa loves to take her dog Blue on walks and cook for her family and friends.
Brittany Siegert
Project Architect
brittany@insitustudio.us
Brittany grew up in Clayton, NC, where her interests in art and volunteer construction formed a passion for architecture. She received her BArch from NCSU in 2020, graduating with Honors. During her time there, she was nominated for the Shawcroft Drawing Competition and the AIA Triangle Scholarship and received the AIA NC Eastern Section Scholarship. She participated in the second cohort of the TED-backed initiative, the Leading Strand, and spent a semester studying in Prague, Czechia.
After working for nearly five years at in situ studio and earning her license, she followed a burgeoning interest in the intersection between architecture and sociology to study a Master of Collective Housing (MCH) in Madrid, Spain, at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. There she received the MCH Excellence Scholarship and the AIA Europe Scholarship.
Brittany continues to live in Madrid, where she works remotely for in situ studio, studies Spanish, and takes on other projects and competitions. She loves to travel, try new food, stay busy with running and cycling, and play fútbol on the weekends, usually chased with a cerveza.
Jasmeen Kaur
Project Designer + Manager
jazz@insitustudio.us
Jasmeen was born in a small village in Punjab, India and grew up in Chapel Hill, NC. She graduated with honors from the NCSU School of Architecture with her BEDA in 2021, and her B. Arch in 2022.
While in school she was a very active member of both AIAS, and NOMAS. She has been nominated for the AIA Triangle Scholarship and was runner-up for the 2019 Marlon Blackwell Hybrid Drawing Competition. Most recently she won the inaugural Rice and Gold design award that focuses on exemplary design of accessibility and universal access.
On her time off Jasmeen enjoys traveling and spending time outdoors with a good book!
Jeremy Leonard
Project Designer + Manager
jeremy@insitustudio.us
Jeremy received his Bachelor of Architecture at North Carolina State University, where he received the Faculty Award for Design Achievement, the Shawcroft Drawing Prize, and the AIA Henry Adams Medal. After working for three years at in situ studio, he completed his Master of Architecture at Yale University, where he received the William Edward Parsons Memorial Medal for distinctive work in urban design. In his final year, both of his studio projects were finalists for the H.I. Feldman Prize, honoring the best solution to an architectural problem in an advanced design studio.
From 2017-2021, Jeremy was an Associate at SHoP Architects in New York City. Previously, Jeremy also worked as a designer in the offices Tonic Design | Tonic Construction in Raleigh and ThoughtCraft Architects in Boston, Massachusetts. He currently teaches design studios at the North Carolina State University School of Architecture.
An avid music lover, Jeremy worked as a DJ at WKNC 88.1 FM in Raleigh for seven years. He lives with his wife Anna and their daughter, Julien, less than a mile from the office.
João Freitas
Project Designer + Manager
joao@insitustudio.us
João is a Brazilian designer who recently 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
Architectural Intern
kelly@insitustudio.us
Kelly grew up in Cary, NC and is currently a 4th year BEDA student at NCSU College of Design. She is also minoring in both Sociology and Landscape Architecture due to her interest in the interdisciplinary nature of architecture to shape society and the future. She will work towards her B’Arch in 2024.
In school, Kelly has been an active member at the School of Architecture, serving as Vice President of AIAS last year. She has been nominated for the AIA Triangle Scholarship as well as the Shawcroft Hand-Drawing Competition. This past summer she traveled to Rome and Florence for an independent study in the creation of space through perspective!
In Kelly’s free time she enjoys cooking, reading and playing board games with her family!
Matthew Griffith, FAIA
Architect + Founding Principal
matt@insitustudio.us
Matthew Henning Griffith, AIA, 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 over fifty 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, Ashley, and their three children just east of downtown Raleigh.
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.
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.