WHO WE ARE

New Yorker Gregory Melitonov and Guatemalan Ines Guzman met while working for Pritzer Prize Laureate Renzo Piano in Genova, Italy. From there, they founded Taller KEN in 2013, a commercial practice, and FUNdaMENTAL in 2016, a non-profit which allows them to expand beyond the limits of commercial contracts to explore topics of environmental systems within urban landscapes and the erosion of institutional, socioeconomic, and physical barriers between communities through the process of building while engaging the next generation of architects and designers in the narrative.

In 2016, Gregory & Ines began the FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative in order to work more closely with local communities. The program brings design interns together with real-world problems and partners to engage in all phases of realizing of public urban intervention for the collective good.

Taller KEN is an architecture and design firm founded in 2013 and focused on playful design with social and cultural relevancy. The practice is based in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and New York.  The firm received the Architecture League Prize in 2019 and the AIA New Practices Award in 2016.