ABOUT
小網奈々
Born to a modernist architect’s family and growing up in Japan, Nana Koami is a bi-cultural, bi-lingual Architect licensed in California, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Nana originally studied community design at the Architecture and Urban Program in Keio University, Japan. During her fully funded Master’s research in collaboration with a local government in Tokyo, her work contributed to form design guidelines for Tokyo’s aging community where the isolation of the elderly had been an increasing problem due to the city’s new development. Through this experience, she grew her interest in architecture that is socially responsible. She believes in the role of a designer with an anthropologist’s point of view, who can collaborate with users from various social and cultural backgrounds to create a sustainable built environment, regardless of the size of the projects.
Finding passion to further apply her experience to design practice, she completed a Master of Architecture at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design in 2004, a program with a strong focus on sustainable and socially responsible architecture. Nana has been professionally practicing for over 18 years, designing buildings of various typologies and budgets, ranging from small remodels, high-end single family residences, to city block sized multi-unit mixed-use projects.
After working for several award-winning firms, the architectural design studio Koami Architecture was established in 2016 as a minority, woman-owned architecture practice. Nana enjoys working closely with her clients to achieve their design goal with her design style inspired by great California outdoor living incorporated with understated, subtle Japanese modern sensibility.