Dutton Architects

Dutton Architects is a leading design firm based in Los Angeles, California. We specialize in creating inspiring places to live and work, focusing on warm and inviting modern architecture at all scales. Our projects range from custom homes to creative office spaces, multi-family housing, and urban infill.

At Dutton Architects, we are committed to California modern architecture. We believe in designing houses that cater to contemporary living standards, while maintaining a warm and modern aesthetic. Each house is custom-designed for our clients through a collaborative process that ensures the final product meets their needs and exceeds their expectations. We take pride in solving complex problems on difficult sites with elegant, sustainable designs that ultimately become part of the landscape, taking advantage of the California climate with seamless outdoor-indoor connections.

Our workplace designs aim to marry the particular functional needs of a business with a design that reflects the brand of the company. We see ourselves as partners in your business, not merely designers making a beautiful space. Our goal is to create an environment that not only meets your operational needs but also reflects your company's identity and values.

Urban Design is another area where we excel. We believe in integrating architecture and urbanism to create vital, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use, and sustainable neighborhoods. Our projects include new towns, urban infill, street and open space design, and housing. We aim to challenge the low-density sprawl development of our car-dominated landscape and instead, focus on creating neighborhoods where people can live, work, and shop in harmony.

Our team is led by John Dutton, the founder of the company. John has a unique background, having trained in world-famous firms such as Morphosis, Richard Meier, Renzo Piano, and Santiago Calatrava. He has a deep interest and expertise in the design of cities and neighborhoods, which allows him to approach each project with a comprehensive understanding of how buildings and open spaces interact to form the fabric of our communities.

John is also a longtime adjunct Professor at the USC School of Architecture and the director of its Barcelona Program. He has served as a president of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and has written for numerous publications on architecture and urban design. His work emphasizes the complementary design of buildings and open spaces that together form the fabric of the places in which we live and work.

At Dutton Architects, we are dedicated to creating inspiring and sustainable urban environments. We believe that the way we live and work in cities is an essential design question in these years of dwindling resources and environmental challenges. Our goal is to counter the placeless and thoughtless sprawl that has dominated our cities and suburbs, and instead, create neighborhoods that are vibrant, sustainable, and functional.

Our designs seek to sensitively and beautifully support the needs of our clients, not upstage them. We are a boutique design firm dedicated to providing the highest level of personal service to our clients. We specialize in working within unique situations - no two projects are ever the same. We are your partner in the process, and insist on being part of any design project from the beginning (programming, envisioning) to the end (construction and completion).