Conifer Studio was established as David Cole Architect, PLLC in 2023 as a way for David to earn some freelance income in addition to his full-time day job. The firm did little more than quietly exist on paper as a legal entity until 2025 when it landed its first client, a small architecture firm in San Francisco that needed some Revit help on a project with a tight deadline.
At this time, the firm was rebranded as Conifer Studio to reflect our roots in the Pacific Northwest and emphasize our collaborative work style that places the needs the common good over those of the individual. Based in Bremerton, Washington in the Seattle metropolitan area, we hope to carve out a niche on the Kitsap Peninsula by combining the rigor and expertise of a large firm with the personal attention of a boutique practice.
We strive to incorporate the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion into all that we do, creating built environments that uphold the dignity of all people and are sustainable in the broadest sense possible.
Our Vision
Architectural design is a collaborative process in which all stakeholders play a critical role, and architecture of lasting quality is not merely a static object to be admired or a consumer product to be commodified, but is designed with the human experience at its core. We strive to create built environments that serve the needs of their users and the public while being honest in structure and materials, responsive to human needs and aspirations, and sustainable in the broadest sense of the term.
Our most important design influences have included the pragmatic clarity of the First Chicago School, the rigor of the Second Chicago School, the humanistic ideals of late modernists such as Harry Weese and John Portman, the vernacular materiality of California’s Third Bay Tradition, and the sustainable principles of Pacific Northwest critical regionalism.
But above all else, we believe in a design approach that is heavily grounded in equity, sustainability, and humanism rather than slavish devotion to antiquated historic styles, fleeting fashion trends, or esoteric theoretical dogma.
David Cole AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Conifer Studio founder David Cole grew up in a Navy family, and this brought him to the Chicago area the summer after high school. He had always been interested in architecture and design, and inspired by Chicago’s rich architectural heritage, enrolled at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1995 to begin his formal studies. That same fall, he began his professional career by accepting a position as a part-time student intern at the Chicago office of Perkins & Will.
Since that first internship, David has been responsible for design and production on a wide variety of project types across the country, ranging from small residential renovation projects in quiet suburban neighborhoods to multimillion-dollar multifamily, institutional, and corporate projects in major cities across the United States. His experience includes tenures at venerable architecture firms in Seattle, New York, Chicago, and California, including multiple laureates of the national AIA Firm Award. He founded Conifer Studio to provide professional architectural design and consulting services to clients in the Seattle area and beyond.
When not engaged in professional practice, he can be found renovating his house in Bremerton, listening to the music of Pink Floyd and various alt-rock and electronic artists, enjoying movies by the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino, and exploring the world from the back roads of the Pacific Northwest to the side streets of Tokyo.
Professional Experience
Environmental Works, Seattle
Mahlum Architects, Seattle
STUDIOS Architecture, New York
Moore Ruble Yudell, Santa Monica
Dattner Architects, New York
Mekus Tanager, Chicago
Perkins & Will, Chicago
Education
Master of Architecture, University of Cincinnati
Bachelor of Arts, DePaul University
Summer Architecture Studio, Columbia University
Architectural Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
The land upon which we practice is within the ancestral territory of the suq̀ʷabš “People of Clear Salt Water” (Suquamish People). Expert fisherman, canoe builders and basket weavers, the suq̀ʷabš live in harmony with the lands and waterways along Washington’s Central Salish Sea as they have for thousands of years. Here, the suq̀ʷabš live and protect the land and waters of their ancestors for future generations as promised by the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855.
“Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.” Chief Seattle, 1854
