Our team brings a variety of experience to the table—in architecture, development, art, education, and construction—and provides hands-on, personalized attention to every client and project. From historic renovations to adaptive reuse, art installations to custom furniture, our work aims to enliven space with innovative design, creative material use, and interactivity. We are passionate about uncovering the unseen potentials of a site or structure and using design to engage unexpected contexts.
As a woman-owned and operated business, we are dedicated to diversity in our business practices and to creating equitable and empowering spaces for all people and populations.
We believe strongly that space should be egalitarian and that good design should be available to all. END Studio is committed to making the city a more sustainable, enjoyable, and inspiring place. With every project, we strive to create rich experiences and meaningful encounters for our clients and the entire community.
We believe that every design is a collaboration with our clients and our communities. From programming through ideation, visualization through construction, we will work with you to build your dreams into a reality. Have a project in mind? Let us know! We are looking forward to working with YOU.
Elise DeChard is a licensed architect in Michigan and New York. In fifteen years of experience in the field, she has worked with small businesses, homeowners, artists, developers, and community stakeholders to design everything from community art spaces to collaborative manufacturing centers to fortune-telling walls of TVs. Prior to relocating to Michigan, Elise worked in architecture and development in New York City, notably for Macro Sea on New Lab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Philadelphia Coworking Space and for Marvel Architects on New Lab and the Prince Street Residences. From 2016-2018, Elise ran an experimental gallery and international artist residency, Tessellate, in a suburban garage in Pontiac. Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, The Architect’s Newspaper, Wallpaper*, Design Milk, Cubic Journal, TreeHugger, The Oakland Press, Detour Detroit, Fox2 News Detroit, Curbed Detroit, and Detroit Month of Design 2018-2020. She was named a Notable Woman in Design by Crain’s Detroit in 2021 and was a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Scholar in 2022. She holds a Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a Bachelor of Architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has taught at Lawrence Technological University and Kendall College of Art and Design.
Megan Finley is an up-and-coming architectural designer and all-around excitable person. Prior to her foray into the built environment, Megan worked as a costume designer in various Bay Area theaters, often conceiving and constructing around seventy looks per production. She returned to formal studies following the fires in her hometown – Santa Rosa, California – intending to contribute positively to the region through advancements in architectural design, material, and labor. Much of Megan’s work references her deep affinity for intense research and design theory, but also showcases a fun, out-of-the-box, approach to serious propositions. She has initiated projects addressing disaster-proof housing, ‘post-occupancy prose’, and feminist architecture. Megan earned a Master of Architecture from the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Art from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Pilar O’Hara is an architectural designer in the making, passionate about adaptive reuse, social infrastructure, and community engagement. Her portfolio is categorized by a thoughtful triptych - from new to old to borrowed - speculating on design narratives intrinsically tied to time, history, and recollection. By embracing the new, the old, and everything in-between, she contends we have much to learn from the past to create inspiring and hopeful future designs. Her former architectural proposals range from community center reimaginations to playful collective housing to itinerant libraries, always designing with connectivity and empathy in mind across multiple scales. In addition to her commitment to inspiring positive change through architectural design, Pilar is equally invested in print media. As a former editor and designer of Dimensions, the student-produced journal of architecture at Taubman College, she is passionate about the interactions between text and visuals to create compelling narratives. Pilar received both a Master of Architecture and Bachelor ofScience in Architecture from the University of Michigan Taubman College ofArchitecture and Urban Planning
Julie George is a multidisciplinary artist with varied professional experience in creative studios and construction management. An experienced painter with a focus in color theory, Julie’s recent exploration delves into movement as a new means of artistic expression. Creative freedom and curious exploration of varied mediums define her practice and serve as a connecting thread throughout different mediums. In addition to her role at END Studio, Julie also manages and contributes her talent to a local artist studio, whose works have been shown in exhibitions across global art hubs, including New York, Miami, LA, Hong Kong, Berlin, London, and Paris.
Get in touch! Send your resume, portfolio, and contact information for three references to jobs@e-n-d-studio.com. No phone calls please.
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PAST COLLABORATORS
Sophie Yan, Deanna Baris, Lisa Rutherford, Tyler Schaasfma, Ashley Hsu, Valeria de Jongh, Hannah Green, Zoë Faylor, Kapish Cheema
