Risa Narita, A.I.A., LEED® Green Associate, is Founder and Principal of Narita Architects.  Ms. Narita has over twenty years of experience in practice for residential, commercial, restaurant, retail, educational, and hospitality project types.  Her prior work experience at nationally recognized corporate and boutique atelier architecture offices helped establish the mission for this firm.  She approaches every project with a quest for innovative design and attention to detail.

Ms. Narita was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan and attended an international school since preschool.  She started residing in the U.S.  for her high school education at a New England boarding school, Northfield Mount Hermon School, in Massachusetts.  She received her Bachelor of Architecture and Minor in Urban Planning from the University of Southern California.  After graduation, she returned to the East Coast and received her Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design.  At Harvard, she studied under the Pritzker Prize recipient Swiss architects, Herzog and de Meuron, and studied under Rodolpho Machado of Machado Silvetti.  While a graduate student, she taught second year architecture studio at the Boston Architectural Center.  After graduating Harvard and moving back again to California, she taught the summer program and second year architecture studio at USC for three consecutive years.

Ms. Narita is a registered architect in California and Texas and a member in her local A.I.A. chapter.  She served as a board member for a philanthropic women’s group, Palos Verdes Junior Women’s Club, for 2008-2009.  She is a frequent guest critic for local universities and served on the Pacific Corridor Design Advisory Panel for the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA), an appointed position by CRA/LA.