Alchemy Architects

Alchemy is a multidisciplinary studio dedicated to making stimulating, engaging, and efficient design more accessible. Founded in 1992 by proud Minnesotan Geoffrey C. Warner, AIA, the company embraces mid-Western pragmatism and takes a uniquely hands-on, collaborative approach to their projects. By partnering with clients and carefully-vetted builders and manufacturers, Alchemy ensures harmonious integration of place, building, community, and sustainability.

Environmental stewardship has been a core focus for Alchemy since its inception, and Warner and his team have always worked to incorporate the latest building science and materials innovations. In 2002 the company designed and constructed its first weeHouse®, a practical solution to a restrictive program that presaged both the tiny house and modern modular house movements. Testing its belief that creative freedoms arise within constraints, the company has since pioneered design systems for a passive house homeless community, a one-room mobile hotel, and panelized BarnHouses. In 2020 Alchemy joined forces with Plant Prefab to launch the lightHouse LivingHome, a new line of ultra-efficient accessory dwelling units (ADUs) designed for sustainable production at Plant. The designs convey Alchemy’s signature “luxury of less,” an architecture of restraint, and an efficient, but celebratory, use of resources and materials.

Alchemy has received many national and regional AIA awards and has been featured in dozens of books and publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Wired, Kiplinger’s, Interior Design, Huffington Post, and Dwell. Warner’s work has been in exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Weisman Art Museum, Design Philadelphia, Dwell on Design, the Milan Triennale, and the seminal 2005 “Some Assembly Required” exhibit on residential prefabrication held at the Walker Art Center and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).