studio d'ARC architects was established in 1996 by Gerard Damiani with a vision of creating an architect's collaborative to pursue the integration of architectural ideas with the craft of building set within an open design process that engages all participants -- from clients and consultants, to fabricators, material suppliers, builders and artists. This collaborative approach allows for thoughtful, integrated, and cost effective solutions for which all involved can take pride in their accomplishments.

To pursue architecture that goes beyond the conventional goals of service and product, the firm operates on the belief that all projects can be important works of architecture, regardless of scale or budget. Through the act of speculation and desire to reconsider every project's assumptions as well as its existing context, studio d'ARC develops architectural solutions that are specific to the client's budget and program and often exceed the client's conceptual and aesthetic vision.

SDA provides expertise in commercial, residential, and university construction and adaptive re-use and renovation. SDA also encourages and promotes artist-architect collaborations through public art installations.

Gerard Damiani, AIA NCARB
Gerard Damiani is the founder and president of studio d'ARC architects. A graduate of Syracuse University where he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree with honors, Gerard is an NCARB certified, registered architect with professional licenses in New York and Pennsylvania and has been in practice for over seventeen years, the past eleven as principal of his own firm. Over the past decade, this approach has resulted in many awards from the Pittsburgh AIA chapter as well as Pittsburgh Magazine's awards program.

Gerard has also been recognized for his contributions to the region outside of the awards programs. In collaboration with sound artist Jeremy Boyle, he won the Phase II Strawberry Way Public Art Installation in downtown Pittsburgh. His own Live/ Work Studio was on display as part of the Pittsburgh Platforms exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center and From the Ground Up exhibition at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, both in 2003. In the spring of 2003, Gerard Damiani was selected as one of twenty-two individuals whose work in the built environment has lead to advancements in the visual arts in the Pittsburgh region. His installation entitled "An investigation into the particular" was on display at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 2003 Biennial. His innovations in urban housing and construction techniques have been profiled in The City of Pittsburgh Development Report "Imagine the Possibilities" for 2001/2002. In 2000, he was chosen as one of "40 under 40," an awards program created by Pittsburgh Magazine and PUMP (Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project) to recognize people who are positively impacting the Pittsburgh region.

Committed to the education of architects as he is to the practice of architecture, Gerard has taught both adjunct and full-time since 1992 at Syracuse University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Kansas State University. For the past eleven years, Gerard has been an adjunct professor in architectural design at Carnegie Mellon University teaching and/or coordinating first and second year design studios. He was also a visiting faculty member at Kansas State University in the fall of 2003 in the fourth year design curriculum and previously taught first year design studios and drawing courses at Syracuse University from 1992 through 1994. He has also served on many School of Architecture and University committees while at CMU and on a School of Architecture advisory board at Kent State University. In addition, he co-coordinated and led a two week student trip to India to study the works of Le Corbusier, as well as Kahn, in May 2007.

Gerard's prior work experience includes working as a project architect for Heinz Tesar in Vienna, Austria, specializing in museums and cultural institutions; Werner Seligmann Associates in Cortland, New York specializing in performing art facilities and cultural institutions; Michael Dennis Associates, in Boston, Massachusetts specializing in university architecture; and Hemmler Camayd Architects in Scranton, Pennsylvania specializing in university architecture.

Debbie Battistone
Since 1998, Debbie Battistone has been involved in many studio d'ARC projects as a staff architect including assisting on the adaptive re-use of the Goodyear Building at Dickinson College, the West Building (The Attic) at Gettysburg College as well as the Sportsworks proposal.

Since 2005, her current role at SDA is as project manager where she acts as the day-to-day contact for many projects. More recently, she has been the project manager for Trax, the student social space at Susquehanna University, as well as a team member for the Blackbird Artists Studios in Lawrenceville, the warehouse conversion for the Shaheen/Tracht residence in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the Strawberry Way Public Art installation, "V 24/7/365" in downtown Pittsburgh, as well as a new office headquarters for Sota Construction, a green general construction company/ development firm in Pittsburgh, which will feature many environmental strategies and materials in its design and construction.

Her background includes working as a staff urban designer and project manager for Urban Design Associates, a nationally recognized Pittsburgh-based urban design and planning firm where she managed public participatory urban design projects. Debbie received her undergraduate education in business, with a minor in architecture, from Carnegie Mellon University and her Master of Architecture degree from Syracuse University.