Alum in Action: Miftakhova Morrell Architecture’s Transformation of a Charlottesville Home
Andrew Morrell (MArch '18)
Lemara Miftakhova Morrell (BSArch '16 + MArch '18)
Principals and Co-founders, Miftakhova Morrell Architects
Miftakhova Morrell Architecture, founded by Lemara Miftakhova Morrell (BSArch ’16, MArch ’18) and Andrew Morrell (MArch ’18), describe their Gordonsville-based practice as “design intensive with a passion for careful detailing.” Their precise, clean-lined residential work—grounded in a careful study of material, light, and form—has recently been featured in Abode and VIE, including the Via Florence Renovation, a thoughtful transformation of a Charlottesville home into a tranquil, contemporary living space.
After beginning their careers in San Francisco, the pair returned to Central Virginia, where they now balance professional practice with teaching in the architectural design program at James Madison University. In this interview, Miftakhova and Morrell reflect on the ideas shaping their recent work, their approach to renovation and restraint, and how their experiences as educators, practitioners, and UVA alumni continue to inform one another.
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Your Via Florence Renovation reimagines an 18-year-old developer home around the owners’ love of cooking as a family, with the kitchen serving as “both stage and retreat.” How did this idea shape the project from the start?
The concept of “stage and retreat” was developed through in-depth conversations with the owners and became the foundation for the Via Florence Renovation. The clients described a home centered around cooking as a shared, social experience, where family and guests actively participate in meal preparation. This led to the idea of the kitchen as a “stage,” a space that supports gathering, movement, and performance. It needed to accommodate multiple people at once, with generous circulation, durable materials, and ample light to allow the act of cooking to unfold openly and comfortably.
At the same time, the home needed to support quieter, more private moments. Outside of gatherings, the kitchen and main living spaces were intended to feel calm, unobtrusive, and restorative. This informed the idea of the “retreat,” where the environment recedes and allows for stillness in everyday routines, such as having a morning coffee or preparing a simple meal.
While these two conditions appear to be opposites, they share common qualities and were reconciled through careful detailing and material decisions. Clean lines, integrated elements, and a restrained palette allow the space to feel open and active when in use, yet composed and quiet when not.
This duality became the guiding framework for the project, ensuring the home could seamlessly adapt to both the social and intimate rhythms of the owners’ daily lives.
In renovating the home, you worked closely with its existing conditions and neighborhood context—an approach you’ve described as “focused on thoughtful restraint.” What design decisions best illustrate this?
As a renovation, the project approached the existing home and its suburban Charlottesville context with a mindset of thoughtful restraint, focusing on a precise and simple architectural move that could have a significant impact on the quality of the space. Our goal was to maximize the return on construction while making no changes to the exterior of the home. Working within an existing condition places greater emphasis on the small details. The sensory quality of a space can be fundamentally transformed without altering its boundaries.
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Many of these decisions are evident in the kitchen. The upper cabinetry was raised to increase light and openness at the work surface, improving function without changing the overall footprint. This single adjustment establishes a clearer working plane and allows the range hood to align with the cabinet undersides, creating a continuous horizontal datum that brings order and visual calm to the space. Power and lighting are integrated discreetly beneath the cabinets, keeping the backsplash free of visual interruption. A key planning move was the removal of the formal dining room, which no longer aligned with how the owners live and gather. The value of that square footage was re-distributed, and it was subdivided into a scullery and a private office, redistributing function in a more purposeful way. Located directly off the primary circulation path yet concealed behind the refrigerator wall, the scullery is a quiet insertion that expands the working capacity of the kitchen.
Quality sensory experiences are universally appreciated,
regardless of style preference.
Maple cabinetry, selected for its subtle and even grain, is finished in a warm cashew tone that provides warmth without visual noise. The vertical tile backsplash minimizes visible joints, allowing it to read as a continuous texture. These decisions prioritize consistency, light, and proportion, allowing the architecture to recede rather than compete for attention.
Together, these moves demonstrate how a series of restrained, intentional adjustments can have an outsized impact. By focusing on clarity and precision, the renovation enhances the existing home while maintaining continuity with its surroundings.
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In addition to your practice, you both teach at James Madison University in the architectural design program. What are some specific lessons you bring to teaching the next generation of architects?
Teaching architecture has become a critical part of our creative practice. At James Madison University, the architecture program is housed within the School of Art, Design, and Art History. Students bring an extraordinary capacity for experimentation, grounded in strong foundations in fine art. As a process-based program, they are challenged to develop architecture through a series of iterative drawings and models.
The built environment is constantly evolving through a relationship of action and reaction. When we consider buildings, we also acknowledge their permanence and their imprint on the land. In studio, we explore these ideas by manipulating both digital and analog models. The lesson is that building and ground can and should be understood as a single entity in the design process. Creating architectural space through ground manipulation reinforces the idea that we are not merely placing buildings within a landscape, but actively working the landscape and the building together until a balanced condition emerges.
We strongly encourage a hybridized workflow.
Moving between analog and digital tools brings depth and clarity to the design process. JMU students have a strong background in making, and when paired with tools like Grasshopper 3D and Rhino, they retain the richness of their analog investigations while engaging with real-world environmental and structural data. This process is not always linear, and transitioning between workflows can be challenging, but learning to navigate complexity and work through layered problems is an essential skill that extends far beyond architecture.
Our students are also asked to think both big and small at the same time. They find moments within their projects to study specific details or material connections while simultaneously advancing their larger conceptual ideas. Zooming in and out of scale is critical to their education.
Could you share one or two lessons or lasting impacts from your A-School education that have influenced your professional life? What do you continue to carry with you?
Our time at the A-School focused on density, urbanism, and future cities, and those lessons continue to shape how we practice. Questions of density extend beyond urban contexts and are equally relevant to single-family housing. As families evolve, their homes must adapt. The A-School taught us to question conventional models of living and to reconsider how space can be used more effectively. By finding creative ways to maximize space, whether in a house or a larger development, we can extend the life of a building.
At the A-School, our design research in India, Japan, and the Arctic depended on understanding how cultural and environmental contexts shape space.
These experiences continue to inform how we think about architecture’s relationship to its environment, and particularly its connection to the ground. Our work aims to be deeply contextual, establishing a strong dialogue with the surrounding landscape. In residential projects, this often means blurring the boundary between interior and exterior, shaping architecture into a quiet shelter that amplifies its setting. These ideas are further advanced through data-driven processes that guide decision-making and influence form. The breadth of inquiry at the A-School exposed us to multiple approaches to design, a range that continues to influence our work today.
More Projects by Miftakhova Morrell Architecture
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