Design Manager
Katherine Esguerra
A floor plan is a conversation between the owner and the inspector. My job is to make sure both walk away happy.
Katherine leads APD's commercial tenant improvement work. Restaurants, retail, office TIs — if it sits in a strip mall and needs a permit, it's likely a Katherine set. She came up through interior architecture and brought that spatial sense with her: her drawings read clean because she's actually thought about how a room works.
What she's best at is the constraint puzzle. The space is too narrow, the egress is impossible, the kitchen needs a hood and there's no ceiling height to spare — and she finds the layout that solves all three without anyone feeling cheated.
Field notes
The little things Katherine keeps on the bench.
Favorite project
Anything with a tight site constraint. The smaller the box, the more interesting the puzzle. Restaurants on weird lots are my favorite kind of difficult.
Design hero
Tadao Ando — for the way he makes concrete feel like silk. The discipline of one material, done with patience.
The mistake I refuse to make twice
A set that solves the architecture but ignores the egress diagram. Beautiful is meaningless if it can't get the occupants out.
When I'm not at the desk
Cooking. Filipino food, the long way. Adobo takes me eight hours and I'm not in a hurry.
Have a project that fits Katherine's lane?
Tell us what you're building. We'll get Katherine on the call.
Work with Katherine →