Laura Marie Peterson is an architect, artist and educator. Since 2018, Peterson has directed 1+1+ Architects, a design practice based in Detroit, Michigan. Peterson grounds her design work in the specific needs, resources and contexts of the communities and clients she collaborates with – reusing before demolishing and fostering relationships of care over extraction. Finding form in grassroots organizing, cataloging sustainable material systems, and supporting natural ecosystems through architecture, Peterson’s projects engage the urgent challenges shaping our built environment today — like housing, land use, and climate change.
Peterson’s design work includes Dreamtroit, the adaptive reuse of the original Lincoln Motor Plant into collective artist residences, a community kitchen and geodesic growdome for Peace Tree Parks, an artist’s house + studio that challenges single-family zoning conventions in Los Angeles, Moving Friends furniture for the new Urban Tech Studios at the University of Michigan, a James Beard recognized sustainable sushi restaurant called Sozai and Big Roof for Coriander Kitchen & Farms. Peterson received an honorary award for their 2021 Low Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles and a 2024 Building of the Year nomination from Archdaily. Peterson’s writing and design work has been published in a+u, Log, The Architect’s Newspaper, Volume and Riverwise Magazine, and she has contributed work to projects exhibited in the Chicago Architecture Biennale, Detroit Month of Design and Overthrow New York.
Peterson collaborates on interdisciplinary art projects, such as HOLY MTA with photographer A-Chan, Topiary Creatures with Other Fields, and a Circle Fest pavilion with sculptor Tahir Karmali. Peterson was awarded an artist residency at the Montello Foundation in 2020 and she co-curated a collection of living structures at the 2021 Detroit Month of Design exhibition called 9 Lots. Prior to University of Michigan, Peterson taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University and New Jersey Institute of Technology. Peterson holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Architecture from the Columbia University GSAPP. They are an Alum of The University of Michigan and Columbia University.
Like a snail, Peterson works small and moves slow, always with their feet on the ground.
