Kalos Eidos is a design office based in New York, led by Ryan Brooke Thomas. With diverse experience in a broad array of project types from objects, installations, and interiors, to buildings and civic spaces, we create environments that are atmosphere and concept driven, detail oriented and holistic.
Overlapping a foundation in architecture with other modes of design, creative practice, and cultural research, the interdisciplinary approach of the studio looks to expand its focus beyond the building envelop. Rather than hinge our practice around a specific project type or scale, we seek to develop each project — whether large or small, permanent or temporary, public or private — according to a distinct experiential story, spatial concept, functional agenda, and visual mood. Our work is motivated by an interest in exploring alternative possibilities for living, working, making, and participation in culture, and we consider the engagement of these core activities as encompassing a range of outputs from the artifact to the city.
The name Kalos Eidos takes inspiration from the Greek roots of the word kaleidoscope: ‘kalos’ translates to beauty, interpreted as an outer reflection of inner integrity, while ‘eidos’ refers to shape or observable likeness as indicative of an essence. Together they assert an idea of content and form as fundamentally and inextricably interrelated in shaping experience and meaning, a position which informs our process and underlies our approach to design more broadly.
