Johnsen Schmaling Architects

Brian Johnsen and Sebastian Schmaling founded Johnsen Schmaling Architects in Milwaukee in 2003. They met as graduate architecture students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and later worked together in a local practice. Johnsen holds a Master of Architecture from UWM. Berlin-born Schmaling studied at the Technical University of Berlin, UWM and Harvard's Graduate School of Design, where he completed a Master of Architecture and Urban Design with distinction.

The studio specialises in high-end residential and commercial work and provides services spanning master planning, schematic design, construction administration, furniture and graphics. Each project begins with a close reading of site and programme, bringing materiality, construction and building technology into the development of the central idea. Its buildings are often formally restrained, gaining character through proportion, depth, precise assembly and the control of light.

Both founders are Professors in Practice at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and regularly lecture in the United States and Europe. The practice received an Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices award in 2008 and was selected for Architectural Record's Design Vanguard. Its work has earned more than 70 professional awards. Led by Johnsen and Schmaling, Curtain House received an AIA Wisconsin Merit Award, a Residential Design Architecture Award, a Milwaukee Magazine Home + Design Gold Award and a 2025 American Architecture Award.