Ashley Heeren

Ashley Heeren believes that architecture is a medium for cultivating shared ground—spaces where difference can coexist productively and where design can strengthen both individual and collective well-being. Her current work through FIRMAH Architecture, founded in 2025, focuses on adaptive reuse and experimental construction approaches as strategies for resilience, equity, and cultural vitality. Her strengths have been recognized most recently with an AIA Austin Honor Award for Emerging Professional Achievement and as an Austin Under 40 Finalist.

Ashley’s professional experience spans more than a decade of practice with Lake Flato Architects, where she helped establish the Austin office and contributed to projects across scales and communities, consistently centering sustainability and place-based design. Earlier, she helped launch Low Design Office, a decentralized practice experimenting with global collaborations. Her work today continues to bridge rigorous delivery with speculative inquiry, situating design as both practical infrastructure and cultural framework. 

Alongside practice, Ashley teaches advanced studios at the UT School of Architecture, where her pedagogy engages adaptive systems, material experimentation, and urban narratives—most recently through projects in third-city contexts. She has presented at AIA and ASLA conferences, Austin Design Week, and in international forums, and she remains active in local initiatives with The Trail Conservancy, ULI Austin, and other community organizations.

Drawing from her experiences living in Europe, South Africa, and across the U.S., Ashley remains passionate about learning from global perspectives and continues to explore how architecture can connect across differences, reframe inherited structures, and imagine more resilient futures.

EDUCATION

• Master of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
• B.A. with Distinction in Architecture, Yale University
• Study Abroad, Syracuse University Architecture Program