SDH Studio is proud to announce the promotion of our Director of Operations, Cristina Magdaleno, AIA, NCARB, to Partner.
In her new role, she will lead the firm collaboratively with founder, Stephanie Halfen, AIA, NCARB. Cristina brings to the leadership team substantial management skills, creative design thinking, a keen ability to connect with people, and mentorship to colleagues.
Cristina has 9 years of experience developing a wide range of complex luxury residential design projects, which are marked by their inclusion of balanced daylighting, strong formal expressions, and bold colors. Her body of work is instantly recognizable and can be enjoyed throughout South Florida.
She is an experienced architectural designer and project manager who is renowned for stepping in to resolve challenges on site, rallying resources, and working collaboratively with engineers to develop elegant and timely solutions to challenges. She believes leadership is all about creating opportunities for others, and guiding people’s passion. She leads by example and is known for her dynamic and adaptive leadership, her encouragement and mentorship of junior architects and designers, and for giving emerging talent a platform to develop their professional skills.
Cristina’s rise through the ranks at SDH Studio has been nothing short of phenomenal and is a testament to the depth and range of her management skills. Nine years after joining the firm, she is now one of a small number of female architects in Florida who are a Partner of their firm. This is due, in part, to her strong belief that collaboration creates great architecture, and because she embraces progressive design and building technologies that make such a valuable contribution to 21st century design processes. In adopting an evidence-based approach to design, she seeks to free her team’s architectural imagination from habitual thinking and standard typologies so that they may deal with the constantly evolving challenges of contemporary life.
Stephanie Halfen, Founder and Principal Architect of SDH Studio said “This recognition is richly deserved. Cristina epitomizes the passion and the culture of care, quality and cooperation that is so important in our business. Her personal passion for design and her wonderful personality are the fuel that keeps SDH growing and evolving.”