Sharon Johnston is a founding partner of Johnston Marklee, an architecture practice based in Los Angeles. Since the firm was established in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been internationally recognized with over 50 major awards, with notable projects including the permanent home for the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program at Roy Lichtenstein Studio in New York, the renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston. Johnston Marklee is one of ten Los Angeles architecture firms participating in Case Study: Adapt, a nonprofit initiative set up to help families who lost their homes in the January 2025 Los Angeles fires rebuild.

Michael Madrigal is a citizen of the Cahuilla Band of Indians and the current board president of the Native American Land Conservancy (NALC). His work focuses on protecting and revitalizing the cultural and spiritual relationships between tribal communities and their ancestral homelands. Deeply influenced by the teachings of tribal elders and their dedication to preserving Indigenous knowledge, Madrigal and the NALC are working with tribal nations and fire agencies throughout California to integrate ancestral land stewardship practices within existing fire management strategies.

Michael Maltzan founded Michael Maltzan Architecture in 1995. The studio’s portfolio spans a range of programs and typologies, with notable projects including MoMA QNS in New York City, and Star Apartments, the Sixth Street Viaduct, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Based in Los Angeles, the practice has long calibrated its approach to the wider transformation of the city. At the 2025 Triennale Milano, the practice’s video installation meditated on the broader lessons of the Los Angeles fires, foregrounding the deep-seated inequalities the fires revealed.