Nathan Harwell

Nathan Harwell was born in Austin, Texas in 1980. The son of a welder, Nathan began the craft of making from a very young age and still makes things today. Between high school and college he spent a year traveling through Western Europe and studying at the language school Gymnasium am Distelberg in Northern Germany where he met his future wife.

He studied architecture and German and graduated with honors from the University of Arizona in 2006 with a professional degree from CAPLA (College of Architecture, Planning, & Landscape Architecture).
After spending the rest of the summer traveling the US & Mexico, he worked in Austin from 2006 - 2009 for
Cotera+Reed Architects and Cottam Hargrave Design Build Architects. 

Nathan obtained his architectural license from the State of Texas in 2011, while working for Melton Henry Architects in Port Aransas, Texas. During this time on the coast, he spent many hours offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, operating sport fishing boats while logging units for his captain's license. 

In 2013 Nathan moved to his hometown, Wimberley, Texas, where he founded his design practice. As a sole practitioner, Nathan employs a vetted group of consultants and designers with whom he works closely to produce his projects. Still influenced by the curricula at CAPLA, Nathan believes that designing a dwelling should be an "imaginative cultural research" whose "originating source is born out of the landscape", and that designing should be a "portable method of work that shall remain observant of local traditions."