Hidden Gems: Meet Donatella Cusma of Claret-Cup

Today we’d like to introduce you to Donatella Cusma.

Hi Donatella, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Sicily, and I believe that the condition of being from an island has fundamentally shaped my sensibility since childhood. There is a particular spatial awareness that comes from growing up surrounded by the sea ; a heightened sense of boundaries and space.

Sicily itself is a territory marked by successive layers of history and defined by the diverse cultures that have inhabited and left their traces over centuries. This palimpsest of architecture, language, cuisine, and even the physiognomy of its people instills a profound sense of belonging and wanderlust at once.

During my university years, I had the opportunity to study under Lebbeus Woods and to attend a semester at the experimental school he directed in Vico Morcote, Switzerland. This encounter was formative and redefined my understanding of architecture and research as acts of critical inquiry. Under his mentorship, I was encouraged to travel, to teach, and to approach design as an open-ended investigation. I subsequently became involved with the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, that he founded, which further informed my trajectory and commitment to a practice grounded in exploration and interdisciplinarity.

After graduating from university in Italy and obtaining my architectural licensure, I took a year to travel and reconnect with peers I had met in Switzerland. That period led me to spend time in London, Mexico, and Los Angeles. I was offered a position in Los Angeles and decided to remain for what I thought would be a short time.

At first, Los Angeles was difficult to decode and to embrace; from a European perspective, its scale, form, and logic seemed elusive. It took time to discern its particular beauty, sense of freedom and quality, but once I did, I became completely captivated by it. Nearly two decades later, I am now one of two partners at Claret-Cup, an architectural practice based in Los Angeles. I have taught architecture at several local institutions and currently serve as a Board Member of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Although I maintain strong ties to Sicily and Europe, where I continue to visit friends and family and remain engaged through my ongoing collaboration with the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, I am grateful to call Los Angeles my second home.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I do not believe anything worthwhile comes without its challenges. I am grateful for the obstacles I encountered along the way, as they pushed me to grow, adapt, and expand my perspective.
To begin with, I had to learn English well beyond my basic academic knowledge. English differs significantly from Italian — not only in structure and syntax, but in how an argument is constructed, how humor works, how meaning is layered. It is an ongoing process of inhabiting two worlds intellectually, always observing, translating, and reconciling them.
Practical adjustments were equally formative. I had never owned a car before moving to Los Angeles. For the first year, I attempted to commute from my rental in Venice Beach to the firm I worked at in Frogtown by combining biking and public transportation ; until I eventually capitulated and bought my first car from a friend. Even then, I was often lost on the freeways, unable at first to read a city that, to me, seemed too homogeneous, and strangely lacking in obvious landmarks. It took time, and a conscious effort, to learn how to look at Los Angeles, and to see its qualities beyond what I expected as a European.
What made this possible were the people I met here. Many of them are close friends today; those who came before me or grew up here often became informal guides, Ciceroni in the classical sense. Once you find your community; your network of friends, peers, and collaborators, Los Angeles transforms. The city feels smaller, more accessible, and full of possibilities once you have your own points of reference within it.

As you know, we’re big fans of Claret-Cup. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I am one of two partners at Claret-Cup, an architectural practice that is 100% women-owned and staffed. My brilliant co-founder, Bojána Bányász, is originally from Budapest. Our team is proudly international: we speak English, Italian, Hungarian, Japanese, Spanish, and French, and we draw on this diversity to approach each project with a perspective that is both deeply local and globally informed.

Claret-Cup is, in many ways, a success story of two friends who came together to explore an idea , and over a decade later, we remain close friends, business partners, and continue to expand on that original vision. From the beginning, BBojána and I were motivated to bridge the gap between how architects are trained and how the profession is perceived by the public. We have always asked: How do people see architects? Are we the multi-talented chameleon , a bespectacled designer at a computer, a white-haired mentor sketching on a napkin, a hard-hat-clad professional fussing over a construction detail, a wine-glass-in-hand guest at a dinner party , or merely permit processors drafting “blueprints”?

To explore this, we began a playful exercise in self-definition, inventing tongue-in-cheek word pairs , Design-aholic, Loop-hole Digger, Detail-Diver, Frugal-Materialist, Space-Stitcher , Dream-Distiller, to capture the many roles we inhabit as architects.
This curiosity led us to launch a series of nomadic, self-initiated public projects across Los Angeles. For example, while in residence at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, we created ID: LA , Tales of Deliberate Localism, a public event built around a large-scale map of Los Angeles that invited residents and self-proclaimed “Los Angelists” to share personal stories about their connection to the city. In Signals from Mission 26, we mapped and analyzed the subtle but significant modifications to the city’s streets and infrastructure needed to accommodate the final overland journey of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, culminating in a participatory postcard mail-out along its route.

Another project that embodies our belief in design as a continuous discipline , independent of scale or medium , is Blind (d)Ate: A Synesthetic Dinner. Held at Thank You For Coming, an experimental art space in Atwater Village, the event amplified the sensory experience of dining through subtle but deliberate shifts. An enigmatic, color-based menu concealed the actual ingredients, encouraging guests to choose dishes based purely on the dominant colors. Silk-screened Tyvek place settings echoed these colors and were gradually assembled into a wall installation during the evening, transforming the meal into an unfolding spatial composition. Through this project, we explored how design can heighten perception and create moments of shared discovery , whether through architecture, food, graphics, or social space.

We called the projects in this series “Paper Architecture”, and they continue to inform and feed into our more “conventional” architectural practice. And as our practice has grown, we have expanded our portfolio to include custom residential work, small-scale cultural projects, and collaborations that bring together designers, artists, and communities. We are especially drawn to sites that present constraints , steep hillsides, tight urban infill lots, layered historic contexts , believing that limitations, approached creatively, can yield meaningful and unexpected solutions.

Claret-Cup has remained independent, experimental, and community-focused. We believe architecture can be both rigorous and delightful, deeply rooted in place yet open-ended. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue expanding our practice in Los Angeles and beyond, pursuing interdisciplinary work, deeper community engagement, and material and site-centric design strategies that respond thoughtfully to both climate and culture, but also to the moods, memories, and atmospheres that shape a place long before it takes physical form. For us, architecture emerges from a series of quiet tensions: when the abstract becomes material and the unseen finds its shape.

Alongside my practice, I have remained deeply engaged in teaching and non-profit work. I am a member of the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, a non profit organization based in Bern, Switzerland, which fosters global dialogue through workshops, publications, and symposia. This has led me to collaborate with universities in Sweden, Hong Kong, Mexico, Switzerland, and Italy. From 2008 to 2024, on and off, I have taught at Woodbury School of Architecture, where, in addition to design studios and seminars, I co-instructed study abroad programs in Rome, Japan, and Sicily. Most recently, I taught a semester at Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Environmental Design, and I have served for nearly four years on the board of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.
In all of this, my aim has always been to keep questioning what architecture can be , as practice, teaching, research, and public dialogue. Whether through buildings, events, or experiments, I believe design can connect people more deeply to place and to one another.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
More than seeing myself strictly as a risk-taker, I think of myself as an optimist with a deep sense of curiosity. I moved thousands of miles from home, learned a new language, made new friends, and started a business in a city I once found unfathomable. In hindsight, perhaps that does count as risk-taking.
On a more serious note, I believe that architecture it is inherently centered around risk. Even when grounded in precedent and technical knowledge, each project is ultimately a step into the unknown , a set of decisions made for the first time in that very sequence, under a unique set of constraints, desires, and influencing factors. In our practice at Claret-Cup, but also in the practice of our most respected peers, we believe this to be true. Our processes are rooted in experimentation and every project is singular, never conceived in exactly the same way, never built under the same conditions.
In this regard, risk is not an isolated undertaking but an intrinsic condition of meaningful practice. It demands intellectual openness, perseverance, and a recognition that uncertainty is not a hindrance to be avoided , but rather the generative context within which innovation becomes possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.claret-cup.com
• Instagram: claret_cup_la

Image Credits
1) personal photo by Sorrell Scrutton
ADDITIONAL PHOTOS:
2.CLARET-CUP-MH Lair new residence-4- photo by Here and Now Agency
3.CLARET-CUP-MH Lair new residence-3- photo by Here and Now Agency
4.CLARET-CUP-MH Lair new residence- photo by Ye-Rin Mok
5.CLARET-CUP-MH Lair new residence-2- photo by Ye-Rin Mok
6.CLARET-CUP_Sun Villa Remodel_Photo by David Hartwell
7. CLARET-CUP_Sun Villa Remodel_2-Photo by David Hartwell
8.CLARET-CUP_Silver Lake residence_Stair Detail-2_Photo By Claret-Cup
9.CLARET-CUP_The Hike Los Feliz-under construction-Photo by Here and Now Agency