Based in Lisbon, we work across hospitality, cultural and residential projects. We design spaces that meet you where you are — and quietly change where that is.
Space, for us, has a script — not a fixed one, but one that unfolds differently for every life that moves through it, at every stage of their journey. Every project is a small life of its own: we live it together, from the first idea to the last detail — research, spatial design, material selection, construction.
Oksana Penaguião — Founder
Oksana studied architecture in Saint-Petersburg — but the questions she was asking outgrew the answers she was finding. She moved to London looking for a different way to think about design, and found it at the University of the Arts London (UAL), where she completed a Spatial Design degree in 2014. Along the way, she explored fashion design — and found the same questions she'd been asking all along. The methods were the same. Space and body, it turned out, speak the same language. She returned to architecture carrying both.
Her early career took her through Studio Seilern Architects in London, Asse Architects in Moscow, and Meganom — where she led the design of Tyufeleva Roshcha urban park.
She left. Explored. Made ceramics with her hands. Travelled.
In Portugal on what was meant to be a visit, she stayed. Lisbon offered something she hadn't expected: a feeling of freedom — to design without limits, to build something entirely her own. ão studio followed.
And with it, a way of working that draws on everything that came before — the city scale of Moscow, the craft of ceramics, the body logic of fashion. Her career has moved across the full spectrum of scale — from urban parks and cultural districts to the detail of a single object. The lens doesn't change. Space at every scale carries the same question: what does it do to the person inside it?
The answer she designs towards: it provokes. An emotion, a question you ask yourself, a moment of stillness or urgency you didn't expect. Space, at its best, is not a backdrop to life — it's a participant in it. It changes you, subtly, every time you move through it.
Oksana studied architecture in Saint-Petersburg — but the questions she was asking outgrew the answers she was finding. She moved to London looking for a different way to think about design, and found it at the University of the Arts London (UAL), where she completed a Spatial Design degree in 2014. Along the way, she explored fashion design — and found the same questions she'd been asking all along. The methods were the same. Space and body, it turned out, speak the same language. She returned to architecture carrying both.
Her early career took her through Studio Seilern Architects in London, Asse Architects in Moscow, and Meganom — where she led the design of Tyufeleva Roshcha urban park.
She left. Explored. Made ceramics with her hands. Travelled.
In Portugal on what was meant to be a visit, she stayed. Lisbon offered something she hadn't expected: a feeling of freedom — to design without limits, to build something entirely her own. ão studio followed.
And with it, a way of working that draws on everything that came before — the city scale of Moscow, the craft of ceramics, the body logic of fashion. Her career has moved across the full spectrum of scale — from urban parks and cultural districts to the detail of a single object. The lens doesn't change. Space at every scale carries the same question: what does it do to the person inside it?
The answer she designs towards: it provokes. An emotion, a question you ask yourself, a moment of stillness or urgency you didn't expect. Space, at its best, is not a backdrop to life — it's a participant in it. It changes you, subtly, every time you move through it.
BASED IN LISBON, OUR STUDIO COLLABORATES WITH INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES TO REALISE PROJECTS ACROSS PORTUGAL AND GLOBALLY.
1100-178 Lisbon, Portugal
phone +351 912640578
email oksana@aostudio.pt
We are looking for an architect to join the team.
Someone who can take a concept and develop it independently — from design logic to technical drawings. Not just drafting from instructions, but understanding the idea and carrying it forward.
If this sounds like you, get in touch with us. Applications can be sent to oksana@aostudio.pt (CV, covering letter and portfolio of maximum 10mb).