Maura Fernández Abernethy — Architect

“Beauty emerges from the care we put into every joint, every material choice, every proportion.” — Maura Fernández Abernethy, Studio VARA

For Maura Fernández Abernethy, architecture was never merely an academic pursuit or a career path; it was the very air she breathed. Long before she co-founded Studio VARA in San Francisco, she was one of the “visual, spatial, three-dimensional thinkers” in a household where creative expression served as the primary dialect. This early immersion remains her most defining characteristic.

Her narrative began at a pair of drafting tables in suburban Los Angeles. Her father, an industrial designer with the soul of an architect, sat at one while Fernández Abernethy and her brother occupied the other. While their mother, an emigrant from Mexico City, pursued graduate studies, the children learned the nuances of lettering, precision, and form. A pencil became an extension of Fernández Abernethy’s hand, drawing as natural as speaking. Observing how a well-proportioned, functional home — even one with a modest suburban footprint — could empower a mother and harmonize a household became the driving force of her career.

Photography by Matthew Millman

Photography by Matthew Millman

Photography by Matthew Millman