EN/FRPeople. Place. Climate. Culture.
Chicago · Yaoundé
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Yaoundé, Cameroon
Studio International
We are an architecture, interiors, and urban design practice working across cultures and geographies. Each project begins by listening to people, place, climate, and culture. It develops as a response to the conditions that make it distinct.
Led by architect Aurélien Tsemo, the studio brings more than thirty years of design, technical, and project leadership to work in the United States, Africa, and international markets.Founder profile
Mission
Studio International delivers architecture, interiors, and urban design through a disciplined process of listening, research, collaboration, and thoughtful execution. Each project emerges from a careful understanding of its people, place, climate, and culture.
Vision
To create architecture that enriches lives by responding thoughtfully to people, context, climate, and culture, contributing enduring places that belong naturally to their communities.
Philosophy
Architecture is a response, not an assertion. It emerges from listening to the land, climate, culture, history, and people. Every project is approached as a unique response to its context, bringing these forces together into a coherent architectural solution.
Selected work
01 / 16
01 / 08
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Residential · Mixed use · In development
Six residences within a climate-responsive building shaped by deep shade, a triple-height arrival sequence, and shared rooftop amenities.
02Quartier du Golf · Yaoundé, Cameroon
Residential · In development
Twelve residences across four levels, shaped by broad terraces, solar-shading fins, cross ventilation, and a lush tropical landscape.
03Bangoulap, Cameroon
Private residence · Concept design
A five-bedroom mountain residence shaped by the Bassamba Valley, rammed earth, timber, planted roofs, and integrated water and energy systems.
04Douala, Cameroon
Residential · In development
A seven-unit apartment building and a private family residence organized along a landscaped promenade, with a central pool forming the threshold between communal and private ground.
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Residential · In development
Four connected duplex homes formed as one rowhouse, with ground-floor terraces, red clay stucco, and a shared tropical landscape.
Chicago, USA
Private residence · In development
A compact urban house on a 34-by-45-foot corner lot, pairing sectional openness with privacy, daylight, and a distant view of the Chicago skyline.
Chicago, USA
Cultural · Design studies
The transformation of a one-story building into a daylit, two-level gallery organized around a winding stair and a leaf-shaped skylight.
Chicago, USA
Residential · Design studies
Three urban house types balancing generous family living, material permanence, and attainable construction strategies.
09 / 16
Spelman College · Atlanta, USA
Studio Gang · Project Manager
A multidisciplinary academic and cultural building supporting the arts, innovation, teaching, performance, and collaboration.
University of Chicago · Chicago, USA
Studio Gang · Senior Project Leader / PM
An 800-bed residential commons delivered through an embedded design-build collaboration.
Denver, USA
Studio Gang · Design Management
A phased, 12-acre civic improvement initiative integrating public landscape, infrastructure, performance, and long-term stewardship.
Chicago, USA
Studio Gang · Design Management
A 26-story, 250-residence tower whose inclined façade responds directly to solar orientation and environmental performance.
Chicago, USA
Booth Hansen · Project Leadership
Two phases totaling 265 mixed-income residences within the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation.
Chicago, USA
Booth Hansen · Project Leadership
A multi-phase affordable housing initiative delivering 160 homes through coordinated community and stakeholder engagement.
Chicago, USA
Booth Hansen · Senior Project Manager / Project Architect
An 80,000-square-foot academic facility with classrooms, laboratories, common spaces, and a two-story multipurpose atrium.
Milwaukee, USA
Booth Hansen · Senior Project Manager / Project Architect
A fellowship hall, lobby, educational facilities, offices, and parking garage conceived as an expanded community center.
Prior work documents the Founder’s professional experience. Project authorship remains with the respective firms identified above.
Our approach
The lives, ambitions, and rituals of the people who will inhabit a place are the first design material.
Landscape, urban fabric, available craft, memory, and local materials give architecture its grounding.
Orientation, shade, ventilation, water, and material performance are architectural questions, not technical additions.
We seek meaning in the patterns, histories, and identities already present rather than importing a predetermined architectural language.
Program, structure, systems, and material decisions are resolved as one coherent architectural idea.
Design intent is protected through disciplined process, technical rigor, and collaborative leadership from first study through construction.
Founder
Founder & Design Principal
For Aurélien Tsemo, architecture begins with the responsibility to listen and demands the discipline to deliver. He founded Studio International to create work shaped by the people it serves and by the particular realities of place, climate, and culture. His approach joins design ambition with technical rigor, collaboration, and an understanding of construction, strengthening the original idea as it becomes real. He seeks not to impose architecture upon a setting, but to create enduring places that feel contemporary, purposeful, and naturally at home.
Architectural qualification
École d’Architecture de Versailles, France 1994
Professional registration
State of Illinois, USA
Professional affiliations