Best Practice is a multidisciplinary firm where architecture, interiors, and brand implementation converge into spaces that are as technically accomplished as they are distinctly joyful.
We bring decades of experience and genuine curiosity to every project, with a team that makes sure no detail gets handed off or glossed over.
Best Practice is a studio full of good humans who happen to be exceptional designers. We’ve built a culture where early-career talent is mentored, every voice contributes, and no idea is too small to consider.
Beyond the studio, we’re deeply connected to a network of fabricators, artists, and makers: collaborators who bring a handmade, rooted quality to our work that we think of as a signature, not an afterthought.
We’ve always believed that how you practice is as important as what you produce. “Best practice”—the tools, methods, and standards you bring to creative work—shapes every outcome.
For us, that means building a firm where the process is as considered as the result: one that works for the people designing, the people building, and ultimately the people who walk through the door every day.
Founding Partner, AIA
Founding Partner, AIA
Ian Butcher founded Best Practice Architecture and has shaped the studio since its establishment. Before starting Best Practice, he worked as a Principal at Domestic Architecture and as an associate at E.Cobb Architects, two firms with strong roots in the Pacific Northwest design community that grounded him in the thoughtful, craft-driven work that still defines how BP operates today. He holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Environmental Design from North Carolina State University.
Under his leadership, Best Practice earned multiple AIA Honor Awards and received national recognition with Cloud Ranch and Aspen Leaf Ranch featured in The New York Times. Ian is a newly appointed board member of AIA Seattle and is deeply committed to mentoring early-career designers, a value that shapes who Best Practice hires and how the whole studio works.
Catch him on the big screen:
Ian was a child actor and performed in plays at the Center Stage Theater in downtown Atlanta. He also worked the light board for a production at the Kennedy Center in DC.
Partner, AIA, LEED AP
Partner, AIA, LEED AP
Kip Katich brings extensive big-firm experience to our team. Before joining Best Practice in 2018 and becoming Partner in 2023, he spent ten years at Rogers Partners in New York, where he co-led complex institutional projects across the East Coast, including the award-winning Henderson-Hopkins Community School in Baltimore, a K-8 school that earned six AIA honors and coverage in The New York Times. At BP, that same rigor shows up in projects at every scale, from the AIA Award of Honor-winning Phinney Mini to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Center for Performing Artists and Pacific Science Center. Kip is a licensed architect in both Washington and New York, LEED Accredited, and has taught at Parsons The New School for Design. He still believes the best ideas can come from anyone in the room.
Runs in the family:
Kip’s grandfather was a stone mason in central Arizona and his contributions to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West peaked his interest in architecture at a young age
Partner, AIA
Partner, AIA
Sarah Smith joined Best Practice in 2018, bringing a resume that spans some of the most respected names in the industry. She studied at the University of Cincinnati’s DAAP for her undergraduate degree and the Yale School of Architecture for her master’s, where she also served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow. She spent a year as part of the Yale Building Project, designing and building a 1,500-square-foot house alongside thirteen fellow students, an experience that has a way of teaching you things no studio course can. Before Seattle, she worked at Clive Wilkinson Architects in LA and Kohn Pedersen Fox in New York. She later worked at Olson Kundig before joining Katerra as a Project Architect and Design Lead. At Best Practice, Sarah brings a breadth of experience to projects across scales and typologies with a particular talent for translating complex design thinking into buildings and spaces.
We’re flippin’ out:
Sarah did competitive gymnastics as a kid, complete with crushed velvet leotards, giant scrunchies, and Dominique Dawes-inspired bangs. In recent years, she’s gotten back into it, taking adult gymnastics classes and confirming that the flips and swings are still very much there. Like a moth to a flame, a long empty hallway or a narrow ledge is basically irresistible.
Associate, Assoc. AIA, CPHC
Associate, Assoc. AIA, CPHC
Lina received her Master of Architecture from Lund University, Sweden, and Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. She is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC). Before joining Best Practice, Lina worked at Board & Vellum in Seattle and White Arkitekter and Belatchew in Sweden. Outside the office, she spends her time in the mountains: trail running, skiing, gravel biking and camping with her partner and cat.
Designer
Designer
Autumn comes to Best Practice with dual graduate degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Washington on top of a Bachelor of Science in Ceramics from Indiana Wesleyan University. She previously worked at Ankrom Moisan Architects in Seattle, WA. She loves getting into the details of projects and learning about how things are made. Outside work, you’ll find her trail running in the mountains, hanging out with her dogs or at home making something with her hands.
Designer
Designer
Tori received her Master of Architecture from the University of Washington and her Bachelor of Arts from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She has previously worked at Cone Architecture in Seattle and at the Cape Cod Modern House Trust in her home state of Massachusetts. Outside of her architectural practice, she maintains an active art and illustration practice and enjoys trail running and the ongoing pursuit of Seattle’s best Caesar salad.
Designer
Designer
Kelsey received her Master of Architecture from the University of Washington and holds a Bachelor of Science in Counseling Psychology from Lesley University. Prior to joining Best Practice, she worked for Weinstein A+U in Seattle. Outside the office, Kelsey can often be found working on projects for the rental house she shares with her partner and cat, bopping around to Trini soca music, illustrating mixed-media pieces, or attempting to sew her own clothes.
We are proud that Best Practice has achieved a Just 3.0 label. Created by the International Living Future Institute, the Just program is a voluntary disclosure tool that provides a transparent measurement framework for social justice, equity, and employee well-being.
For us, Just is more than a label, it is a continuous call to action. Best Practice is deeply committed to being a transparent, equitable, and socially just organization. While we know there is always more work to do, we are excited to share our progress.