ARCHISTRATI was founded by Amanda Roelle in 2013 when she moved from the skyscrapers of Chicago, USA, to the humble stone structures of Puglia, southern Italy. In the Valle d’itria area of Puglia she facilitates drawing retreats, hands-on stone workshops, and one-day walks, experiences and presentations focused on vernacular architecture where participants are encouraged to explore and engage with the unique built environment in a deep and meaningful way.

She keeps a foot in Chicago however, as Senior Architect with BTL Architects, Inc. and returns to the city every summer to restore historic facades of high rise buildings from suspended scaffolds, which satisfies the adventurer in her, and her persistent desire to be outside.

Amanda is a licensed architect and LEED AP, BD+C*. Amanda has consulted with a wide range of clients on sustainability issues including green building rating systems and green roofs, and assisted with the LEED certification of Italy’s first LEED Platinum building.

As the ‘strati’ in the name represents (“layers” in Italian), Amanda’s experience and knowledge is multi-layered, deep, and unique. After graduating from architecture school, Amanda took the indirect approach to becoming an architect by joining the Peace Corps, and taught Industrial Arts in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga for two years. Following the Asian tsunami in 2004, she worked with Peace Corps Response and Habitat For Humanity to design housing for tsunami survivors.

Archeworks, a multi-disciplinary, environmental and social justice design school, took Amanda to Chicago in 2007. In Chicago she co-founded a design-build firm called Grow Here! that integrated small-scale agriculture projects within the built environment.   She was honored to collaborate with the Archeworks-based Mobile Food Collective by leading a workshop on food heritage and social design between American and Italian architecture students as part of the 12th Venice Biennale for Architecture in 2010.

Intrigued and inspired by different ways of living on the planet, Amanda has travelled extensively. She has collaborated on sustainable building, community development, and small-scale agriculture projects in Italy, Morocco, Bosnia, Ghana, Thailand, Tonga, France, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and New Zealand. She never ceases to be amazed by our individual and collective creativity, and the endurance of the human spirit. Committed to environmental stewardship she is driven by her passion to collaborate, to stay curious, to imagine, and to keep creating.

* Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) with Building Design & Construction Specialization (BD+C). LEED is a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).