Design Like Steven Holl
He designs with watercolors at dawn.
The ideas survive to the building.
Learn to design from concept and sensation. Discover how ideas born in quick sketches carry all the way to built form, giving your work a depth serious critics respect.
Watercolor intuition will meet rigor in your ideas.
- Anchor work in concept — so every decision traces back to a driving idea.
- Design through sketching — thinking with your hands every morning before the meetings begin.
- Shape light spatially — bending it through rooms the way a sculptor bends form.
- Engage all the senses — designing texture, sound, and sequence as carefully as the plan.
- Keep ideas alive — protecting the founding concept all the way through construction.
- Deepen your work — earning lasting respect from the critics and juries who matter.
Built by one of the most-read architecture platforms in the world.
RTF | Rethinking The Future has spent over a decade publishing the ideas, projects and voices shaping architecture — and now brings that depth to learning. Every course is researched, written and produced by the RTF team.
Concepts win competitions. Learn to keep yours alive.
A clear path. Seven steps.
Everything unlocks instantly with membership · learn at your own pace
If you see yourself here, start today.
A few hours from now, you could already see differently.
My concepts came from precedent boards, never from perception. Holl's practice of beginning with light, material and the watercolor sketch reopened something in me. I now start every project with a hand study and the ideas are stranger and better.
Simple by design.
Watch
Short, focused video lessons — each one a single idea, clearly explained.
Apply
End every lesson with a small task that pushes your real project forward.
Transform
Watch your work develop a point of view that is unmistakably yours.
Answered simply.
Holl designs through watercolors — is that relevant to digital-era practice?
More than ever. His analog process protects the experiential idea from being flattened by software, and learning it makes your digital work stronger, not obsolete.
What is his signature skill I can actually acquire?
Manipulating light and phenomenal experience as primary design material. The course breaks down how his concepts of porosity and luminosity translate into plans and sections.
Is this too artistic for pragmatic practice?
No. Holl wins major institutional commissions precisely because experiential richness sells; the course shows how idea and delivery connect.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Every course starts from where you are and builds up step by step, in plain language.
Is this software training?
No — software changes yearly. The thinking you learn here lasts a career.
How does it work?
Short video lessons with a small practice task after each. Any device, your pace.
What does membership include?
One membership unlocks every course on RTF Academy — all 450+, nothing sold separately. And you stay in control: cancel anytime in one click, and you will never be charged again.
Ready to see your work change?
Your next project could be the one that feels truly yours.
- 7 Sections
- 25 Lessons
- 4 Hours
- Introduction to Steven Holl3
- Principles of Steven Holl’s Architecture4
- Materiality, Light & Atmosphere4
- Iconic Projects & Design Lessons4
- Urbanism & Human Experience3
- Representation & Visualization3
- Applying the Steven Holl Approach4
Reviews
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My concepts came from precedent boards, never from perception. Holl's practice of beginning with light, material and the watercolor sketch reopened something in me. I now start every project with a hand study and the ideas are stranger and better.
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