About

ETCH is an architectural and art studio founded by Elizabeth Thompson in 2011.  ETCH seeks to find harmony, balance and efficiency through innovative and thoughtful design; rigorous attention to detail; and iterative studies of the built and natural environs.

ETCH does not believe in one "style" of architecture, but rather addresses the needs and desires of each client and site through an open dialogue with each.  We start every project without expectations or assumptions, and strive to discover and achieve exceptional design through observation, research and discourse. We believe that every site is truly unique - the design must reflect and adapt to it.

ETCH's Principal Architect, Elizabeth Thompson, draws on her diverse and unconventional background to guide her design work. Elizabeth received her Bachelor of Arts from Washington & Lee University, graduating Cum Laude with majors in Print Journalism and French, and an Art minor. During her time there, she was captain of the Varsity Women's Soccer team and studied abroad in Martinique. After graduating from W&L in 1999, she set her sights on New York City, where she worked in branding and advertising as a Strategic Planner for several large agencies, including BBDO and MVBMS. During her time in NYC, she started painting and sought to return to the design world, ready to pursue the career in architecture that she had dreamed of since she was a young child growing up in North Carolina.  She spent the next four years in Cambridge at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.  During her tenure there, she had the opportunity to travel to Rome for a 3-week long intensive drawing program and interned in Vienna, Austria, with the firm Pichler & Traupmann Architekten. In 2007, she graduated with a Master of Architecture degree and moved to Denver where she worked for several years at AR7, an architectural firm focused on educational projects. She helped design and carry through construction two dormitory projects for the University of Arizona, both of which were LEED-certified buildings. In 2010, as she launched ETCH, she worked as an Adjunct Studio Professor at the College of Architecture and Planning at University of Colorado Denver, in their Master of Architecture degree program.  

Elizabeth also draws on her southern roots for inspiration in design and is dedicated to conservation and sustainability.  She and her brother run a Tree Farm business in NC where they grow LEED-certified timber and participate in the government-funded Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). 

Elizabeth is married with two young children. She loves to spend time with her family and the outdoors: she coaches her daughter's soccer team; cooks dinner for an all-volunteer women's homeless shelter (http://www.chumdenver.org/womens-homelessness-intiative); and loves to cook, run, hike and ski.