About

Purpose-driven process

At WINTER HOLBEN, designing places with purpose means every project begins with a clear understanding of how a space should feel, function, and support the people who use it. Our process is rooted in listening, inquiry, and collaboration—bringing together architecture, interiors, and integrated thinking to respond thoughtfully to context, performance, and long-term use. Led by Principals Elisa Winter Holben and Brandon Holben, AIA, our team remains closely involved from early concept through completion, ensuring ideas translate seamlessly into built form. Each project is shaped by intention, refined through craft, and strengthened by enduring relationships—resulting in design that is both distinctive and deeply connected to place.

Our design values

ELEVATING HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Our commitment to the highest quality of design is an acknowledgement that design shapes the human experience, from the everyday to the extraordinary. With this responsibility in mind, we seek to enhance these experiences in the spaces we gather to work, play, rest and do business.

REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Sustainability is not only core to our business values, it’s an ethical imperative to our work. With every structure we design, we consider environmental implications and opportunities to reduce energy use, use sustainable materials and tread lightly within the natural world.

CONNECTING DESIGN & COMMUNITY

We believe in the powerful relationship between design and community: that design transforms communities and that communities shape design.

Winter Holben architecture and design, team at work, brewery

Founded on shared purpose

WINTER HOLBEN began as an independent design studio led by Principal Elisa Winter Holben, with early work focused on placemaking across retail, wayfinding, and community environments. As projects increasingly intersected with architecture, the value of deep, cross-disciplinary collaboration became clear—particularly through creative partnerships between designers and architects.

Following a series of successful joint projects, including the award-winning 3S Artspace, Elisa and her husband, Principal Architect Brandon Holben, AIA, formally joined forces in 2015. This collaboration marked the evolution of the studio into a fully multidisciplinary practice, bringing architecture, interiors, branding, and experience design together under one cohesive approach.

Today, the studio is a highly skilled, passionate team united by a shared commitment to design excellence and the belief that the most meaningful outcomes are shaped through collaboration, clarity, and diverse expertise.

Building community

We are deeply committed to the communities where we live and work—both in our region and beyond—and to the global network of design professionals that inspires us.

We believe design has the power to connect people, strengthen neighborhoods, and contribute to more vibrant, inclusive places. That’s why we actively support organizations that make our communities—and the design world—stronger. We do this through board service, sponsorships, donations, discounted design services, and ongoing collaboration.

For us, building community means using our time, expertise, and creativity to make a lasting, positive impact—locally and globally.

Organizations we have supported include:

3S Artspace
AIGA Maine
ARCHITALX
BIPOC Fest
Black Heritage Trail NH
Creative Mornings Portsmouth
Cross Roads House
The Dance Hall

Fair Tide
Footprints Food Pantry
Kittery Little League
Labrie Family Skate at Puddledock Pond
PAVE
Rice Public Library
Seacoast Science Center
SEGD

Shapleigh School
Strawbery Banke Museum
Soul Models
TedX Portsmouth
Traip Academy
USS Albacore Submarine Museum