HIstory

Andrew Valente was born in San Francisco, CA, where he graduated from Heald College of Engineering in 1981, and completed his architecture degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986.  

While abroad that year, he met a prominent University of Washington faculty member, and Rome Center Director, Astra Zarina. While sharing lunch, Professor Zarina invited him to join a team of contractors, working on the restoration of the Palazzo Pio in Rome’s historic city center.  

Over the next year, this combined experience of architecture and construction quickly became a “natural thought process”, when Andrew Valente returned back home to the United States in 1987. 

Working as an architectural intern in San Francisco, the aspiring architect yearned for change, and wanted to keep designing and building.  Drawing upon his academic and professional friendships in the Seattle area, which he developed through the University of Washington’s Rome Program, Andrew relocated to Washington state in 1988, and began his journey as an architect, builder and developer.  

Since his arrival in the NW, Andrew Valente has advanced architecture using natural materials, combined with practical and cost effective methods of construction, which are professional themes in his architecture studio to this day. 

Recently, the architect has been collaborating on numerous residential projects in both California and Washington states.