Designing a Divorce? What It's Like to Work With a Spouse

"Several ubiquitous New York firms—SHoP Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Asymptote Architecture, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien—were founded by couples. The next generation of boutique studios, too, is thick with them, including Idenburg and Liu, and Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, the principals of WORKac. The phenomenon is hardly new, but it still cuts against two enduring fallacies: that men build as women help, and that the noblest kind of architect is a Napoleon of the blueprint, dispatching orders for others to carry out."

Davidson explores the complexities and contradictions of working with a spouse: the power of being able to "feed off each other’s energies", the need to "toggle among independence, conflict, and consensus," and the ability to "inflict criticism, and take it." All of which, of course, could define any close working relationship.