Chris and Roberta Hanley walk us through their growing architectural portfolio with thoughtful designs and sustainable integrations
Over three decades, Chris Hanley and his wife, Roberta have brought to the screen stories that have become cult favourites over time under the Muse Films banner: Sofia Coppola’s 1999 directorial debut The Virgin Suicides, the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho in 2000, and Spring Breakers that starred James Franco, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens.
This creative spirit has evidently carried over into the realm of architecture and design, where they have embraced sustainability not as a mere trend, but as a fundamental principle. While it might seem at first glance like a leap into new territories, it’s one that’s steeped in their lifetimes.
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“My mom had been a ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera, and she danced under [George] Balanchine for a year,” recalls Chris. “So, I grew up at Radio City Music Hall in New York, and right across the street were all these glass skyscrapers by Mies van der Rohe [and others] that became familiar to me.”
He adds: “In fact, my mother’s father, whom I never met, was an engineer from MIT and studied architecture at Columbia University. He was one of the engineers and architects behind Rockefeller Center and other buildings in New York City.”
Roberta, on the other hand, studied oceanography at Scripps Institute, San Diego, and forestry at Duke. Conservation and environmentalism have been in her blood at a very young age; when she was nine, she was on television with a local senator about a recycling program she was part of in New Jersey.
