Founded in 2011, Manola Studio is the multidisciplinary design practice led by Jessica Pell. The studio’s diverse portfolio of work and broader creative interests defy swift categorization with projects spanning architectural, commercial and residential design, historical preservation, landscape, and furniture design. 

While still a student at Art Center College of Design, Jessica had the precious opportunity to move into Rudolph Schindler’s Sachs Apartments, lesser known as Manola Court. There, in this renowned modernist masterpiece nestled on a hill in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, Jessica reveled in and studied the stirring interplay of site, materiality, form, and light. Over the course of eight formative years, these poetics of space intimately shaped Jessica’s own design philosophy and perspectives, laying many of the aesthetic and ideological foundations for Manola Studio. Now the studio’s namesake, Schindler and his Manola Court remain an enduring muse.

Jessica is a Los Angeles native and graduate of Art Center College of Design, where she studied environmental design with a focus in architectural design and furniture. She also studied sustainability at Tama Art University in Tokyo. After graduating with honors from Art Center, Jessica worked at Eight Inc. in San Francisco, Rottet Studio in Los Angeles, and designed for Nike, Herman Miller, and Bernhardt Design, among others. She currently resides in Eagle Rock, where she lives in a historic 1924-built colonial which Manola Studio restored and renovated in 2022.

Our studio is currently hiring the following positions:
DESIGN ASSISTANT / EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT