Dagmar Štěpánová is a Czech architect whose sensitivity to nature, culture, and design has made her a creative beacon between Europe and Central America. She studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague. After spending more than a decade collaborating with various architectural firms, she set out on her own path to embrace a more personal, organic, and holistic vision of space.

In 2015, she founded Formafatal, a studio conceived from the outset not merely as an architecture and interior design office but as a creative laboratory where design, scenography, furniture, and spatial experience converge. Dagmar leads with conviction an interdisciplinary team, aware that each project demands a unique, intimate, and empathetic approach.

Guided by her passion for Latin American cultures and architecture, Dagmar has woven a symbolic bridge between her European roots and her attraction to the tropics. This affinity led her, in 2020, to move to Costa Rica, where she now directs the local branch of Formafatal together with Belgian architect Jeroen Bollen. Meanwhile, the Prague studio continues to thrive under the leadership of architect Katarína Varsová and designer Jan Roučka.

Dagmar often reminds us that to build is to engage in dialogue. She delights in every stage of the process—from the conceptual framework to the smallest details—personally selecting collaborators who share her attitude toward space. The studio, for her, is like a professional family.

From its bases in Prague and Costa Rica, Formafatal conceives each project as a total experience, where material, atmosphere, and gesture merge into a single language. Their work stands out for its contextual and sensitive approach, embracing the landscape, culture, and people for whom it is designed. There is no boundary between exterior and interior, between idea and detail: everything belongs to a coherent and profoundly human spatial narrative.

Sustainability, understood as an ethical commitment, guides the choice of materials and local processes, while the pursuit of authenticity is expressed through constructive honesty and the tactile presence of craftsmanship.

Projects such as the Art Villas complex or Gran Fierro restaurant in Prague reveal this poetics of balance—between the raw and the refined, between geometric precision and emotion. With works like Studio House, a finalist for the Dezeen Awards 2025, Formafatal reaffirms its vocation to create spaces that are not only inhabited but deeply felt.