Community Highlights: Meet Sina Khoshbayan of Modernacy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sina Khoshbayan.

Hi Sina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My mother has always been the fearless spirit in my life – adventurous, open-hearted, and quick to remind me that the best things in life begin with taking a leap.
My dad has been the calm, grounded man and the one who taught me how to build, fix, and solve problems with my own hands.
As a head engineer, he often brought me to the job sites he led. I watched the crews look to him for answers, saw the respect he earned, and felt it extend to me. Those days around concrete, steel, and machinery showed me what real competence looks like: the ability to see a problem clearly and create a solution that works.
That blend—my mother’s courage to chase the unknown and my father’s quiet mastery of turning ideas into reality—became the foundation of who I am.
Those days of building with my father along with my interest in mathematics and art, led me to architecture – a perfect place to combine art, function, and feeling.
Over the past Twelve years of practicing architecture and design – five of them
running my own firm – I’ve seen how spaces shape us. A room’s light, air, or
textures and colors can lift our mood or calm our minds, even if we don’t notice it directly. My work has become a mission: to design spaces that nurture well-being and express how architecture can affect us.
Not mere construction, but creation of a place with intention and meaning.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road, but I’m grateful for that—the rough patches carved out the architect and person I am today.
I started my firm at 24 as an immigrant with no family business background, no inherited network, and zero experience running a company. Every contract, tax form, insurance policy, and banking relationship had to be learned from scratch—usually the hard way, in a second language—while trying to convince established developers that a young architect who still had an accent could be trusted with six- and seven-figure projects.
Those early years taught me that courage without systems is just noise. I had to become fluent in the unseen side of this profession, all while proving the vision in my head was worth betting on.
The struggle wasn’t glamorous, but it made me careful, resourceful, and relentless about earning trust one relationship at a time. That’s the foundation the firm stands on today.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We’re Modernacy, a small Atlanta-based architecture and design studio that focuses on homes, boutique commercial spaces, and the occasional passion project that just feels right.
What we do is simple on the surface: we design buildings and interiors.
What we actually do is listen – really listen – to how people want to live, work, gather, or heal, then translate that into spaces that feel inevitable, like they couldn’t have turned out any other way. Light, air, materials, and flow aren’t afterthoughts; they’re the whole point.
We specialize in modern, soulful design – clean lines married to warm textures, homes that feel timeless instead of trendy, and commercial spaces that make you want to linger. People usually find us when they’re tired of cookie-cutter plans or cold minimalism and want something personal without the ego.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
My only real advice is simple: Start before you feel ready.
Take the job, make the move, send the message, launch the thing—whatever it is.
Experience is the only real teacher, and life is too short to wait for permission.
So leap. Mess up. Fix it. Keep going. The rest figures itself out along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://modernacy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sinathearchitect/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinakhoshbayan/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/modernacy/

Image Credits
Amirali Ebrahimi
Shardul Patil