For a young architect, Dochantschi's list of accomplishments is surprisingly long and impressive. Before founding Studio MDA in New York in 2002 he worked in Japan with Arata Isozaki and Fumihiko Maki, in London with Zaha Hadid, for whom he later was asked to be lead architect on the Contemporary Art Center in Cinncinnati. He's taught architecture and urban planning at Yale and continues to teach at the Advanced Studio at Columbia.