BBJ: After their employer was acquired, architects kept their clients, launched boutique firm.

By Grant Welker – Senior Reporter, Boston Business Journal

Oct 12, 2026

The co-founders of Boston's newest architectural firm have share much in common their whole professional lives, but the pair have known each other for less than a year.

Aksel Solberg and Haril Pandya worked at the same firm, are both guitarists in bands and have the entrepreneurial drive to start their own firm. Despite so much in common, they didn't really know each other when employer was acquired late last year.

Both were laid off in April, five months after the Boston-based firm they had worked for, Tria, was bought by HFA Architecture + Engineering. Arkansas-based HFA helped the pair in a way that’s not common: The firm let Solberg and Pandya take their clients with them so they could start their own small firm.

Both were laid off in April, five months after the Boston-based firm they had worked for, Tria, was bought by HFA Architecture + Engineering. Arkansas-based HFA helped the pair in a way that’s not common: The firm let Solberg and Pandya take their clients with them so they could start their own small firm.

“They totally did right by us by allowing us to take that leap,” Solberg said.

Given the opportunity, they took their chance. But they said they wouldn’t have created their new firm, called Sparc, if it weren’t for their shared entrepreneurial leanings, their alignment on values and their desire to return to a smaller firm.

Their career paths

Both Solberg and Pandya have more than two decades of experience at a range of architectural and design firms, including at some of Greater Boston’s largest. Both had stints at Elkus Manfredi, though they didn’t overlap.

Pandya, a 54-year-old from Needham, previously had spent 16 years at Charlestown’s CBT Architects, including time as a principal. He also spent time on his own early in his career and at the Boston office of the architecture and interior design firm Nelson Worldwide.

Part of his specialty has been helping large real estate investment trusts renovate buildings for new uses along the East Coast. He’s also been involved with fitting out spaces for tenants. Both are relevant areas today, when many buildings are needing to be repurposed and office spaces are being remade for today’s more tech-driven and collaborative office environment.

For Solberg, a 40-year-old from Franklin, prior to his time at Tria he worked for the former Carter & Burgess and Gary Wolf Architects. He later joined Amaze Design, whose specialties include museum exhibits.

“I'm a nerd at heart, so working with all of these very knowledgeable subject-matter experts to create museum exhibits — I just couldn't get enough of it," he said.

But he recalled sitting down to draft a residential project he was doing on the side. It was a wake-up call.

“I realized that through the process of designing museum exhibits — which you have to design at two-thirds scale for middle-school kids — I had forgotten most of the standard dimensions of architecture,” Solberg said.

“Countertop heights, chair heights, a standard door — like, all these little things that I sort of took for granted before,” he said. “It kind of freaked me out. So that day, instead of drafting that project, I ended up updating my portfolio and resume and applied for jobs back in a more traditional architecture firm setting.”

Becoming co-workers

Solberg joined Tria in 2012. Pandya joined in 2024, liking the idea of a smaller firm that felt more personal.

“Aksel and I are both social people,” Pandya said. “I thought, I really need this because that’s where this profession thrives and succeeds is off the creativity of others and bouncing ideas off each other. You have to be under the same roof. We were desperately trying to use Zoom to make it work — and you can. But you can’t mentor younger folks that way.”

Tria, which specialized in life sciences work, had recent clients that included CRISPR Therapeutics, Moderna and Vertex. Buying the firm was HFA Architecture + Engineering’s chance to expand into the Northeast and break into life sciences. The deal was made last November.

It was only around then that Pandya and Solberg discovered the similarities that set them toward becoming co-founders. They were struck by an easy rapport and a quick connection.

“We are so alike in so many ways, it's confounding,” Pandya said.

Both play guitar, and not just recreationally. They’ve played in bands for years.

Pandya once toured with a band that played a fusion of Indian, rock and folk. He’s been in a band every year of his life since 10th grade, he said. Solberg toured with multiple bands, including doing corporate events and weddings. They’ve both joked that they’ll have to play at a Sparc launch party, but have delayed that idea to get the firm going first.

Things didn't line up for Sparc until earlier this year. On April 1 — April Fool’s Day, Pandya noted — they both got a call saying their jobs were being eliminated.

“I called Aksel and said ‘Do you want to grab a beer?’” Pandya said.

“It was, are we really going to do this?” Solberg recalled.

Solberg said he isn’t a natural risk-taker but can take a leap after thorough consideration. He felt like the opportunity was lined up.

“It was like the universe was telling us this needed to happen,” he said.

Keeping clients and picking a name

Simply combining their own names for the new firm's name wasn’t original enough. Solberg and Pandya — that gave them an “SP” to start with. Pandya thought of adding “arch” for “architecture.” Sparch?

“Sparch sounds dumb,” he said.

But removing the “h” got them Sparc, pronounced like “spark.” That fit.

“It was also this idea that every great project starts with the spark of an idea that somebody has at some point,” Pandya said.

Sparc’s portfolio, including team members' work before the firm's founding, spans Boston office projects such as Commonwealth Pier and One Lincoln, as well as retail sites like University Station in Westwood and residential ones including the South End's Ink Block project.

The co-founders want Sparc to stay a smaller, more nimble firm and want to leverage AI to make their jobs more efficient.

As a pair who’ve been through the industry’s inevitable mergers and acquisitions, there’s also the question of whether M&A is in Sparc’s future, too. They entertain the hypothetical of a huge firm offering more than they could refuse but then get more practical.

“If somebody gave us an offer that would give us a lot of money but sap the soul of the thing we just created,” Solberg said, “we'd say thanks but no thanks.”

Full Article > Here <