Building Bonds

Married for 14 years, Matt and Kenia Forget’s days have focused on raising their three children while juggling demanding careers as architects.

And while there was no doubt they were happy, they began to yearn for more family time.

So, in 2019, Matt and Kenia, who live in Delray Beach, made some life changes. The now 42-year-olds both quit their jobs and started their own firm in Boca Raton called 5 Architecture, the number representing their family of five.

It serves as a reminder that family comes first.

“We wanted to honor a work-life balance,” Matt says. “The attention to yourself is just as important as your attention to work.”

In 2022, they started another company called Stix + Brix, an idea that came about after youth summer camps were canceled during the 2020 pandemic. In place of the camps, Matt and Kenia decided to make model kits for their children to build (like a birdhouse, a cabin and a beach hut). That eventually turned into a business that their little ones, Grayson, 11, Paxton, 9, and Vivienne, 7, are now a part of serving as the testers of each kit.

“We would’ve loved these models as kids,” Kenia says, “but we didn’t have anything like that.”

Matt’s father built homes for a living, and Matt has vivid memories of running through half-built houses when he was little, calling the job sites his own playground. That was what encouraged him to become an architect.

Instead of watching cartoons on weekends as a little girl, Kenia remembers taking the home section from newspapers and using the pictures as inspiration to create her own pretend floor plans.

Matt and Kenia met while studying architecture at Florida International University. When they aren’t working, they’re playing tennis as a family, trying new restaurants and traveling. Traveling, by the way, was how the Forgets came up with the catchy name Stix + Brix. The kids spent one road trip collecting rocks and sticks so they could build things with them.

“That spoke to me,” Kenia says. “One stick at a time, one brick at a time and you can build a structure.”