In late 2025, Vishakh Surti, an architect and landscape designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area originally trained and licensed in India, commissioned our firm Path Law Group to pursue an O-1B visa ahead of the impending expiration of his F-1 STEM OPT work authorization. Surti's six-year career had spanned cultural, residential, and community-focused design across India, the United States, and Germany, including a lead design role on Hampi Art Labs, a major contemporary arts campus commissioned by the JSW Foundation, and his current position as Lead Landscape & Architectural Designer at Green17 Design, a boutique high-end residential landscape studio in Marin County, California.
The mission
Green17 Design, acting as petitioner, needed to secure Surti's continued work authorization so he could step into a leading role on the firm's Residential Landscape Architecture & Outdoor Living Design Projects for a three-year engagement from 2026-2029 spanning concept and schematic design, planting strategy, technical documentation, consultant coordination, and construction-phase support for high-end clients throughout Marin County, San Francisco, Napa Valley, and the Greater Bay Area.
The clock and expedited nature of the case was the main challenge. Surti's F-1 STEM OPT was set to expire on July 7, 2026, and recent changes to U.S. immigration policy had made the H-1B route markedly less viable for architectural designers, narrowing his runway to a single realistic path. The core challenge was translating a career built across institutional architecture, public-realm community design, and residential landscape practice into the "distinguished reputation" and "leading or critical role" standards demanded by the O-1B's tightly scrutinized extraordinary-ability-in-the-arts classification.
The strategy
At an initial consultation on October 15, 2025, our founder and immigration attorney Ashkan Emami advised prioritizing the O-1B over the H-1B given the latter's Department of Labor burdens and the shrinking odds for Surti's occupation. From there, the team built a petition anchored across five of the six O-1B evidentiary criteria:
- Leading or critical roles for distinguished organizations including his prospective role at Green17 Design, his lead design contributions to Hampi Art Labs at Sameep Padora and Associates, and critical roles on Panther Skate Plaza, the Greenville Post-Wildfire Recovery Vision, the World Reformation Exhibition 2017, [Un]Common Ground, and Ecopoesis: Repairing Time.
- National and international recognition through published materials: Surti is individually credited by name in the design-team listings of ArchDaily, Parametric Architecture, The Architect's Diary, and World Architecture Community, alongside broader project coverage in the Financial Times, Forbes India, The Art Newspaper, and designboom.
- Significant recognition from recognized experts: seven detailed testimonial letters from figures including Sameep Padora (Founding Principal, sP+a; Dean, CEPT University), Green17 Design principals DJ Johns and Tim O'Shea, CCA faculty members Mark Donohue and Margaret Ikeda, Andrew J. Nilsen of The Walt Disney Family Museum, and Julia Grinkrug of CCA and UC Berkeley.
- A record of major commercial and critically acclaimed success: Hampi Art Labs' candidacy for ArchDaily's Building of the Year 2025, elite private commissions for high-profile clients, Panther Skate Plaza's institutional backing from Nike and Jordan Brand, and inclusion in the published proceedings of the ACSA 111th Annual Meeting.
Building this record required close coordination: securing a three-year offer letter from Green17 Design to strengthen the petition's duration, gathering signed recommendation letters from a deliberately diverse set of recommenders spanning industry and academia, and compiling years of press coverage and exhibition documentation into a single evidentiary package. An April 2026 check-in confirmed the case's strong foundation and set a filing target of early June to leave a buffer before the OPT deadline. Premium processing was selected to expedite adjudication.
Outcome
The O-1B was approved.
Surti is now authorized to continue his work as Lead Landscape & Architectural Designer for Green17 Design through 2029, leading concept and schematic design, planting strategy, technical documentation, and construction-phase coordination for high-end residential landscape and outdoor living projects across Marin County, San Francisco, Napa Valley, and the Greater Bay Area.
