One of the more delightful projects of Austin, Texas–based Matt Fajkus Architecture isn’t a house at all: It’s a two-story dock on Lake Austin, designed with the sun in mind. An angled roof and perforated steel screens provide a precisely calibrated amount of sun and shade throughout the year, as well as shelter from the breezes and filtered views. “The thing that just completely stood out to us [is that] it’s architecture as art, or is it art as architecture?… It just makes you smile,” says Stephanie Kingsnorth, AIA, a juror for the AIA Austin 2023 Design Awards, where Filtered Frame Dock received an award of merit. One year prior, it won an Honor Award in this magazine’s architecture competition.

Since 2010, the eponymous firm has been creating intriguing, light-filled spaces that coax out the distinctive characteristics of each site—which could be its slope, its rocks and trees, or even its iron-rich red soil. A quick scroll through the firm’s website shows how different these architectural interventions can be. According to principal Matt Fajkus [pronounced FI-cus], the variety of responses stems from the geographic diversity of Austin, his hometown. “We’re at a fault line,” he elaborates. “Immediately east of downtown is very flat, moist prairie land, and immediately west of town is very rocky and hilly— an area that is very good for architecture and very bad for farming. We have a lot of interesting changes in topography, different tree and plant species, and this whole ecotone that exists in this convergence of different realms.”

These nuances of the natural world fuel Matt’s ambitions as an architect. When he was getting his master’s in architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, his thesis adviser and role model was Pritzker Prize–winning architect Rafael Moneo. “What I admire about Moneo is his sensitivity to try to do something a little special and unique for each project—case-by-case, contextually driven work,” he says. Like Moneo, Matt is both a practitioner and a teacher. He is a tenured professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and has received multiple awards for teaching over the last 14 years. Along with creative problem-solving, he teaches soft skills, such as how to give a compelling presentation of design ideas. 

As a child, however, he was very introverted and had a bad stutter, relying on drawing to communicate his thoughts. His parents, who were both teachers, modeled “extreme patience and a heightened sense of empathy,” says Matt. While he was getting his undergrad degree in architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, he began apprenticing with Max Levy, who has been called the poet laureate of Dallas architecture, and worked for him for a couple of years after graduating. A summer internship at Foster + Partners in London during his time at Harvard led to a job offer from the firm, where he spent five years remodeling airports and designing high-speed rail stations and skyscrapers. “It was incredible to realize the power of design at any scale,” says Matt. “As the Eameses would talk about it, when you’re designing a room, you’re thinking about the next scale up from the room, and the next scale down, which is the furniture or the built-ins.”

His experience at Foster + Partners, while inspiring, also helped him realize that he didn’t want to work for a big firm. He came back home to join the faculty at UT Austin, and soon launched his own practice with the help of architect Sarah Johnson, AIA, who had recently graduated from UT Austin. The two built the practice from the ground up; today, Sarah is the co-principal in their firm of eight people. “We are very collaborative,” she says. “Matt’s role is to help us synthesize those ideas, make them really strong, and communicate them. It feels like studio [class in architectural school] where we get to be really creative, within real-life constraints.”

Since the relationship between indoors and outdoors is so integral to its projects, the firm increasingly began to take the lead on the interiors as well (Matt, Sarah, and some employees are also licensed interior designers). “We can offer a streamlined experience in terms of the design as well as the representation, where we can have everything built into the model and simulate different things between inside and outside,” Matt notes.

The aforementioned dock, completed in 2019, is probably the most high-profile of the firm’s projects to date. Around the same time, the first batch of built residences had their debut, catching the eye of the design community. Among the reasons for all the attention: the casual-chic Bracketed Space House, whose transparent dining “bridge” allows views through the home and has a crisp infinity-edge pool. 

Among the more recent work is Descendant House, a multigenerational house that elegantly accommodates three generations plus guests. “They’re all in the same structure, but each has their own privacy, and spaces to mix,” says Matt. The 4,000-square-foot home is a split level, with the younger generation and their children located on the upper floor and guests and grandparents in separate volumes below. The firm figured out how to showcase the distinct microclimates on the steeply sloping site: The upper level flows onto a sunny roof terrace that connects to the home’s vegetable garden, and the common areas below look into a shady tree canopy.

Manifold House, meanwhile, demonstrates another type of architectural sleight of hand: It looks like the simple “modern farmhouse” requested by the owner, but has the flow and porosity of contemporary architecture. Located in the rugged terrain of Texas Hill Country, a 30-minute drive west of Austin, the deeply sloped site also increased its complexity. To minimize grading, the design team created a long, two-story house at the top of the site and tucked a third floor into the slope below. Tall retaining walls on either side hold the slope back, creating narrow patios and allowing light to come through side windows on the bottom floor. “The farmhouse rhythm of punched windows”—to quote Matt—gives way spectacularly to a glass-walled double-height living room on the lower levels.

Also in Texas Hill Country is the Mount Sharp Residence, a retirement dream home on a 22-acre property. The firm sited the low-slung dwelling along one of the site’s small plateaus, which run east-west, to maximize sunlight, natural ventilation, and views. Various functional elements, such as kitchen appliances and storage areas, are tidily organized along extra-thick walls that run perpendicular to the plateau. These rugged walls, clad in coarse-cut stone, are part of the home’s passive ventilation system: The breezes coming over the top of the plateau can flow through the openings and cool the spaces between the walls. The firm’s description of this house reads: “The materiality of the project is concentrated, regional, and meant to provide comfort and shelter when the elements are extreme, yet its solidity dissolves when the house is opened up.”

While the firm was completing the design of Mount Sharp, Matt had recently finished writing “Architectural Science and the Sun: The Poetics and Pragmatics of Solar Design.” Cowritten with architect Dason Whitsett, the nearly 300-page opus is about how to bring sunlight thoughtfully into a building and use it for lighting and ambiance, as well as how to mitigate its glare and propensity to overheat spaces. There’s a whole chapter devoted to “Creating Shadows.” According to Matt, the book’s influence on the firm’s work is clearest in Mount Sharp, which is designed around the sun for energy efficiency as well as phenomenology and wellness. 

“Ultimately, my goal is to continually hone my own craft in both critical creative endeavors and teaching, simultaneously preparing students to make their own meaningful contributions to the built environment,” he says. The two sides of his work enrich and uplift each other.

The post Pro-File Design: Matt Fajkus Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

A while back, architect Oonagh (pronounced “Oona”) Ryan arrived at her clients’ Santa Monica bungalow to discuss plans for their new home in Los Angeles. As she was walking up to the house, she noticed a bush with a profusion of bright red berries. She picked one and brought it to the meeting, suggesting that it could be incorporated into the palette of their new home. The clients responded with enthusiasm. The resulting house is cream-colored, but the adjacent art studio is a vivid red, signaling that artistic chaos has a place here along with calm and order.

Boldly colored, warmly inviting, distinctively personal—these are not adjectives that are always associated with modern architecture. But when L.A.’s Midcentury Modern legacy, its tradition of freewheeling architecture, and the vibe of its buzzy retail and hospitality spaces are combined with an inventive mind that enjoys a good design challenge, you get Oonagh’s firm, which is named ORA. 

“We attract creative clients that have ambitious goals,” says Oonagh, who speaks with a slight lilt that she retains from her native country of Ireland. “We find out what is unique to them and their values and culture—something that no one else has—and integrate that into their home. It’s about creating extraordinary places for everyday life.”

Oonagh’s own path shows how suited she was to becoming an evangelist for L.A.’s optimistic spirit and indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Growing up in the Irish countryside, her favorite activity was to accompany her grandfather, who owned a construction company, to different jobsites. She studied architecture at Technological University Dublin in the late ’80s. 

Captivated by Frank Gehry’s hugely influential home renovation in Santa Monica and the work of other cutting-edge practitioners in Southern California, she entered the green card lottery, hoping to pursue her dream of doing architecture in L.A. She won the lottery and made the move, but it took her a little time to establish herself. After a year of waitressing, she landed a job as a designer at Frederick Fisher and Partners, where she worked on a mix of high-end residential, restaurants, and civic commissions. Five years later, she moved to Koning Eizenberg, where she continued to work on a wide variety of projects.

According to Oonagh, she might still be at Koning Eizenberg today if she hadn’t purchased a house on the east side of town. The Koning Eizenberg office was on the west side, resulting in a grueling commute. While she contemplated looking for a new job, she also began taking on some side projects; three years later, she had enough work to launch her own firm.

The ORA Principles

That was in 2014. Ten years later, ORA has a distinctive body of work that includes award-winning residential, commercial, and hospitality projects. They include the restaurant Auburn in Hollywood, which won a James Beard Foundation Restaurant Design Award; Liberation Coffee House in L.A., which received a national AIA Small Project Award; and the residential project Art Barn, which garnered multiple local AIA awards. In 2021, ORA was honored as an emerging practice by the local chapter of the AIA, highlighting the firm as one to watch. “Every project is an exploration into how materials come together to create powerful space,” the jury commented.

One of Oonagh’s first projects as a solo practitioner, the renovation of her home in L.A.’s Mount Washington neighborhood, provides a good introduction into her guiding principles. Rome House, which is named after the street it is on, is a classic Midcentury post-and-beam house. It was sold as a tear-down, but Oonagh saw that it had good bones (first principle: renovate whenever possible). In her plans for the remodel, she opted out of air conditioning, leveraging the structure’s deep overhangs and original ventilation panels (second principle: optimize natural light, heating, and cooling for comfort as well as sustainability). She also removed interior walls and enlarged windows (third principle: emphasize connections to the outdoors) and kept the home’s existing footprint of 880 square feet (fourth principle: design spaces efficiently for living large). “My dining table seats six, but I can have twenty people over for dinner on my patio,” Oonagh notes. 

To create a sense of ease within a project, the design team at ORA uses a consistent palette of materials and colors, and creates built-in cabinetry with the same detailing throughout. “Architectural elements shouldn’t line up exactly and furniture shouldn’t fit perfectly, so that spaces have the breathing room to flex and change,” says Oonagh.  

Flexibility is yet another key principle. “Since the pandemic, houses have to work so much harder now,” Oonagh observes. “You have to build in that capability.” Located in Santa Monica, Bookend House was designed pre-pandemic, but includes everything you would want in case of a pandemic. In addition to the main 3,330-square-foot house, it also has a large home office and a 2-bedroom guest house/accessory dwelling unit. The two adjunct spaces are “bookends” to the main house but can also function as self-contained units. The structures are designed to conserve space for a sizable lawn and pool. 

To maintain privacy for all three areas, the ORA design team sunk the home office and guest house a few feet below grade, and gave them strategically placed windows that restrict sight lines. Their rooftops cleverly double as gardens for the upper level of the main house. Neither the main house nor the guest quarters are equipped with air-conditioning, since natural ventilation systems, including operable skylights, keep them sufficiently cool.

The home with the red art studio, dubbed Boomerang House, deploys a similar strategy: the main house is a narrow bar, leaving room for the art studio “wing” and plenty of outdoor space, rather than building out to the edges. Like Bookend House, the slender main structure offers plenty of opportunities for natural lighting and ventilation. The entrance opens into a vestibule with a glass wall at the end, drawing the eye outside. The main house is on the left, and on the right is the art studio. The two-story house has a long set of operable skylights over the staircase, highlighting the circulation route and bringing light and air into the center. The custom stair railing is inspired by the metal gate from the clients’ previous home (and includes the repurposed gate itself). 

The eye-catching art studio is a true flex space. With its double doors, it can function as a one-car garage, satisfying local building code for a covered parking space. It is also an accessory dwelling unit, with its own bathroom and kitchen area, accommodating guests as needed. The trapezoidal skylight was inspired by artist James Turrell’s Skyspaces and is tilted to the north to bring light deep into the studio.

Another project with an artistic focus, Art Barn, began life as a cottage-style home in Manhattan Beach, and continues to look like one from the front. But the ORA design team redid the back half so that its owner could have the entertaining space of his dreams.  The new addition is a great room that combines kitchen, dining, and living area, and opens onto a wide backyard terrace. It has the voluminous scale and drama of a repurposed industrial space—lofty ceiling, butcher-block flooring, exposed steel structure—but is domesticated by a Midcentury-like ceiling of knotty-cedar boards and Douglas fir joists. The kitchen features a glass and ceramics collection displayed in custom wooden shelving, and the living room showcases artwork suspended from a custom steel track system.

“We gravitate towards simplicity and things that are made well,” says Oonagh. “We’re aiming for an understated, laid-back Californian feel that has room to breathe and evolve.”

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The projects of Risa Boyer Architecture are distinct in their siting, massing, design, and materiality, but they share a similar scale—one that is approachable and unassuming. Not surprisingly, firm founder and principal architect Risa Boyer Leritz, AIA, was drawn to the design profession after attending an exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses at the Marin County Civic Center, also designed by Wright, in California. “I was around 10 or 12 at the time, but something about the scale of those little residential units attracted me,” Risa recalls. 

Growing up with an artistic family in the Napa Valley, surrounded by wood-clad, post-and-beam houses, now generally described as Midcentury Modern, Risa naturally formed a design aesthetic at a young age. “My parents were very supportive of everything I did,” she says, “and when I had started to show an interest in architecture, my mom leaned into it, probably to steer me toward a career.”

Her mother’s instincts paid off. After Risa earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts), she would go on to build an award-winning design firm in Portland, Oregon, focused on modern and sustainable residential architecture and interior design. Along the way, she found inspiration and purpose from other architects and grew—and befriended—a sizable base of clients and collaborators.

Learning From Leaders

During her last year of college, Risa began working at Tanner Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects (now Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects), in San Francisco; she joined the staff after graduation. Although Risa appreciated the firm’s design process and office culture during her tenure, the influence of founding principals William “Bill” Leddy, FAIA, and the late Marsha Maytum didn’t truly hit her until she saw the business and life partners again years later at a conference. “Bill and Marsha really influenced how I run my firm today,” Risa says.

While Risa had worked more directly with Bill while at the firm, Marsha was the one who had left a lasting impression. Risa admired her vibrancy, leadership, and strength in the then male-dominated office and profession. “She carried herself well in that environment,” Risa recalls. “She was strong and kind. Her design sense stood out to me, and she was a pioneer in sustainable building.”

What also struck Risa was Marsha’s deftness at advancing her career and her firm while raising her then-young children, who would often visit the office. After leaving LMSA in 2000 and working at several smaller firms in Los Angeles, Risa started RBA in 2006. “I wanted to have kids, be able to spend time with them, and have an architecture career,” she said. The prevailing office culture and long working hours at a conventional firm, she believed, would not be conducive to her goals.

Two years later, after making inroads in Los Angeles, Risa and her husband decided to uproot everything and move to Portland, where they could grow their family nearby other relatives. It was, of course, the height of the Great Recession.

Although she could sustain her business on a few outstanding projects in California, Risa knew she had to establish her practice locally. A self-proclaimed introvert, she pushed herself to network and made several contacts through a group of mom-owned businesses. Slowly, but surely, her then two-person firm “inched our way out of the recession,” she says.

Thriving in Work

Today, RBA comprises four designers, all of whom happen to be women. “We have a nice atmosphere in the office,” Risa says. As offices began to reopen when the COVID-19 pandemic waned, “everybody wanted to come into the office right away,” she continues. “We all wanted to be together and collaborate in person.”

Half of RBA’s clients come from referrals and the other half through its website, social media, and publications. “The theme that connects them all is that they’re good people who want to work with us in a collaborative way,” Risa says. “What I love about residential architecture is that [our relationship with clients] grows with the project. We’re working with them for a couple years on such an intimate thing as the place they’re going to reside. You learn so much about them through the process that informs the architecture.”

The majority of RBA’s projects are in Oregon, but the firm has also developed a pocket of clientele in Bellingham, Washington, where Risa has found a trusted builder and friend in Jerry Richmond, owner and founder of Indigo Enterprises Northwest. 

RBA’s project load is divided about equally between new construction and remodels. For the former, RBA begins the design process by studying the site, potential limitations such as wetland areas or high bedrock, and how a house can leverage the best views. Risa says many clients who are drawn to RBA are creatives themselves and come bearing a list of needs and even sketches. Still, her team relies on open dialogue and conversation to understand their clients and their vision. “Their list tells you one thing,” Risa says, “but talking to them really tells you a lot more.”

As the firm begins to develop the design with their client, it also stays mindful of the project budget. “Budget is something that we take seriously,” Risa says. “We educate our clients early on about what is a realistic budget” for their project goals. And price does not necessarily correlate with quality, she notes. “You can have the highest cost of construction and end up with a terribly built building. They’re not one and the same.”

Following in the design principles and values of LMSA, RBA prioritizes energy performance and sustainability. The firm is a big proponent of specifying tight building envelopes, high insulation values, and heat- and energy-recovery ventilators to cycle in fresh air while minimizing energy loss. 

Its commitment to designing high-performance projects is bolstered by the Washington State Building Code, the latest version of which requires most residential projects to meet the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code. The mandates have helped save energy-related features—such as continuous exterior insulation—from being value engineered out. For her part, Risa believes these features offer good value for a relatively modest expense. Several contractors for RBA’s Portland-based projects have also warmed to the idea of including more high-performance features, such as those listed in the Passive House building standards. 

Risa aspires to design a certified Passive House in the future, and RBA architect Valerie “Val” Reynolds is already a Phius Certified Builder. For now, the firm is content with integrating sustainable principles with design in a manner that clients can choose to notice—or not. Although clients might initially worry that sustainability relegates them to solid walls and boxy volumes, Risa says that’s not the case at all. “We like big windows on our projects too,” she notes, adding that RSA projects typically feature expansive windows of double- or triple-pane glazing—taking in panoramas of Puget Sound and other uplifting sights. 

Materially Speaking

In addition to Frank Lloyd Wright, Risa points to the handcrafted quality, texture, and forms of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and Wright apprentice and renowned architect John Lautner as influential to her design aesthetic. Favorite materials include Cor-Ten steel for exteriors; black powder-coated steel for interiors; and concrete and smooth-troweled plaster for their minimalist look and malleability. Given their location in the Pacific Northwest, RSA projects often integrate wood structural elements, millwork, and finishes. Rough-hewn cedar siding and rift-sawn walnut and white oak, in particular, “lend themselves well to Midcentury design,” Risa says.

At the Nathan residence, a remodel that was Risa’s first client work in Portland, the prevalence of wood complements the owners’ collection of American Midcentury furniture. A custom, handcrafted walnut screen separates the entrance from the dining room while offering a contrast to the vertical grain fir of kitchen cabinets and a vintage wood dining table by Van Keppel and Green for Brown Saltman. RSA replaced the existing dark wood floor with light-colored terrazzo to brighten the interior. Portland Monthly published the project, giving Risa’s nascent firm a boost in her new home state.

Riverwood, Risa’s first new construction project in Portland, is a 6,242-square-foot residence that hosts multiple family generations. The design’s strategic massing and setbacks enable views to the Willamette River from nearly every room. “The clients were fantastic and creative people who wanted a minimalist box,” Risa says. At night, the house’s black-painted exterior disappears into the darkness and shadows of the surrounding trees.

RBA used concrete to create a feature element in Academy Highlands, the firm’s first project in Bellingham. A minimalist, cast-in-place concrete fireplace anchors an open living space that offers panoramic views of Whatcom Lake. Moreover, “everybody enjoyed working together,” notes Risa, who had recently returned from a Bellingham trip where she visited former clients and her builder Jerry Richmond.

Going Commercial

For the time being, much of RBA’s portfolio is residential, but the firm also takes a few commercial projects. One example is the mixed-use infill project her office currently occupies. The project replaced a rundown house on an awkward lot, Risa says. “Nobody wanted it. It was a strange, L-shaped property with a courtyard in the center on a commercial street that didn’t have much new development happening on it yet.”

The opportunity was too good to pass up for Risa and her husband, who had always talked about developing a property together. After purchasing the property in 2014, they opened Makers Row in 2017. The energy-efficient, mixed-use project comprises 19 apartments and two commercial spaces across two perpendicular volumes, allowing natural light to reach all units and building elevations. Its tight building envelope and use of highly insulated window units from Canada helped earn the project recognition from the nonprofit organization Energy Trust of Oregon.

More to Come

Nearly 20 years into her own practice, Risa tries to impart lessons from her own experience to her team. She can still remember days ruined by the everyday setbacks that architects encounter, particularly early in their career—a delayed building permit or a mistake in the field. “I would think, ‘This is the end of this project,’ or ‘I should have known about that,’” she recounts. “Now, I know it’s going to be OK. It might not be as perfect as everybody thought, but it always works out.” 

Risa also hopes to grow her full-service architecture firm in new directions. She has added furnishings to its capabilities, which already included finishes, lighting, and cabinetry design as part of its standard scope. By collaborating with her clients on furniture selection, she believes they will enjoy the benefit and the “fun of having a cohesive space in the end.”

She also plans to continue implementing more Passive House design strategies into the firm’s projects to show how naturally sustainable design principles suit good architecture. Her ability to drive her clients and the building industry toward an increasingly higher level of energy performance is one reason she continues to enjoy architecture. “Architects have a huge impact on the environment,” Risa says. “We can turn that into having a positive impact on the environment. That’s exciting to me—that we can have that much influence on it.”

Residential Design has previously published two case studies by Risa Boyer Architecture:

• Academy Highlands in Bellingham, Washington
• Glen Road in Lake Oswego, Oregon

The post Pro-File Design: Risa Boyer Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

Custom home clients are generally a pretty savvy bunch, especially if they’ve been through the process before. When vetting a residential architect for their project, they’ll talk with their friends, flip through design magazines, click through ezines, and pore over architects’ own websites. This is a fine approach, of course, but it misses something key about the best architects. Clients would also benefit from an architect dedicated to improving the craft and the process of delivering residential architecture. Timothy Clites, AIA, is the definition of that kind of architect.

Tim has always made it a point to learn all he can about the business of residential practice, while also keeping his design skills fresh. Since his time as a senior associate at the venerable Washington, D.C., design firm Barnes Vanze Architects, he has sought out relevant educational opportunities—conferences, symposia, retreats, design tours—anything that might add to his expertise in his chosen field. And when he found himself even more busy and successful at bringing work in than he anticipated when he launched Clites Architects in 2010, he brought in consultants to help him take control of the pace. 

There’s a modesty in understanding that you always have more to learn. That modesty permeates the firm’s approach to working with clients, to designing buildings that honor the landscape and the region, and to collaborating with the expert tradespeople who execute the designs. Tim attributes his formative years to humble beginnings. “I grew up in rural Pennsylvania—on a farm, milking cows,” he says. “I also framed houses and wanted to be a contractor. So I went to community college to learn about drafting. I wanted to know how to draw the house I would build.”

That led him to pursue an architecture degree at Boston Architectural College, while also working as a drafter and a job captain for an architectural firm. As luck and talent would have it, his first job as a project architect was for Catalano Architects in Boston. Thomas Catalano, AIA, had worked his way up through the offices of Robert A.M. Stern and Graham Gund, going on to design grand New England Shingle-style houses. Tim’s three years there was a graduate-level education in fine traditional design and prepared him well for his next move, to Barnes Vanze in D.C.

Founded in 1989 by two Hartman Cox alums—Ankie Barnes, FAIA, and Steve Vanze, FAIA—Barnes Vanze quickly became one of the go-to firms in Washington for traditional residential architecture. Tim worked in the office in Georgetown beginning in 1999. From there he followed the firm’s growth beyond the city to the Virginia and Maryland countryside, where many fortunate Washingtonians own weekend homes.

After trodding a well-worn path between D.C. and Middleburg, Virginia, on behalf of Barnes Vanze projects there, Tim felt the tug of his rural roots. “I fell in love with the work and the people at Barnes Vanze,” he recalls. “But my first client there was in Middleburg, and my wife and I found ourselves coming out on the weekends. Eventually, we thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great to live and work here?’

Barnes Vanze was open to the idea,” he continues. “We had a baby ready for school and we wanted to enroll him out here. So, as a senior associate, I moved out to Middleburg, helping them with everything. For seven years, I grew and managed the firm’s office here. And it taught me a new set of skills—who to hire, how to manage, how to set standards, and how to interview clients.”

On His Own

In short, Tim had acquired all the necessary skills to launch his own firm. “2010 came around and I was not moving back to Washington. Our kids were in school, we were part of the community, and I loved the area,” he recalls. “And I had a client who was very much advocating for this. ‘What are you afraid of,’ they asked. In the middle of the recession, the stars aligned to open my new practice. I was finishing the work I had and taking on new projects. I started with myself and one other employee.”

Since then, the office has averaged about five to seven people, with Tim’s wife, Linda, helping with the books in her spare time. It’s not unlike a rural family medical practice. As a country doctor would, the country architect tackles whatever problem comes in the door. The work is as much about establishing, maintaining, and nurturing relationships as it is about architecture with a capital A. Tim has always been comfortable with architecture at any scale and style, having tackled small remodeling jobs and estate properties at his previous firms. Although it’s maybe less well-known, Barnes Vanze has done some lovely modern work and, especially, work that marries modern and traditional. 

This portfolio was perfect for Middleburg, the Plains, Flint Hill, Leesburg, and other tony enclaves of Virginia, where you never know what you’ll find at the end of that long driveway. The other unknown is what constraints any easements will put on the development and use of a property. This was another skill set Tim acquired in his years in the region, and he’s often called in as a consultant for property searches. “There are large swaths through Virginia that are in easement. It’s part of what’s special about the area,” he explains. 

“It’s such a privilege that people had the foresight to think this way decades ago. But that means that land restrictions may dictate the size, location, and numbers and types of buildings. And these restrictions are unique to each piece of property,” he continues. “You may have a 100-acre property where only a guest house can be added. Or you have a large piece of property where you can’t build in the obvious spot at the top. It’s about protecting the open countryside. If I’m going to build in this area, I’m going to be careful.” 

He’s going to be careful because it’s the right thing to do, of course. And he wisely understands there is no anonymity in small towns. You will be held accountable at the supermarket, on the kids’ soccer field, and at the gas station. “We’re architects, we can design anything, but that’s a very arrogant thing to say. When I think about our work, I think about our clients. How important is architecture versus the exploration with the client? 

“Especially since COVID, we’ve been talking with clients about the future as deeply as we can. I believe if they are still in the home we designed when things happen, they’ll be glad we talked about it.” The strength of the firm’s repeat business is testament to that relationship building. Clients do come back for revisions—both large and small—that allow them to stay in their houses amid life changes. 

“Our work is about architecture,” notes Tim. “But deeper than that, it’s about—if we do it well—someone should be able to live in their house for as long as they want.”

The post Pro-File Design: Clites Architects appeared first on Residential Design.

Craig moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked in design/build for the noted multidisciplinary firms Jay Hargrave Architecture and TOM HURT Architecture. It was his post-graduate education in design and construction. Meanwhile, Robby stayed in North Carolina, honing his skills in the office of modernist Michael Ross Kersting in Wilmington, along with Raleigh’s Clearscapes Art + Architecture and the design/build firm Tonic Design & Construction.

Along the way, each remodeled his own personal dwelling, learning firsthand how to transform a space for the better. “We practiced the slow flip,” says Craig. “We developed our own homes—one room at a time.” Adds Robby, “You really learn about space by living in it.”

Doing it for themselves—controlling the direction, design, and craft—made a powerful impression and established the ultimate trajectory for their careers. So when Craig decided to return to North Carolina and join Robby in Raleigh, where they both grew up, he secured his contractor’s license right away. (“Architects are good test takers,” he quips.) And he sold his house back in Austin to help seed their new joint venture—a design/build firm in the rapidly growing Research Triangle region. 

Newly minted as Raleigh Architecture Company (RACo.) and Raleigh Construction Company (RCCo.), the two embarked on the usual array of small remodeling jobs for clients, but they had bigger plans in mind. 

Fraternal Twins

Entrepreneurial architects long ago figured out that underwriting their own design opportunities can pay off in myriad ways. To catapult their new businesses forward, Craig and Robby knew they had to show what they could do, unmoored from the constraints of clients’ budget and program needs. 

To that end, they searched for a piece of property in downtown Raleigh with the goal of designing and building a house for Robby. The property they located could, with some ingenuity, accommodate two dwellings with a shared courtyard space, but they needed another client/buyer to make the finances work. They found that buyer through social media. Completed in 2013, the project, dubbed the Edentwins because of its location on East Edenton Street, promptly earned state and regional AIA awards. 

And it impressed renowned regional Modernist Frank Harmon, FAIA, who wrote a letter this year in support of the firm’s winning Kamphoefner Prize application. The prize, which Frank had won in 1995, is bestowed by AIA North Carolina for sustained contribution to Modern architecture in the state. 

“I first noticed the work of Raleigh Architecture Company before I knew who they were,” wrote Frank in his recommendation. “Driving down Edenton Street in Raleigh one Sunday morning in 2013, I noticed a pair of Modern houses on a slight hill above the street. To me these houses […] spoke to the fundamentals of Modern design. They were handsome standing on their own, but clearly part of the city context. When I later learned that the designers were a local firm, I realized that Raleigh had a new voice in architecture.” 

For RACo./RCCo., developing some of their own projects became an important means of expressing that voice. Says Robby, “Edentwins was our first new, ground-up project. And we weren’t sure if we were going to weave development into our overall business plan, but it fortifies all the rest of what we are doing. Developing gives us a way of completely understanding the construction of a project. And that allows us to speak intelligently about how our clients approach the process—because they are investors and developers, too.”

Building Bridges

The quest to understand every element of design and construction is core to every good design/build firm, but not everyone invests the time and money in learning how make it a viable business. Craig and Robby have sought mentors and good advice from the get-go. And they’ve been careful to maintain fruitful relationships with architecture school classmates, who’ve dispersed and achieved across the country, as well as former employers who’ve been generous with guidance and peers in the profession. They’ve also hired paid consultants.

“We’ve used business coaches for years,” says Robby. “But what sets us apart is that we really prepared for this. We went our separate ways to separate places and learned different things. Being apart allowed us to be together and understand how to work together.” 

They’ve had the good luck, as well, to ride the upswing of the Triangle region, where there’s no shortage of smart, savvy potential clients. “There are 8 to 10 universities near here and among the highest percentage of Ph.D.s in the country,” Robby notes. “And there’s also a strong design lineage and tradition of Modern design. There was already a movement in process here when we started, and the tech industry has continued to build here. We had more of an opportunity to help represent that movement here than a place like Austin, Texas.”

Among their clients—especially on the light commercial side—are other entrepreneurs and creatives. The firm has adapted several older buildings into vibrant, award-winning retail and gathering places, including the repurposing of a notable Midcentury bank building by F. Carter Williams into The Vault, a bottle shop and community space, and Hartwell, a former neighborhood market, into a maker and event space. Their own building, 716 Offices, was a mechanic’s garage they transformed into a light-flooded collaborative workspace, filling the former garage bays with operable glazing.  

New custom homes and substantial remodels still comprise an important place in the portfolio—including another duplex house project for Robby—but they’ve been joined by larger-scale townhouse and multifamily work in a roughly 50/50 percentage. It’s enough to keep the small company, which is capped at about 10, very busy. “We’re intentionally small, because we want to run a practice where everyone can participate,” says Robby. “We have two staff for Raleigh Architecture and six staff for Raleigh Construction, plus ourselves.”

Adds Craig, “We don’t want to get too big. We want to retain direct control of all the pieces so we can stay on track with a project in real time. If I have a structural question, I can call my engineer or my framer. It’s not just about finances, it’s about all the pieces. That’s how we hone the craft.”

As they wrote in their Kamphoefner award entry: “The best builders have a great eye for design and understand architecture. Similarly, the best architects understand how to build.”

The post Pro-File Design/Build: The Raleigh Architecture Company + Raleigh Construction Company appeared first on Residential Design.

The custom building side of the company has been at it for nearly 40 years and the design side for 27. With 70 employees, it’s not a small operation, and yet it manages to stay nimble with a culture of cooperation with other builders, architects, and artisans. Says Brian Mac, FAIA, the company’s head of design and chief spokesperson, “We try to be friends with everybody. We figure if we can build a community with other builders and architects, we’ll be able to take opportunities as they come along. Maybe they will want to use our woodshop. Our market is not that big. We learned a long time ago that if we adopt a competitive attitude, we confine ourselves to a niche market. We are willing to take on anything interesting that looks to add value.”

For the client, that means you don’t have to take the whole Birdseye package. Birdseye the builder will construct houses by other architects, and Birdseye the architect will design houses for other builders to construct. And a client’s builder can turn to Birdseye for anything on its menu of individual services, including site work, metalwork, and the aforementioned woodwork. 

So far, this à la carte approach has kept the company, now an ESOP, busy. And its size offers upward mobility in a variety of trade and professional areas. Always reaching for the best execution in craft and design tends to attract the people who care about doing great work—learning more and stretching themselves. Brian sums it up: “We want to work in cool places, with cool people, on cool projects.”

Hammer in Hand

Brian, who grew up in Michigan and worked at large firm Quinn Evans after completing architecture school, made his way east to learn the craft of building. Vermont, with its strong artisan tradition, was a natural destination. “I didn’t want to go back into the office environment—into the monoculture of an architecture office,” he recalls. “I wanted to understand how to build. I wanted my hands acquainted with a hammer. There’s a history of design­build in the Mad River Valley—a legacy of craft and construction.”

Brian worked for a residential construction company for a couple of years before meeting Birdseye owners Jim Converse and John Seibert while playing hockey. Jim and John had been friends and business partners since graduating from the University of Vermont. “Like everything here, the idea of opening an architecture division was very organic,” says Brian. “So that’s what I did 27 years ago. Right now, we have seven full-time people on the architecture side—five licensed ones, two trying to get licensed, and two interns for the summer. 

“We’re trying to establish a strong culture around the workload,” he adds. “We don’t hire for the project, we hire for the workload. Because I’ve gone through so many cycles in the economy, I know that while we’re busy now, there were times when we were struggling to get work.”

And that’s part of the resilience a design-build model offers residential professionals—one side of the house can smooth bumps in business for the other. Birdseye’s construction side also has a property management division to service the houses it builds. Even in recessions, houses need care and attention. This is especially true of second homes, which comprise about half of the company’s project portfolio.

If a local slowdown were to hit Vermont, the architecture division is prepared to work further afield and has designed projects in the Hamptons and Rhode Island. “We have a really cool project going in Columbus, Indiana,” Brian notes. “We’re working with another design-build firm and they’re doing the drawings. I see those types of collaborations as an opportunity. We would be open to taking on a project in, say, California. But, on the building side, it’s difficult to take people out of our region and away from their families.”

Supporting the private lives and diverse interests of its employees has been a priority at Birdseye since Day One. “When I started on the building side, the company worked four 10-hour days and took Fridays off. We’ve been doing it as a company for 40 years,” Brian explains. “It made sense from a construction standpoint, that the painters or other trades could come in on Friday. Then our people have a weekday to go ski or whatever. They have one day they can count on when the kids are in school and they can really get things done. We’re all pretty avid outdoors people here, we aren’t killing ourselves. If you are enjoying living here, you will bring your A game to work.”

Authorship and Authenticity

Is the best architecture determined by how recognizable the architecture firm is that designed it? Must it reflect a singular style or point of view that advances and innovates over time? Birdseye’s design work has certainly evolved over the course of its nearly 30 years, but it also shows a willingness to explore different ideas and, gasp, different precedents. And then, sometimes, a client just wants something that looks like a barn. 

For Birdseye Architecture’s part, they are on board for any project that will challenge them professionally and put them in the path of creative clients intent on building something meaningful. Maybe that barn will turn out to be a live-work studio, as was the case with the 2009 Music Barn, made from a reclaimed timber frame structure fitted out with professional recording equipment and acoustics.  

Or maybe it will become the 2019 Bank Barn project, a Net-Zero retirement home for a cosmopolitan couple returning from a lifetime of work abroad. The Bank Barn garnered numerous regional and local awards and attracted extensive national press coverage. Its timeless, iconic shape resonates with nearly everyone, while advancing the discussion of what modern life can and should look like. 

The 10 years between the two barn-inspired projects shows a big leap forward in Birdseye’s confidence as architects. Although it’s always tricky to discern why the recipe of architect, client, builder, site, and budget results in such a marked departure from prior work, it’s still possible to follow various breadcrumbs along the way that led to this point. 

Brian cites the 2017 Woodshed project as a personal and professional epiphany, while graciously crediting the clients for setting the bar high. “The clients were from Boston and were well versed in architecture,” he recalls. “They had a bigger library about architecture than I did. Their knowledge made me understand I don’t know everything about architecture. They gave me an opportunity to come up with an idea that we may not have thought of. They became great collaborators. The project got a lot of press and won a lot of awards. And it settled in my head that there is an artfulness to what we can do—connecting the familiar with the unique. It helped give me a language around what we’re doing. And it gave me a clearer path for how to move forward and how to talk about what we’re doing.”

From Woodshed and Bank Barn in rural Vermont to the 2020 Lathhouse in the Hamptons—another multiple award-winning, agrarian-modern house—the design language has grown more fluent and melodic each time. 

But just when you think you know what to expect from the firm, they come up with something completely different. The 2021 Terrapin house is nobody’s barn—instead, it’s a full-on machine for immersion in the verdant Vermont landscape. Look more closely at the portfolio, however, and you’ll find its DNA in Mural House and Vista House.

“I look at our portfolio as our datum for where we are,” Brian explains. “What are the common elements of what we are doing, and how do we take those and not make it look the same? How do we get to the unattainable level, while always trying to get there? 

“By building a team around you that can allow you to think that way,” he says, answering his own question. “We have extraordinary talent around here that can take on the blocking of incredible ideas. And it enables a much bigger stance in taking on more ambitious projects.”

A Thousand Words

Yes, it’s critical for an architecture firm to learn how to talk about its houses and to find a language for how it turns ideas and concepts into reality. The skill is important for speaking with clients, the press, building departments, and skeptical neighbors. And just as a house is a story of the family who lives there, the firm’s portfolio is the story of its trajectory in architecture.

Part of Birdseye’s success derives from its eloquence with words and visual language, of course, but a key element has been its commitment to documenting its portfolio with top-notch photography. It shines the light on what the firm has done and is doing, connecting all the dots into a sophisticated continuity.  

“We typically will go into the project telling the client that we have to photograph it,” Brian says. “Because in the end, all we have are the drawings and the photographs—they are the archive of our work. You walk away with a photograph, and that’s all you get. And I love working with photographers, because you see the work through others’ eyes and you see the art unfold before you.” It, too, tells the story of the house.

Design Build Design

When skilled, dedicated players are involved, design-build can result in a virtuous circle, bringing out the best in all and keeping the endeavor authentic—in service to the client, appropriate to the place, but always with the goal of lifting everyone a little higher. 

“Rather than just being stylistic about architecture, we think about the craft of it,” Brian says. “We try to make sense of the vision, and how architecture can play into the art of living and really inspire people in the way they live. People long for the familiar but also something of this moment. It’s all about our editing process and how we bring that concept to life.”

The post Pro-File Design/Build: Birdseye appeared first on Residential Design.

Architecture was always in the cards for principal Celeste Robbins, AIA. Growing up in Ohio, she was fascinated not by the clichéd Legos, but by space-making with endless blanket forts and outdoor refuges tucked among trees. An entrepreneurial spirit accompanied her talent in physics and art; she frequently canvassed her neighborhood selling “literally anything I could get my hands on,” she says.

Celeste entered The Ohio State University to study engineering, but while touring the office of an architect who worked with her father, a civil engineer-turned-facility planner at Goodyear, she caught sight of architectural models and drawings and changed course. 

She transferred to Cornell University, where her family hoped its robust architecture program would strengthen her job prospects; her mother worked three jobs to help pay tuition. The bet paid off. Upon graduation, Celeste moved to Boston and worked largely in higher education design for Michael Dennis, Jeffrey Clark & Associates, Shepley Bulfinch, and Perkins&Will.

After several years, the Midwest beckoned her back. She relocated to Perkins&Will’s Chicago office, where she worked until her first child was born. Around that time, she found a kindred spirit in Berta Shapiro, who was launching a new career in interior design. As Celeste helped Berta with drawings, Berta became her unofficial mentor in residential design. “We pulled the best from each other out,” Celeste says. “My takeaway was an understanding about how a home lives. When you walk into a room, where do you want to sit? What do you want to see? How do you have a good conversation? These things are about life and not something you learn at Cornell.”

With her formal training in architecture and her informal training in creating warm, livable spaces, Celeste opened her own practice at 30. Finding work was no problem—Berta’s  glowing recommendations led Celeste to many choice commissions, including a condo renovation for actor John Cusack and a gut renovation of a house in Winnetka, on Chicago’s North Shore. Clients would recommend Celeste to their friends and become repeat clients themselves.

For nearly a decade, Celeste handled everything on her own, from client meetings to construction administration to billing. Her typical work hours fell between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m., while her young children slept. But architecture was her essence—her “lung,” she calls it. “I loved every minute of all of it.”

Big Break

Celeste’s efforts in the Winnetka renovation led to her first ground-up commission for the same client, this time in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Berta designed the home’s interiors. “They didn’t interview anyone else,” Celeste says.

Understanding that this site was one the family intentionally chose as their destination, their retreat, Celeste focused on designing a home for relaxation and enjoyment of life. The ranch-inspired structure blends modernism with the rugged forms of the region’s dude ranches and the adjacent mountains of Grand Teton National Park. Completed in 2006, Home on the Ranch was published in Architectural Digest, giving national exposure to Celeste and her design aesthetic. The project, which also led to her first staff hires, demonstrated that Robbins Architecture could design homes anywhere. Today, the firm has completed projects across the country, including in Idaho, Colorado, Michigan, and New York.

Design Flexibility

Prospective clients often approach Robbins Architecture after seeing its portfolio of modern homes interwoven in breathtaking composition with nature. But Celeste doesn’t believe they are seeking a particular architecture style or formal design statement. Instead, she says, they want a home they can enter, “have their shoulders drop, and feel like they’re where they can recharge.”

This is perhaps what distinguishes Celeste’s approach to modernism. Yes, her houses sit typically low to the ground and embrace daylighting, open floor plans, clean lines, and expansive glazing that merges indoor and outdoor spaces. But she also adapts each design to the site and ultimately to what the owner wants without concern about maintaining any formalism.

Unlike one of her own influences, Frank Lloyd Wright, who was notorious for commanding design control even post-occupancy, Celeste welcomes client input. The results balance her design principles with the client’s lifestyle. “That’s where the warmth and richness comes in—that real honesty to how people live,” she says. “The home is not forcing them into something.”

Confident of her core design values—continuous connection to the site, organic movement through a space, a layout that “unfolds” for its residents, and homage to artistry and craft—she is unfazed when her clients present a late-game challenge. “If the client says, ‘Oh, I actually want this over here,’” she explains, “it’s not going to unravel this whole setup that you’ve done.”

Such a change occurred at a house on Chicago’s North Shore for client Robyn Tavel and her family. While standing on-site with Celeste at the location of her future office, Robyn admired a nearby bridge and ravine and said, “‘Celeste, you told me how much you loved the bridge that you can see from your house and how it’s lit at night,’” she recalls. “‘Now we’re looking at the bridge by my house. Instead of the wall here, why wouldn’t we make this a window?’ And Celeste said, ‘Absolutely. Let’s do that.’”

Robyn now savors the time at her floating desk, gazing out through her floor-to-ceiling window wall. “When you walk into the office,” she says, “it seems like the exterior is inside.”

Celeste feels a particular sense of pride whenever she hears a client proclaim, “This was my idea!” “It probably was their idea,” she affirms, “and I used it, and the project is even richer for it.” 

Test of Time

Perhaps the greatest validation of Robbins Architecture’s work is its success long after the housewarmings end. Nearly eight years after moving in, Tavel continues to relish the experience of coming home. “In one word,” she says, “I feel happiness.” 

Celeste knows this firsthand, having designed her own home in 2010 on Chicago’s North Shore. The project exemplifies Midcentury Modern—asymmetry, extensive use of glass and wood, clean lines, and rectilinear volumes—while mixing in a few idiosyncrasies, like a ledge on the staircase that Celeste admits “makes no sense,” but adds a soulful element that assures you not everything is perfectly formulated.

At the time, her neighborhood was full of more traditional-style architecture, so when she opened her home as part of a school-fundraising tour, curious onlookers who had watched its construction lined up. To Celeste’s delight, the air was soon filled with “I didn’t know I would like modern,” “It’s so warm,” and “I could live here.”

Her house became a calling card for attracting clients, including Tavel. And Celeste realized that her work as an architect stood out to people. “I never let go of that,” she says. “I made sure everything would have that warmth, and I would never rely on something just because I did it before.”

Furthermore, her home was the start of a longtime collaboration with builder Jake Goldberg, president of Chicago-based Goldberg General Contracting, Inc., which has worked on four homes with Robbins Architecture. “Working together is great because Celeste often asks us to get involved very early on in the projects,” Jake says. Whenever the owner, architect, and contractor “can rely on each other for opinions and advice, they have a vested interest [in the project] because they’re going to be working together.”

Along with regular check-ins with the contractor for insights on pricing, buildability, and potential leads, Celeste engages other collaborators early in the design process. From the first sketch of the project, her team is already envisioning how a project might relate best to its natural surrounds. By the time the landscape architect enters the picture, the team has already started a dialogue on how a project interior and exterior might interweave, providing ideas for the landscape architect to take to the next level. “Whatever they do always makes it better,” Celeste says. “Nature is timeless. You’re never going to regret a house you designed in the ’90s if nature remains the focal point.”

The firm also specifies materials that are contextual to their environment. Natural stone makes appearances in the form of paneling, surfaces, seating, flooring, and stair treads. The project in Jackson Hole uses stained cedar, while a cottage on Lake Michigan uses cedar shakes. At a spacious summer retreat north of Chicago, vertical recesses hand chiseled into the fossil-imprinted limestone cladding imbue a human scale. For a home in Aspen, Colorado, nestled in the Rocky Mountains, the firm used board-formed concrete to withstand the harsh climate. “We wanted the texture of wood, and the color is beautiful with the mountains,” Celeste says.

Not surprisingly for a firm in Greater Chicago, the influence of Prairie-style architecture can also be seen, through such elements as long lines and deep overhangs that help shield building materials and the interior from precipitation and harsh summer sun. “It’s practical, smart, and also beautiful,” Jake says.

Architecture as Business

Perhaps from her early days of selling wares to her neighbors, Celeste has always felt comfortable engaging with clients. But as her firm grew to 10 employees plus outside consultants working across multiple projects, she had to learn how to manage a business—something historically not taught in architecture schools. Celeste often spends her free time reading business and motivational books. “I take it as an honor that people choose to come to work in this office,” she says. “I want them to feel that they are challenged and that they enjoy what they do.”

An active member of the design community, Celeste participates in AIA Chicago’s Custom Residential Architects Network, which she co-chaired for three years; the Chicago-Midwest Institute of Classical Architecture & Art; and the Design Leadership Network (DLN), which hosts national events for firm leaders and executives in architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture, as well as more intimate gatherings among peer groups.

From these meetings, Celeste became inspired and motivated to publish a monograph of her firm’s work. “I’m proud of our projects and I wanted them to be more available to be seen,” she says. A DLN peer recommended a book agent, who agreed to work with Celeste.

Recently released by Monacelli, “The Meaningful Modern Home: Soulful Architecture and Interiors” collects nine Robbins Architecture homes across the country. It entailed more than two years of preparation by Celeste and a team of collaborators, including a writer, editor, and graphic designer. She also hired a photographer and stylist to capture the experience of living in a home by her firm beyond the documentation of its architecture.

Not only was she delighted to revisit her projects, one of which had been lived in for 17 years at this point, but she revamped her firm’s website with the new imagery to “communicate what I saw to the world.” Now decades into cultivating her aesthetic and brand, she knew she wanted to convey the warmth, softness, and livability her modernism delivers, along with her joy in creating architecture that fulfills her clients’ goals and desires.

“People walk away liking to work with us because they got the house they wanted,” Celeste says. “They know their home was a passion that we lived and breathed for them.”

The post Pro-File Design: Robbins Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

While at Centerbrook, as the firm became known after Charles moved on, Nick worked on everything from houses to “genetics laboratories.” Although working at every scale, his mentors’ approach of imbuing each building with a sense of its place, its history, and its culture became fundamental to Nick’s goals as an architect. 

When the projects became larger and more bureaucratic, with all the heartbreak that brings (multiyear endeavors unplugged at the last minute), Nick decided it was time to return to his home state. He moved his family to Austin and became his own first client in his new small residential practice. “I had the problem of having all my experience and contacts in one part of the country and none here,” he says. 

He and his wife bought a dilapidated 1919 bungalow in a dense urban neighborhood now designated the West Line Historic District, and he slowly renovated and expanded it into a remarkable house, studio, and rental apartment. Meanwhile, he built his new practice from the ground up, working with builders and doing smaller jobs for clients. “People came to me mostly for space, but it was important to me to introduce them to architecture—even just a little bit.” Twenty-five years later, clients still come to him looking for space, but they also seek out the sophisticated architecture that elevates every aspect of its experience. 

“We built the practice little by little,” he recalls, but the firm got a big boost from Austin’s long-running house tour program. “It’s one of the oldest in the country. We ended up getting a house on that tour and then later, four or five. Because of that, it’s given us publicity and exposure. What it’s meant, is that we’ve stayed busy since that home tour in 2003.”

Big Inside, Little Outside 

His own house and studio ended up on the tour, and it represents a number of the firm’s strengths: a respect and sensitivity to existing community, context, and culture and a special talent for preserving them while injecting a modern sensibility. He applies, to both renovations and new construction, modern materials and methods, adroit choreography of contemporary patterns of life, and a deft handling of spatial relationships within the house and the adjacent outdoor living areas. 

It’s readily apparent from looking at the progression of the firm’s projects that it’s perfectly capable of the kind of showcase architecture that grabs attention in the media. But while the work is always architecturally compelling and rigorous, it’s unusually modest as well. It doesn’t scream “look at me” as much as “look at a job well done.” 

This is a very deliberate direction Nick and now his daughter Jes Deaver, who joined the practice five years ago, have chosen to take. They don’t want their architecture to overwhelm and recharacterize the neighborhoods they occupy. This set of priorities is especially important as Austin’s population has grown, putting tremendous pressure on existing housing and fueling quick and often careless new construction. Builders and developers are incentivized to scrape off older houses and replace them with high-end houses that max out the buildable envelope and the potential sales price. It’s a ruinous trajectory for small-scale, older neighborhoods.

And the problem is not confined to new builds, Nick points out: “It’s becoming fashionable to put a modern addition on a historic house here, but it often results in a severe juxtaposition. Our thought is, even though we like the departure, we think we owe our clients the larger context. Even the modern addition needs to belong to the original structure. Even if it’s dramatic, it needs to belong to that house alone.”

Nick took the challenge to heart with his own house. He kept the bungalow character intact as viewed from the street and inserted a modern studio space and rental apartment underneath at the rear. A new covered porch in back also keeps the basic bungalow gable but articulates it in an abstract screen of “wind-driven vertical aluminum louvers.” Throughout, new interior spaces are bright and airy and clean, with a mix of careful, traditional detailing and fresh modern touches.  

Every choice he made was about right-sizing the new and existing spaces, and avoiding unnecessary extra rooms—or volume for the sake of volume. “We’re trying to show how we can fit within this existing context with proportion and scale. We wanted to show a modern house can belong in a historic neighborhood,” he says.

His house was not in a national historic district when he began work on it, but ultimately it was made so. So far, Austin’s historic districts have been tolerant of progress, he says, as long as it’s implemented with respect to the existing fabric.

“Not every client that comes along is completely aligned with our sensitivities,” he observes. “Sometimes it’s difficult for someone to give up tall ceilings and extra rooms. But we have techniques to give them vaulted spaces, while keeping the eaves in proportion with the scale of the neighborhood—to create a big inside and a little outside. We want to protect both the clients’ interest and the neighborhood’s interest.”

Story Time

Nick’s daughter, Jes Deaver, AIA, has brought her own sensibilities to the firm, honed by her work with a West Coast architecture firm but even more so by her background as a filmmaker and writer. Her perspective has sharpened the firm’s dedication to the process of custom design and construction, as experienced by the clients. Nicks calls it “an architectural discovery mission.”

And often that means including neighborhood stakeholders, too, so their voices and concerns are heard. This helps diffuse the adversarial relationship that can develop when change happens around the neighbors, Nick says. Adds Jes, “One thing that’s nice about that, is it allows the neighborhood to have a meaningful connection to that house. It’s a lasting relationship.” 

“When we do that with the neighbors, the zoning people, and historic commission, the only problems we are left to tackle are what to do with the land,” Nick concludes.

With clients, Nick and Jes aim for a good balance of letting them in on some of the challenges of design decision making, but not so much they lose confidence. “They are part of our architectural team—we don’t want design to be a mystery. We want to go on a journey with them,” says Nick. “They will watch us struggle, but not so much that they get discouraged or worried.”

During that process, Nick and Jes try to tease out memories from their clients that they can use to make their home more personal and resonant. A case in point: “We were designing an addition to a client’s grandfather’s house,” Nick recalls. “She recounted a tree she used to love that was no longer there. So we designed in a detail that evoked a tree. And now every time she walks through the house with someone, she always tells that story. It became a part of the story of the house.”

“By connecting clients to the story we’re telling through the design, it gives them a story to tell and a language to describe how they love their house that they can share with others,” says Jes. “It adds to the excitement they have when others experience the spaces, too.”

To read more of our coverage of RaveOn, Shibui, and Lean Too, click on the links below:

RaveOn

Shibui

LeanToo

The post Pro-File Design: Nick Deaver Architect appeared first on Residential Design.

With a staff of 14, and growing, Richardson Pribuss Architects is in the enviable position of being in the right place at the right time. That place is Mill Valley, which even before Covid saw an influx of residents from San Francisco seeking more space and affordability. Even though Marin County’s Mill Valley is only a 10-minute drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, the building challenges are different here than in the city, Andrew says. The lots have more land to engage with and complex entitlements—exactly the sorts of things the architects excel at.

Heidi landed here in 1977, but she grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, a member of an architectural family with a powerful pedigree. Her childhood bedroom had belonged to her great-grandfather Henry Hobson Richardson, famous for pioneering a uniquely American take on European architecture known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Her father, a fine arts major at Harvard, celebrated that legacy. “He used to take me into the Museum of Fine Arts [in Boston] on Sundays, but we’d drive up and down the Back Bay and Commonwealth Avenue, and he’d point out the things that were Richardsonian or things he’d done,” Heidi says. During summers she worked at the family architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott (now Shepley Bulfinch). “My uncle Joe [Richardson] was a mentor; I archived the Richardson stuff before it was handed off to Harvard,” she says. “It was a done deal. I always assumed I would be an architect.”

Her formal path to architecture began with a study of art history at Wellesley, then a transfer to MIT for an architecture degree. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, California was the place to be, and she traveled west for graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where Charles Moore was her adviser. Toward the end of her program, she told him she’d like to work for William Turnbull Associates. “Bill called me the next day and said, can you come in on Monday,” Heidi recalls. “It was 1977, when there had been a recession and everyone was hiring up again. I wanted to travel to Europe, but I wasn’t going to jeopardize that offer.”

Architecture has given Heidi the opportunity to be creative and practical at the same time. From Bill Turnbull she learned how to do site planning and grading. At a time when builders weren’t used to having women around, he took her to construction sites. “I was the first person they hired in three or four years, so there was no honeymoon period,” she says. “I sat right in front of him so he could watch every move, and I was able to learn quickly. It was a real family.”

Early on, visiting Charles Moore and Bill Turnbull’s Condominium One at Sea Ranch made an impression: “The idea of the condo being a wooden rock perched on the edge of the inlets of the Pacific Ocean, and about leaving the car behind and then entering this realm, and how those 10 condo units operated as one big house. The roof slopes reflect what the windblown hedgerows do,” she says, recalling a prominent feature of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s master plan. “You have this wooden rock on the outside, and the inside, especially Charles’ unit, was like a colorful geode.” 

Heidi also absorbed the Sea Ranch spirit of inventive yet modest houses driven by the natural landscape. Working on other projects there, “before people started spending big money on houses,” she learned how to “pinch inches.” “Bill taught me that the inside of a closet can be 21 inches instead of 24 inches, so you can make a compact but useful fundamental plan. And that you design from inside out: how is it furnished, how do people live in the space, what do you see when you sit in this chair? It’s why his work feels friendly and easy to live in.”

In 1984, Heidi opened her own office in Mill Valley. After an unsuccessful partnership in those fledgling years, she managed the firm alone until 2019, when Andrew became a partner. He had grown up in Mill Valley in a modern, concrete-and-glass house designed by his stepfather, an architect. Andrew’s educational journey was the opposite of Heidi’s—he left California to attend college in New York, before returning to the Southern California Institute of Architecture for a master’s in architecture. After finishing school in 2005, he spent a year in Mexico City working for architect Michel Rojkind, then took a job as an exhibition designer at the Getty Museum. In 2008, he followed his wife to grad school in San Francisco. “The day after we moved, the Bear Stearns news came out and the economy imploded,” he says. Scrambling for work, he pieced together gigs at various design offices, including Heidi’s, and joined her full-time in 2010.

“The firm has always grown or shrunk a bit with the economy,” Heidi says. “Now we keep growing, concentrating in Marin and Mill Valley because that’s where everyone wants to live. It seems like our sphere is shrinking, but there’s so much money coming in here that we don’t have to go outside. Although we do some work in the city and in Sonoma, most of our new houses are in Mill Valley now.”

Inside-Out

In some ways the evolution of this idyllic enclave has come full circle. Mill Valley was a summer cottage community before the bridge was built in the mid-1930s, and later became known for its arts culture and laid-back vibe: “hippie lawyers growing pot on the hillsides,” Andrew says. More recently, it was a bedroom community of folks traveling into the city for work. Now it’s a magnet for sophisticated tech industry clients, many of whom are interested in green building and willing to experiment. The firm is often building new homes on spectacular sites. Many are complicated, leftover lots, but Richardson Pribuss isn’t afraid of them. 

The recently completed Warner Canyon Hillside Residence is one of the more extreme examples. The land was so steep that the builders had to belay down the site to erect a set of stairs, and there is a 20-foot drop between the street-level garage and the main level. Noting local restrictions, Heidi says that houses here are typically 2,000 to 3,000 square feet—“this is where my pinching comes in.” In a modest 1,970 square feet, the design team fit three bedrooms, two and a half baths, and an office. Inside-out schemes are an integral part of their work. Here the boundaries disappear through wall-height glazing focused on the view over the canyon. The design isn’t just about the view, though. It incorporates six outdoor spaces, including a barbecue deck off the dining room, a deck off the living room, and another small terrace off the lower-level main bedroom. From there, a stair leads down to a hot tub and an outdoor kitchen. “In part, the success of this project was carving out moments where you could get onto the site, not just a great big deck off the back,” Andrew says. 

In exploring their own brand of Northern California modernism, Richardson Pribuss has developed an appreciation for houses as repositories of light and the landscape, an ideal often achieved with height. “We’re constantly trying to express some kind of verticality in these projects,” Heidi says. “Maybe because our height limits are so rigorous.” Restrictions usually dictate a maximum height of 25 feet near the edges of the site and 35 feet in the center, she says, which also leads them to design flat roofs—“what is the point of expressing verticality if you put a cowboy hat on top of it?” Glazed walls create views through their houses, so that the outdoor spaces read as large as possible. 

 The architects use taut wood cladding—usually local cedar—to soften and scale down the envelope. In newer work, though, they are specifying fiber-cement siding for fire safety, an urgent issue that reinforces their proclivity for simple roof shapes, which minimize entry points for drifting embers. “To be honest, it’s kind of a struggle for us—how do you create this contemporary building that’s all fireproof and doesn’t feel too slick and soulless?” Andrew says. Heidi adds: “And we can’t put landscaping near the house. All these pieces are evolving, and in an exciting way. First we had the seismic challenge, then the energy challenge, and now the fire challenge.” 

Another specialty has been renovating older or heritage houses, along with the occasional commercial property, such as the iconic Sweetwater Music Hall, currently underway, that helped put Mill Valley on the map. “Many architects don’t want to touch renovations because they are wrapped around historic preservation,” Heidi says. “We touch all those pieces that comprise what Mill Valley was and is becoming.”

Like many California jurisdictions, Marin County has passed ADU-friendly initiatives in recent years to alleviate the scarcity of rentals and affordable houses, and it’s been a boon for business. “The phone rings three times a week for a new ADU,” Andrew says. “We love them because they’re looser, like one-off design exercises, and they help the younger staff build skills.” Designing for 500 to 800 square feet, “that’s where [Heidi’s] Sea Ranch [experience] comes in,” he adds, “how to get a laundry to work in a bathroom, eliminating halls, and bringing the windows to the floor.” In fact, the firm is working on an ADU design guidebook for San Joaquin County. The county, east of San Francisco at the northern end of the Central Valley food basket, has also commissioned a prototype for farmworker housing. 

Entrepreneurial Spirit

These smaller projects are part of the roster of about 50 jobs the firm is working on at any one time, and they help alleviate the managerial challenges of large projects that get held up in design reviews and “planning purgatory.” Internal teamwork and weekly meetings with a trusted stable of engineering and landscape consultants keep things on track. Heidi has twice chaired the local planning commission, which helped her understand the complex zoning rules and what it’s like to be on the other side, she says. A crack facilitator is essential too: “We have the most fantastic business manager and permit technician expeditor, Kristin Silmore,” Heidi says. “She knows people in billing departments all over the county and keeps up those relationships.” 

With the promotion of Andrew to partner two years ago, Heidi has been positioning the firm for the future. Her management philosophy is to delegate as much as she can, which means sharing rain-making work not only with Andrew but with other senior staff, too. “It invests them in the firm, and it takes the load off of us,” she says. She enjoys meeting with clients and handles marketing, site and floor planning, and politicking with city hall, while Andrew excels at exterior elevations and does most of the construction administration. They are also expanding the interiors department, which currently stands at four staff. “Many clients, especially on new houses, bring an interior designer with them, but on the smaller renovation work we do, we find that clients love one-stop shopping,” Heidi says. “People are trying to simplify their lives.” 

No doubt the firm’s longevity and success stems in part from Heidi’s style of leading by collaboration. “Heidi generated this environment where she delegates and empowers employees to be their own project architect, run their own thing,” Andrew says. “That’s why I stayed; I like being accountable to myself, getting it done.” It’s another early lesson that has stuck. “Bill had final say but allowed people to grow,” Heidi says, “which is important if you want to build a team.”

The intrepid spirit of her great-grandfather and her mentors lives on in her work, marrying the technical aspects with a quality design response. “Our understanding of complex sites and entitlements may contribute to why people come to us,” Heidi says. “We like to think it’s our design talent, too.” Indeed, it’s all part of the DNA.

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Partner Mary Griffin, FAIA, who had steered William Turnbull Associates following the death of founder and husband William Turnbull through its transition to Turnbull Griffin Haesloop, was ready to segue into emerita status. Partner Stefan Hastrup, AIA, was also on the cusp of pulling back from the firm to pursue his own interests. But partner Eric Haesloop, FAIA, was in his stride, doing some of the best work of his career with TGH. And then the pandemic hit.

Paralleling the precipitous drop in stock values back in March 2020, the bottom fell out of the 12-person firm’s project pipeline. Houses were put on hold or canceled and, most significantly, a $40 million hotel commission went dark. Back then, no architects or builders could predict whether the market and the work would come back. The time of reckoning for TGH had come.

With Mary and Stefan’s trajectory pointing toward the exit door, the task of reinvention fell to Eric Haesloop. Eric had worked with Mary since the mid-80s—first at Turnbull Associates and then, following Bill’s death in 1997, as a critical collaborator in Turnbull Griffin Haesloop. He was eager for the design challenges ahead, with a special passion for the custom residential work. It was a given that he would try to continue on in some fashion. The question was, what would the next chapter look like?

“When COVID hit, it happened to coincide with the lease renewal on our studio in San Francisco,” Eric recalls. “They had been great landlords, and they basically gave us an extension on the lease to get our act together. Over the years, we had accumulated a massive amount of stuff. So we had to go through that, and we took the last of Bill’s drawings to the UC Berkeley archives. COVID made us think about where we were as a firm, where we wanted to be, and what we wanted to be doing. It was a good time to reevaluate things.”

Design DNA

Would Eric, after all these years, go out on his own as a sole practitioner and practice under his name alone? Certainly, that was a viable possibility. But baked into his DNA, as it was with all the partners, is that Turnbull code: a tremendous respect for the landscape and a humble approach to synthesizing nature, climate, and program.

Bill’s work at Sea Ranch, a coastal community in Northern California, helped create the model for site-sensitive domestic architecture. The work was modern but steeped in the modest traditions of industrial and agricultural buildings—elemental and efficient. Eric, Mary, and Stefan never strayed from this path, and it sets them apart from many of their peers.

As Eric was pondering his own path, Mary suggested an alternative. “I’d been thinking about how to restructure, and she said, why not keep on with TGH?” he recalls. The market was returning, with a special vigor and appetite for just the kind of houses TGH excels in—rural retreats in beautiful places. And that hotel project was beginning to heat up again.

The stars aligned for a refreshed TGH venture, with Eric at the helm. He’s reassembled key members of the band—Jule Tsai, who’s worked for the firm for 15 years; Sarah Dewey, AIA, 8 years; and Matthew Waxman, Matt Au, and Yan Huang, who’s working as a consultant from his home in England. The San Francisco studio is gone, and everyone is working from home. It’s certainly a change from the bustle and buzz of a highly collaborative open office. Now there’s Slack, Zoom, and SketchUp, combined with cautious in-person site visits to Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Carmel.

“I’m of the age where I do miss the studio culture,” Eric says. “And we may look at space in the future. But I think what will happen is we’ll move to a hybrid model of working from home and the studio.

“It’s an interesting mix right now of the virtual and the physical. Our kind of work—small scale buildings—requires intense construction management to get it the way we and the clients want it. Those site visits keep the work grounded and keep it from getting too abstract.”

There’s that DNA kicking in again. TGH’s dedication to putting the site and clients first is matched by a remarkable amount of architectural restraint. Design is never celebrated for its own sake—it results from solving problems of place and program, while also implementing sound standards of sustainable design and construction. Their solutions are always beautiful and original—a seemingly inevitable marriage of house and landscape that allows their owners to fully inhabit both realms. Although thoroughly modern, the firm’s houses are never cold and hard-edged; they never lose their warm domesticity.

It’s this delicate touch that keeps clients returning, and it’s especially appropriate to this particular moment in time. “We are busier than ever,” says Eric. “In fact, we’re at the point where we’re trying to figure out if we need to hire another person.”

Part of the crunch is that $40 million hotel project, an extension of Long Meadow Ranch winery, which the firm designed a number of years back. And then there’s the renewed demand for those rural retreats. “As it was with the firm, the pandemic has caused a lot of people to reassess where they live and work,” he notes. “Sea Ranch added fiber-optic internet, so that’s enabled a lot of people to work remotely from there.” Even after all these years, TGH still does a brisk business in Sea Ranch houses.

Although the firm primarily designs second homes, their clients often ask for houses that could function as a retirement home “one day.” So they are more fully developed and programmed than simple weekend cottages.

Simple Little Buildings

The custom work is bread and butter for TGH, but it’s ever more time consuming to execute. There are Title 24 energy-efficiency standards to meet (or exceed), fire concerns along the Wildland Urban Interface, and earthquake codes. Not only do the complexities of permitting and code compliance tax a small firm’s production capacity, they call for coordinating multiple consultants.

TGH’s longevity gives them an advantage over younger firms because they have a deep bench of experts they can call upon when needed, and the expertise to know when it’s necessary to do so. “We have an amazing energy consultant,” Eric says. “Good things come out of this complexity—houses are much more sustainable. But we need a lot of production capability just to meet permit requirements. It’s a very cumbersome situation. On the architect’s side, it adds at least another 10% to the time involved.”

“Back when Bill was first practicing, those were simple little buildings,” he adds. “We know so much more now about what we need to do and how we need to build. And the great thing is, people are fully on board with it. Of the projects I have right now, one is completely off the grid and two houses are aiming at net-zero. Clients come in wanting this.”

The complexity and expense of today’s “simple buildings” is regrettable, indeed. But those infused with the TGH DNA will rest lightly, durably, and beautifully on the land.

See full previous coverage of Turnbull Griffin Haesloop projects here:

2020 RDAA | Custom Rural or Vacation House | SkyFall | Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects

Case Study: Cloverdale Residence by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop

Other Work by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop

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