“Austin is like a Venus flytrap,” says Heather McKinney, founding principal of McKinney York Architects based in Austin, Texas. “Particularly if you’re a Texan. You think of it as a place to go, and then you never leave.” [caption id="attachment_21906" align="aligncenter" width="400"] The remnant of a...
Not many creative professions are easily passed from one generation to another, but at Field Architecture in Los Altos, at the northern end of California’s Silicon Valley, a father and son are creating dwellings that are memorable not only for their extraordinary beauty but also...
Architecture with a capital A is what Craig Hoopes has always aspired to at his Sante Fe, New Mexico, firm — not simply building. Yes, a house is primarily a shelter, built to satisfy its owner’s needs, but he believes it can also be a...
Discovering landscape architecture at Texas A&M University was hardly David Hocker’s aha moment. For a kid who loved the outdoors, made pocket money doing yard work, and had some great art teachers in high school, it simply seemed logical. “It was kind of a gut feeling...
“When Kate and Vera started the company, they deliberately gave it the name Arterra versus using their names,” says Gretchen Whittier, a partner at Arterra Landscape Architects. “The intention was that the company was going to be bigger than either of them.” Arterra — a combination...
“I never like the way our buildings are photographed,” says Kevin Alter, founder of Alterstudio based in Austin, Texas. “Architectural photography is mostly trying to describe a form. You never get a sense of how a room is sculpted by the way light comes into...
Often in a beautifully designed hotel, we find ourselves gazing around and wishing we could replicate the experience at home. It’s rare to find an AIA award-winning architect who marries residential design with interior design, but at Daniel Joseph Chenin, Ltd. the team has experience...
“I always wanted to have them design a house for me,” says Candy Spitzer of her friends, Juan Miró and Miguel Rivera of Miró Rivera Architects. “But as they were getting more famous, I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.” [caption id="attachment_19478" align="aligncenter" width="500"] The...
When the owners of a parcel on Santa Barbara’s vast, historic Hollister Ranch asked Dan Weber and Steve Willson to design a guest house, they suggested the architects hike up to the site, eschewing the usual dirt road, to take a first look. Fifteen-minutes, a...
Some architects say the fun of problem-solving keeps their practices vital. But those at Prentiss Balance Wickline (PBW) say that it’s finding a site’s potential that excites them. That may sound like an optimistic way of expressing the same concept, but after a discussion with...