About

I was born in 1950 and spent my youth living on a cotton farm five miles south of Chandler, Arizona. We lived on about 20 acres of cleared land in the middle of vast areas of cotton and fields. This land was bounded by the Santa Fe railroad tracks, an irrigation canal and Arizona State Route 87, which was then the main road from Phoenix to Tucson. My playground included a railroad siding with grain silos, a cotton gin along with neat rows of cotton bales in the fall, an irrigation canal, tractors, trucks, a busy highway and the nearby desert. The future was coming, heralded by the sonic booms of jets from the nearby Air Force base. My parents had a small, modern house next to the highway, and I have vivid memories of when they built an addition to it when I was 4 years old. About that time my father also managed the construction of a large cotton gin on the property. I could climb around inside when it was not operating. I was told that I decided to become an architect around that time and never wavered from that path.

Chandler was then a very small town, growing from a population of 3,379 in 1950, to nearly 10,000 by 1960. The downtown area was built around a large grass lawn, defined by the rows of shops that featured deep porticos which shaded the sidewalks. This was a layout influenced by the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century. The urban space was bisected by a large, open irrigation canal lined with mature cottonwood trees. The historic San Marcos Hotel, which opened in 1913, anchored the downtown. The hotel lent a cosmopolitan air to this small burg, with visiting actors and business moguls arriving via private rail cars and airplanes.

The town also had another interesting piece of architectural history. Dr. A. J. Chandler summoned Frank Lloyd Wright to create the design for a new hotel to be called “San Marcos in the Desert.” Wright and his apprentices camped in the desert to be closer to the site of the envisioned hotel. We were able to explore the remnants of Wright’s temporary camp, called Ocatilla, until it was overrun by new housing developments. Wright and Chandler’s proposed hotel was a victim of the 1929 stock market crash. However, Wright and his entourage returned to Chandler in the late 1930s and rented a place known as the “Hacienda” to the east of downtown, where they created massive study models of Wright’s notable Broadacre City development concept.

As the 1960s approached, Chandler was home to the noted modern architect, Glenn A. McCollum. The rest of my time in Chandler was spent in historic, and very modern schools courtesy of McCollum.

Eventually, this former four-year old, who dreamed of becoming an architect, was accepted into the College of Architecture at Arizona State University at age 17—never mind the high school career counselor’s pleadings to at least consider other options. Once I enrolled, it took no time at all to realize I had no idea what architecture was all about. Fortunately for me, the college was highly ranked, then second only to UC Berkeley, and had a talented faculty deeply invested in teaching.

At one informal meeting, the founding dean, James Elmore, asked the students when they had decided to become an architect. I replied that I had that idea when I was four. Elmore paused, then thoughtfully said, “I’ve always thought that the ideal age to decide to pursue architecture was at age three.”

The curriculum was a blend of building, site and landscape design. The focus was always on the proposed building site, sometimes explored by having the class camp overnight at different locations to fully experience the many aspects of a desert site.

I was very fortunate to be invited to spend a summer at Professor Jim Flynn’s office. Flynn was a modernist architect educated at Harvard and he designed many buildings composed of glass, steel and brick. Interestingly, his architectural partner Gerald Doyle later became known as the father of historic preservation in Arizona for his work restoring older buildings. Once again, my influences included the intersection of the appreciation of historic sites along with the adventure of the modern.

The preservation of older buildings, or adaptive re-use of them, was not part of the curriculum at that time. In fact, the appreciation for historic buildings and sites was just beginning in the 1970s. In third-year studio class, we took a field trip to San Francisco and the Bay Area. We visited some early examples of adaptive re-use, notably The Cannery and Ghirardelli Square. Visits to Bernard Maybeck’s early 20th-century works awakened an appreciation for historic architecture as having a place among the new, which created the fabric of a wonderful city. We also visited the famous modernist landscape works and public fountains designed by Lawrence Halprin, which invited the public to interact with outdoor spaces. This was also the time of the first Earth Day, and the “Design With Nature” book by Ian McHarg was bringing an entirely new way to consider the environmental impacts of design and building.

All this idealism along with great intentions was about to conflict with the reality of the profession. 1973 was no time for college graduates. The oil crisis had negatively impacted the national economy to the extent that finding a job with an architectural firm was a near impossibility. At that time, a graduate architectural intern had to work three years for a licensed architect in order to be admitted to the licensing exams.

I caught a break in 1974 when my childhood friend and fellow graduate Michael MacVittie indicated that the firm at which he worked was interviewing. I was hired and started at Orcutt / Winslow when they had just five employees. (They later grew to be among the largest firms in the state.) This was a great position to be in, since everyone shared their knowledge on a constant basis in order for all employees to be fully capable. The projects were meaningful, and the firm’s attitude was based on building responsibly with durable materials such as steel, concrete and brick. Unfortunately, this job abruptly ended right before the holidays, when they were forced to reduce their staff. I am grateful for those eleven months of working closely with seasoned and principled architects.

As the recession deepened, I found myself unemployed for long stretches. Occasionally, I worked for A. Wayne Smith on a part-time basis. Smith was a landscape architect, ASU professor and land planner. I was intrigued by the exposure to these aspects of the creative process and later applied this broader knowledge to my own practice.

I consider myself lucky to have worked off and on for these two firms that were idealistic in their design approach and effective in their implementation. During the many jobless stretches, I studied and passed my licensing exams. It was time to start making moves towards opening my own practice, which I eventually did in 1981.

About this time I met Steve Martino, a landscape architect who had recently opened his office. I hadn’t met many people in the work environment who still had passion for design, but Steve certainly did. I found myself working part time for him at night and over weekends, and was enthused by working on projects that strove for excellence in design and execution. We ended up sharing an office for about ten years, both of us achieving some measure of success along with the satisfaction of pursuing our own idea of a design-centered practice.

At the beginning of my own practice, I resolved to avoid “developer” work if I possibly could. Things are very different today, but back then, the overriding goal of development was to make money for the owners. Money spent on design was not at all valued, and I suffered many indignities such as being told “architects are a dime a dozen.” Speculative builders were not at all interested in buildings constructed responsibly with an eye towards durability or energy efficiency, let alone the pursuit of design excellence.

For me, the antidote to this atmosphere of low expectations was working directly with end users as they could readily see the benefits of the design process. As typical for young practitioners, it was the design of private homes that opened the door to bigger things. My early residences focused on lessons learned from school about respecting and responding to the building sites in the desert. About four years into practice, I garnered the commission for the New Times Building, the headquarters for the Phoenix New Times weekly newspaper, which was to be housed in the 1927 Booker T. Washington School in downtown Phoenix. The newspaper executives had just concluded interviewing several firms and were not finding what they were after. I was put in touch with Phil Gordon, an early developer of historic properties, who was managing the project for the ownership of the Phoenix New Times. The project was large, involving many people and entities. This completed design led to my first AIA awards, along with an opportunity to teach a design studio at ASU, my alma mater.

Another high point in my practice materialized when Paula and Larry Kornegay were referred to me for a residential project. They were the first people ever to come to an initial meeting bearing architecture books featuring Tadao Ando and other internationally known designers, instead of the usual home-magazine clippings. The Kornegays owned a small, untouched 1955 hillside home originally designed by Edward Loomis Bowes, a former apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright. Larry is a very talented artist, and we soon embarked on a long and productive journey.

Initially, we designed a complete re-think of the Kornegays’ house by reorienting it to the views across the valley. Larry was open to considering any ideas and he brought a considerable knowledge of materials and craftsmanship to the process. A few years later, he contacted me about renovating a small commercial space that he wanted to use for his art and design practice. Finally, he and Paula enlisted me to help create their concrete casting facility in downtown Phoenix. They created a very successful line of sculptural, outdoor concrete accessories which they later sold to Landscape Forms.

The latter half of the decade was surprising. Within one year, I found myself working on three of Arizona’s most respected cultural institutions—Desert Botanical Garden, the Heard Museum and Tohono Chul Park. These properties were all feeling growing pains and were seeking guidance on how to accommodate the current and future influx of visitors.

As you will see in their respective chapters, Desert Botanical Garden and the Heard Museum both completed their major expansions by the end of the decade. The most satisfying aspect of these projects are the many times I have been called back to consult on additional projects. The same applies to Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, which will be featured, along with ASU’s Old Main in a future publication featuring historic properties.

Along with the continuing work on cultural institutions, this decade brought opportunities to enhance downtown Scottsdale. In 2002, I was part of a large interdisciplinary team selected to master plan the Arizona Canal between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard. The City of Scottsdale had been fostering this concept for many years, and finally the elements were in place to proceed. Notably, the high-tension power lines along the canal banks had been buried, and the canal walls were rebuilt to act as retaining walls for adjacent underground parking.

Our charge was to conduct the necessary public outreach, and then conceptualize possible improvements along the canal. During this period the City provided us with a storefront space on Fifth Avenue near the canal to allow greater public access to the process. After the master plan was accepted, certain elements of the project were assigned to us as the architects.

The first project realized was the Marshall Way Bridge, which functions as a pedestrian link between Scottsdale Fashion Square and the Fifth Avenue retail districts. Additionally, the bridge was designed to act as a shaded plaza for various events. Several of the first were its use as a broadcaster base for the 2008 Super Bowl and as a stage for the State of the City annual address. In later years, the bridge served as a mid-point anchor for the annual Canal Convergence arts festival, a major event in the city.

We were also asked to design public restrooms for the canal events. We built a new facility on Fifth Avenue facing the bridge. Along with that, there were various canal components to design such as the cast-in-place decorative canal edging and the steel guardrails.

Later, we were hired by Scottsdale Public Art to assist in their largest project, the Soleri Bridge and Pedestrian Plaza at the east end of the canal. It was an honor to work alongside Arizona architect and artist Paolo Soleri, and help realize his vision for the project.

Another incredible opportunity came our way with the renovation and redesign of the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts. Seven years and ten million dollars later, it reopened to rave reviews.

I also decided to build our own office near the canal at 4400 North Civic Center Plaza. This was, of course, a major milestone for my practice, as well as a wonderful place to work. Add in Tesseract School and North Mountain Visitor Center, and it was quite a decade for us.

As was the case for many, the Great Recession slowed down the pace of work. However, the Heard Museum called unexpectedly with a very interesting project. What started out as a plaque noting the contributions of American Indian Veterans, evolved into a sculpture garden with a wall of water as a backdrop. It became the first National Memorial of the American Indian Veterans. I could never forget the dedication ceremony, with dozens of tribes represented, solemnly dancing their way from the bottom of the museum’s grass amphitheater to the memorial.

Despite this recession, other opportunities presented themselves. Long-time friend and collaborator Jon Kitchell had purchased the landmark Beef Eaters Restaurant in Phoenix and invited me to be a member of the redevelopment team. I attended my first AIA luncheon there in 1970 with Jim Flynn. (I was somewhat taken aback by the heavy smoking and drinking, but that’s just how it used to be in those days.) We rechristened this adaptive re-use project, which has several tenants, as The Newton, in honor of legendary Phoenix restaurateur Jay Newton, who created the original Beef Eaters.

We continued this architect/redeveloper model for several other projects, notably the Orchard restaurants in Phoenix, the Alhambra student housing complex in Mesa, and lastly, the Arrive Hotel on Camelback Road in Uptown Phoenix.

This decade also brought more work at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, the opportunity to teach design studios at ASU along with this book.

I am ready for whatever comes next—something interesting always does.