I'm really reading the bye.

That was provided to me and
I decided to read it through

because what the way that it
reads is the story of the day.

Jeff Shepherd walked out of here.

Basically until the day
he came back today.

Following a teaching fellowship
that he had here at Tech and

there are several people here who say
that he was he actually taught them.

And then an apprenticeship at
the Mother Earth News magazine.

He moved to Denver to join the prestigious
design firm W C and partners.

Within two years of leaving Georgia.

Jeff was a pup appointed
associate in charge of design.

Two years and was responsible for several
award winning projects at that time.

Including the Winter Park Ski Area base
facility and the Jefferson County Sheriff.

And detention facility.

In one thousand nine hundred eighty three.

Jeff and his partner Herb Roth
established the firm Roth and

Shepherd Architects A sixty
six years later.

Jeff was named by the Denver a as
its young architect of the year.

This is like five or
six years out of school.

As a principal in charge of design
on his projects have received

over fifty American Institute
of Architects awards and

twenty awards from industry publications.

Noteworthy projects include
work at the Denver Art Museum.

For the lobby and shop.

Room and Board furniture stores.

Various restaurants like
the vest dipping Grio grill and

the Cucina Co Laurie restaurant
corellas restaurant and

over fifteen Tokyo Joe's restaurants

Scandinavian Scandinavian
designs furniture stores.

Colorado State Patrol prototype facilities

some there's restaurants and
restaurants in jails.

Jeff.

Brighton police department.

Milliken police department Windsor
police department and several award

winning residential projects from one
nine hundred eighty nine to present.

Geoff has served on twenty five design and

award juries and
seven design review committees.

You can tell he's obviously recognised and

saw because of his of his
expertise as a designer.

He was the design coordinator for
thirty for the third year

Environmental Design Program at
the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He has been a guest lecturer and
jerk there in Denver Oklahoma State.

Now Georgia Tech and lectures.

To the visionary
leadership class in School

of Business at the University
of Colorado in Denver.

Drawings of his have been published
in the McGraw Hill press book

entitled composite drawings techniques for
architectural presentation.

I looked them up.

Incredibly Wonderful layered
representations windows and

curtains and and
buildings on scart Ment's and mountains

and those drawings have been acquired for
the cult for the permanent collection.

Of the Denver Art Museum.

So that was up until now.

And so
the next chapter in Jeff Shepherd's bio.

Is he then rose and mounted the stage.

Welcome Jeff.

Welcome back.

So I'm going to give Jeff a copy
of our Since in your book.

One hundred years of architecture
education at Georgia Tech.

Well thank you.

Well thank you for having me here today.

I probably look like I came from another
environment because I did I started out

this morning in Denver and
it was thirty five degrees at my house and

snowing about five hundred feet above
where I live eight thousand feet.

So it's actually a pleasant experience
to come here into this weather.

But today I have a number of slides in
fact I have a hundred slides here today so

that would give you an idea when we
go through a really fast today but

I thought what I do is give you an idea
of where we started where I started and

how that evolved into starting up a firm
and how that's going to taking us through

this last twenty or
thirty years in business and

especially the last two or three years
which have actually been successful for

my firm in that we're one of the few
firms that's been able to grow in

the last three years we've grown
about fifteen or twenty percent.

Just based on the niche markets that
we have when I left when I left

Georgia Tech and packed up my car I was
actually on my way to California and

my car broke down in in Denver Colorado.

It broke down there so

I didn't have a job I didn't know who I
was going to talk to but within two days.

I went ahead and

got an apartment interviewed at much else
office got a job at much else office and

started working three days later he
gave me a project and he said he.

Where I know you don't know how to ski or

we're going to give you a project up at
the Winter Park base area we want you to

do the base facility building
want you to design it for

us so that was my first project with them
and of course all I knew how to do at that

time was really sketch and draw I'd
never really designed to build and so.

So I so

I did I said well one of the one of the
things I'd like to do is learn how to ski.

So they gave me a one year free ski
pass at the Winter Park which was

great you know so there's all these perks
that come along with with working and

in this industry but so the first
the first ketch I did of the of the base

facility is actually this one up here
on the left which is taken from the ski

lift as I think I was
tumbling off the the chair.

Trying to figure out how to ski.

But the the thing that I recognised
immediately on travelling to the west and

starting to think about what's
appropriate for the for

that region the western mountain region
was that the vastness of the landscape

that you really don't understand that
until you leave a part of the country and

go somewhere else and we recognise that
a lot of the architecture that have been

done especially skeery architecture
have been done incorrectly and

really wasn't a response to
the environment what was a response to

somebodies aesthetic idea of what
should be there because they'd seen it.

Maybe somewhere else or Log Cabin be
very an architectural with sloped roofs

is what they were building for ski
lodges throughout the Colorado area and

we thought it be a good
idea to question that.

So with this first with this first
project we looked at three things really.

We looked at precedent buildings in
the area which were really vertical

mine shaft architecture projects which
were volumetrically vertical and

then assimilated together so
they were additive buildings and

we also looked at the ski industry
itself and how it was evolving.

It was going from wood to metal
to composite materials and then

we also looked at the environment itself
the sun the diarrheal temperature changes.

Issues that were directly related to
the context those issues are the things.

That influence buildings that
should influence building so

we developed the first we developed
the first base facility building in winter

part as a as a project that would
actually be added on to over time but

the idea was that we took we actually
went up into the mountains found some

of these these tall mine shaft buildings
we sketched out the shadow patterns

that they were making on the ground and
used an abstraction of the shadow pattern

coming off of these buildings as an idea
for laying out the pattern of this

building on the ground both horizontally
and vertically and we also looked at that

notion of a shadow on the ground in
the snow is just a wonderful thing that

contrasts between the black and the white
and if you're building in the mountains.

You're building an object.

It's not going to be hidden.

It's going to be exposed.

So our idea was well let's do it.

Let's talk about this contrast
between the manmade and nature and

let's push that as far as we can.

So with this with this first building
you see that's what a lot of the area

architecture was was here and back here
that we looked at in a different way and

we said now we're going to we're
going to kind of rethink the whole

idea of what a what a ski building
should be in addition to that I

had experience at Georgia Tech
in a solar energy studio.

So we understood a lot of the principles
of solar design this building was

actually off the grid for the first
year that was that it was occupied and

it was off the grid in that we
had our own heat sink inside

the building we had
a ventilation shaft right here.

We were using all natural daylight.

Trama wall on the other side of
the building the building actually sat on

a fifty foot deep area of rock that was
blasted out of this tunnel right here.

And so we use that fifty feet a rock that
was under the building as the heat source

for the building and so we were able to
figure out the diurnal temperature changes

and how we would get the heat
the flowed up into the building and

we were able to actually keep this
off the grid for two years it had a.

Generator operating the lights that
had no mechanical system inside it.

It was all natural.

Well if any of you know about
the ski industry you know these

a worn Miller movies this kind of
looks like it's out of a war and

Miller movie right here but one of the one
of the things we came up with was that

the a building that's designed for the ski
slopes is really about entertainment and

theater and so the building was actually
designed to spill down into the land and

when you look at something like this what
you're not recognizing on this building

is there's fifteen feet of
snow on the ground right here.

And so the building is actually designed
with its terraces and steps and

all that to actually change and shift
in its appearance and use as the snow

rises so we can actually we've actually
built the building to allow for

a twenty five foot snow drift to happen in
front of it all the way down to the all

the way down to the base so
in the summertime.

It looks like a completely different
looks like a completely different

building because the way
to gauge is the ground.

Now that's what we called I call that

sort of our initial experience in
entertainment type facilities.

After doing that building.

And I think it's because nobody else
wanted to work on it in the office but

after doing that building the principal
in the firm came to me and

said look we've got a number
of projects going on.

Nobody really wants to
work on this next project.

It was a jail and
I said well I'll take it.

I'll work on it and so the first thing
I did was actually do a little bit of

research and and you're probably familiar
with some of this image right here but

it's a panopticon it's a seven hundred
ninety Attalia imprisoned type and

the idea behind the Panopticon is
that there's an eye in the center and

that the arrangement of rooms around that
center is actually based on your field

your cone of vision what you can see from
sixty degrees standing still at a guard

could see a number of rooms at that
at that aperture of sixty degrees and

that sets up the distance
the guard sits from the cells and

it sets up the segments of the size
of the cells and everything.

So it's a real interesting
geometric progression per session.

It takes place in a building like this
I base that I base the Jefferson County

detention facility which houses five
hundred inmates on on the Panopticon and

these sketches right here were the initial
sketches that were done for the for

the facility where as I mentioned at the
beginning that we're dealing with land and

we're dealing with an environment that's
much more vast than what you have here.

So what we're dealing
with is an objects that

in the landscape that have
a basically an appearance.

That's much different than what you can.

What you get here because you can cover
things up landscaping can happen here.

Buildings have a different relationship to
the land in Colorado and in the plains.

Once you build something it's an iconic
element it sits there on the land by

itself and will be that way for a long
time so the precedents that we use for

these buildings many times come from

other elements around them
such as storage tanks.

Agrarian architecture
sheds industrial buildings

because those are the things
that stand out.

But it's mainly these sort of
containment vessels that stand out.

So the idea of doing the idea of doing
a panopticon actually came from.

The notion of the geometry of the space
but also this notion of containment and

that there were there happen to be
water tanks around the site right here.

And so that whole idea of containment.

And then the idea of lifting the contain
lifting the containers off the ground

was what what we used as the Basically
as the party for the building and

that the public spaces for the facility
would actually slide underground half of

them were buried underground and then pop
up in through the building for visitation.

But the elements themselves that were
housing the inmates they would be treated

as very secure containers so the
connection that we made on the building

was not just Panopticon from history but
it was also the context and

it was the containment vessels
that were surrounding the site.

So these are these are issues that
came up and these are ideas that.

Came up and started to infiltrate a lot
of our work from from this point on.

But but what the reason I'm showing these
projects initially right here before I

had my own firm is that they
actually established the two niche

markets that we still work in right now
we still do entertainment projects and

we still do government facilities at
the very extreme from each other and

we found out that it's a great area to
be in because when the economy is good

restaurant business goes up people
go out to eat may like to go in or

tame themselves when the economy is bad.

Well the government just prints money.

And then they go ahead and build buildings
themselves so they fund their projects so

we actually figured by going in
these two niche markets we have

both ends of the economy covered.

And by I think the size of our firm in
the last fifteen years we've been between

fifteen and twenty people were at eighteen
right now that it's actually held

true that we've seen that pattern exist so
right now we have more civic work.

And we have entertainment work in
the office just by the nature of of

the business.

After that project after
the gel project my partner and

I decided to go out of my first client was
an entrepreneur who had a lot of money but

he wanted to live off the land on
the west slope of of Colorado.

So he wanted to live off the grid.

So the idea that we started to explore
here was that there are things happening

in the on the west slope and that's
really where the mountains meet meet

the plains that that's an extreme
juxtaposition that takes place.

It's not gradual it's actually very
extreme in some of these conditions so

we looked at that juxtaposition and

said Well why don't we base
the architecture of his house.

What he wants on that juxtaposition So
the idea the idea is that

the idea was that a glass box would put
through it from the mountainside so

you get this tension between the mass of
the stone and the mass of the mountain and

the delicacy of the glass and

then in the flatlands area we look at
a vertical iconic structure just like.

You see these agrarian structures out
in out in the farmland themselves their

objects their iconic images in the land
and that we would compose these elements

together and then link them with with an
environment right here that would provide

all the energy food heat source a cooling
source everything and that the family

would be able to live in portions of
the house based on the seasons so

it was a seasonal house it was completely
off the grid and then the drawings

that were developed for him actually start
the drawings that were developed for

the house or something that I had started
working on a little bit while I was

at Tech but it was this idea because
we had no computer so we were drawing.

There was this idea that through
using a composite system of

overlaying layers of drawings layers
of two dimensional drawings plan

section elevation changing
the scales of those drawings and

then underlying the entire system with a
grid either derived from the structure or

derived from something
implied over the landscape

that those drawings would begin to
inform each other and by the time those

drawings informed each other even that
up with another thing at the end.

So it's like the creation
it's like a process where

you've started through drawing
the evolution of two dimensional drawing

that something else happens through
that layer in process of drawing.

And that this drawing right here this
drawing right here which was actually

drawn at a scale of probably six
feet by eight feet at the time but

this drawing right here has over fifty
drawing superimposed on top of it and

you can see the underlying scale.

You can start to see the section of the
building right here you can see it drawn

in a larger scale at
an elevation right here.

You can see the floor plan right here in
the site plan is actually embedded in

the floor plan here underlying the entire
system is a grid based on the Hecht acre

irrigation system they use in the plains
where they have irrigation machinery that

creates a circular pattern in
the landscape for crops and

that that circular pattern is
embedded inside the square of the.

And itself.

And so the the idea is that through
layering the macro context by

layering the site in its macro context and
then working its way into the individual

components of the building and then into
the planned section diagram that we're

actually able to see how materials
patterns start to inform each other

in eventually you end up with something
else but imbedded in the drawing itself

is a thought process on the evolution
of the house or they didn't get built.

But it was a great process and
fun to work on and

go through but
it led it was an interesting idea and

as the and we were for the first three
years we didn't have computers they

came in about one thousand nine hundred
five or eighty six into the office.

But based on the Jeffco Jael we were able
to leverage that into our first project

with Denver and Denver.

We were able to get that job.

And I can understand how we can
understand now how we got it and

I thought it was actually should have been
it was pretty obvious but what we did

because it was what we call an R.F.P.
were a government goes out and asked for

proposals from different architects
what we did was we went ahead and

visited the police station that was
going to be replaced at midnight and

they were having a shift change and we
asked the police if we could go on a ride

with them and
the cop said Sure you can come on.

Or you can come on a ride with us because
we wanted to understand what their job

was and what they felt about just the
environment the community they were in and

we went on a ride with them and of course
there was a robbery taking place about

an hour after that ride and
we were right in the middle of it.

So we got to really experience what was
going on but we bonded with the police

at the time too and we were able to come
back after the roll call was going on and

after the brief and meet with all
the cops so they were our best friends.

So we spent four hours
basically with the police and

they knew who we were even though we
hadn't done a police station before.

And they gave us the project.

So we got the job and the the drawings for

that project are all
located down in the body.

But what these police buildings in is
just of simple one storey building

you can see above.

But these police buildings are are
basically low cost structures at that time

the cops were about protection and
about enclosure and

about security through the years.

That's changed quite a bit and that will
evolve and I'll talk about that as we get

into more slides but at this point it
was more about protecting themselves and

creating a protective environment for
themselves and so we looked at that and

said Well that then because we've
got an abundance of sunlight that

we're dealing with here.

What we'll do is we'll try to bring
in light from above will try to

bring it in from the roof from the windows
from slits and inside the building.

So we'll maintain a level of security.

But we'll start talking
about how that security.

How we can also bring in light and
and keep that security level so

what we were actually looking at was not
light for the sake of the day lighting

interior space but we were actually
looking at light and shadows and

how shadows play across materials and
how the brain light into the building can

actually change the emotion of the people
that are working in the building and

how these cops were working
at a horrible spaces and

how we had to bury about fifty percent of
the program underground to save money and

how we needed to get light down
inside the building itself.

So we were dealing with all that in
a drawing format here to think about

just the nature of shifting
the shadows across the building

as adding an element of
excitement to the architecture.

But at the same time we were also talking
to the cops about what they do and

one of the things that
came out of this project.

It's very simple.

It's pretty straightforward is that
the end of this system at the end of

the central spine is
a cylinder at the very end.

You can just pick it up there.

At one point during our programming
discussions with the police one of

the cops mentioned that he started talking
to us about how they interviewed and

what happens during an interview when they
get a perp into a little room when they're

trying to get the information out of.

And he said what we don't want him
to do is ever engage or ever will.

Look at something and
draw their attention away from me.

We want them always looking at us so

we want the perp staring at us on
the other side of the table if

they can look at something else
in the room and focus on it.

Sometimes they can just
kind of get lost and

we can't tell if they're
telling the truth or not.

So we said well that's interesting.

So what we did was we just
designed a cylinder at the end

of the hallway it's no corners.

And so that way they couldn't sit in
there and focus on anything they'd be in

around room and the two of them would
have to interact with each other or

that one little thing designing
a round room was a made up.

Just a huge difference to the cops because
they realized that we were listening to

them and thinking about the way they work
and these guys were our best buddies and

they still work with them and
they still recommend us thirty years after

we did that after we did that project so
that's the beginning of the niche.

That's the beginning of a niche market.

Now as we develop projects and I was
talking about the landscape in Colorado

a lot of our projects end up being for
small communities outside of the Denver

area a lot of people don't realize
that they think Denver's in the middle

of the mountains it's not
it's actually in the plains.

The mountains are an hour away.

They're sixty or seventy miles away.

So a lot of the projects we do
end up being on flat land and

they happen to be in agrarian somewhat
agrarian communities communities that have

grown to the east of Denver not
the west where the mountains are so

we're dealing with communities
that are evolving and growing and

expanding to the east of Denver and
they're taking over farmland and

land that used to be dedicated
to just growing crops and

and irrigating fields etc and so

as we started to as we started to work
with our different clientele we realized

with our clientele in that area we
realized that we could capture some of

the past by responding to the agrarian
nature of the of the context so

one of our the projects that we
did about fifteen years ago.

It's called Evan's community complex.

This project was for
a community that wanted to engaged.

Everything together in their
creative city said Town Center.

So they wanted to have a senior center a
police station a youth center a gymnasium

everything they could think of and they
about fifty thousand square feet of space.

They interviewed six or
seven architects for the project.

And all the architects said
they couldn't do it for

the amount of money they had
ninety dollars a square foot

is how much they had to build this
building which isn't a lot of money.

It wasn't a lot of money back then
it's impossible to do it now but.

They asked us based on our police
station that we had done for

Denver they asked us if we could if
we would think about the project and

come back to them with something that
might work based on their budget and

we said Sure we'll take a look and

this is the first time we started thinking
about the notion of going to another

industry like the pre-engineered
metal industrial industry and

saying hey you guys have buildings that
you do you make pretty engineer buildings.

How can we kind of tie in what what we
want to do with what you have because what

you make you can do a lot cheaper than
what the than what we can do custom So

the idea for this project was that we had
a we had an interesting site the site

on the previous slide you can see the site
actually had industrial complex on

one side of it and then on the other side
of the site is a highway right here.

And so our idea for the project was to
just create a wall across the middle of

the site and on one side locate these
plug in industrial buildings and on

the other side the face of the community
located more of the public entities that

relate back to that community very
simple idea a very simple party.

And that these would be a little more
specialized buildings on this side and

these would be more of the industrialized
buildings on that side and

then if we were able to do that
the lobby actually stretched across

the entire site at six hundred feet
long and about twenty feet wide.

So they have different entry
points along the lobby.

But if we were able to do that basically
about ninety percent of the building was.

Pretty engineer and we could just plug
it in but what you actually get to see

on the building is the wall and the public
facilities that are in front of it.

So that developed into a couple of
sketches where you can see the initial

ideas where we're basically trying
to deal with the assimilation

of pre-engineered buildings on
the back side right here and

then something that's a little more public
oriented on the front side with the wall

slicing through as the as the lobby for
the building.

And then it got built and we use some
iconic forms like just like a silo.

Because if you if you really know what
a silo is they actually have a great and

open floor a great floor so
they can allow air to to dry out the crops

where we put the kids vending machines and
all their video machines inside that and

then it dissipates the heat
under the great floor.

And so we're able to actually use the
technology of that industry to to create

a functional assimilation inside and
then inside the buildings in the lobby and

then along the route of the lobby and
we introduce interventions to draw

a special attention to
areas like reception zones.

Well the Colorado state patrol saw that
building and then came to us because this

is the kind of facility they were in
throughout the state of Colorado.

They were actually call
a state patrol there

any state patrol in any in any state
basically they live in their cars.

And so they're building is really
a place to park their cars and

then get dressed and do other things.

So it's really kind of a support
facility with a garage.

You know attached to it but they were
actually working out of facilities like

that and they came to us and they asked us
if we could do the same thing for them.

Could we come up with a prototype.

Could we come up with an idea for them.

That over the next twenty years
that they could build one

per year one every two years we're
now on our ninth one with them so

we have work with them for
the next ten years.

It's already lined up.

Right now but

they asked us if they asked us if we could
do that if we could bring in a budget.

Well they had eighty.

Dollars a square foot at the time to do it
so that was it really isn't a lot you can

do with that kind of budget but
we said we'll take a look at it see it.

We can do we said we'll break the program.

First what we'll do is break the program
or break it down into support and

then we'll break it down into a garage and
then that way in any site conditioner and

we can change the support building we
can shift around the garage building and

we can make it work and then we'll
have a connection between the two and

then we'll further inside the support
built inside that support building

We'll break that down into
your program as well or

break it down into reception interstitial
zone and then secure areas in

the back here connected to the garage and
that once we establish that that pattern

of how the program is subdivided we can
go to the interior of the building and

then we can manipulate the inside
whatever their needs are as long

as we develop a circulation system that
connects and works through the building.

So what we did was we developed a kit
of parts and you can see the kit

of parts you can see the killer parts
in the in the drawing here that we're

not only dealing with killer parts inside
in the NIPA waiting inside the building.

We're also manipulating the volumes
of the skin of the building

attachments that that indicate entry
the public zone of the building as well.

So all these pieces and
parts could be assimilated together.

Depending on what each specific needs were
and then we could use that as a prototype.

And then that prototype could be
could evolve into other shapes or

forms based on the industrial
language that was present.

Near adjacent to any of the sites and it
just so happened that a lot of these sites

were located in industrial yards or
industrial areas or

right along the highway and so
they were they were actually it was

actually interesting because most
of the time these were adjacent to.

Similar building types in that they
were these shed like objects or

industrialize storage facilities so
the buildings just sort of fit right into

the surrounding adjacent and
vernacular and

a few of the objects are right here that
we've built you can see how they shift or

change color of the materials or
the patterns on the exterior to.

Range just based on the location of where
they are so we have in this case Fruita

is the town where we did this in
the background the mountains actually have

a red tint to him and they're known for
their red mountains in the background.

There's also farm buildings
around the site that were able

to change the building and manipulate and
again it's eighty dollars a square foot.

So you can't do a lot with them but
we work with the pre-engineered industry.

And we realise that we could do a few
things by manipulating the structure

inside and exposing the structure and
learning the language of pearl ones and

bents and all this vocabulary that
they have for this building type.

So we really learned of
an accuracy of that building and

then we borrowed from
the pre-engineered industrial field.

Outfit the insides of the buildings as
well like I said Right now we're on our

we're I think we've got two in the office
that we're doing right now but

one of the things that was interesting
when we built the first five projects was

that the police the state patrol was
telling us that they noticed that there

was less there were less accidents in
speeding tickets within a certain diameter

of these buildings so what was happening
was people were recognising they were

seeing the sign on the building and
recognising these sort of iconic objects

that were happening throughout Colorado
and slowing down as they solve it.

So they loved that.

So that they actually took the shape
of the building that slope

in the which we derive from
actually also speed in motion.

We wanted the buildings to look
like they were kinetic in moving.

They they took the shape of the building
the slope and they put it on their cars.

So now their cars have this diagonal line
and then two years later they went ahead

and they put it on their badge so now
they're badge has a diagonal on it too.

So what we did was we what we ended up
doing was we actually rebranded them in so

that they have a brand and so

essentially what we were doing at
the same time all this was going on.

We were also doing retail work for clients
we were doing restaurants and retail

projects would all get into but we were
actually using some of the terminology.

The and techniques and
ideas that we have in retail.

We're branding a company we started using
that with these police and law enforcement

people recognizing that what was happening
in the law enforcement industry was they

were going from something we call reactive
policing which is where they were showing

up and responding to an accident or to
a robbery or whatever to something called

proactive policing where they were trying
to get themselves out in the community and

show that they were good people and
trying to engage with the public and

try to find out what's going
on before it actually happens.

And that's a big shift.

When you think about it go
from reactive to proactive and

it's not only a shift in the philosophy
in the way an agency operates it's

a shift in how a building
can talk about what they do.

Because if it's if it's reactive and
they're actually saying that were huddled

down here and we're only going to
respond when something happens.

So our building is about us and
protecting us when it's proactive.

It's about engaging with the community.

So the building can talk about
engaging with the community.

Well that big shift happened over from
one nine hundred eighty five to about

to now it's still happening right here
which was great for architecture so

a small town in Colorado.

That was going into this proactive
policing asked us to to look at

their facility and
around Windsor Colorado.

There are a number of agrarian farm
buildings but on one edge of our site was

this Rec Center building
that had been built as well.

So immediately there's a context
of kind of shed roof or or

shed form objects around the site.

And here is that existing
building I was showing you.

That's on the site our site is down
here and we were able to leverage

the use of a shared parking area and
then create a green that

connected this public building a community
center to our building right here.

So the idea was that we'd create
basically use our building.

Edge of village green that would connect
a public building to the police and

all the sudden the police would be part
of the public because now they're edging

a public village green and so from.

That point then we can develop the program
inside the building by putting the public

down at one end and then as you move
further down you get more and more secure.

So the idea for
this building was pretty straightforward.

It's that we have a more public
oriented shed at this point and

then we have a more what we call
non essential shed at this point

it's storing cars materials
evidence all that stuff.

So now we have this this thing that we
can develop as a as architecture as

two sheds that intersect in the point
that they intersect that is actually

a point that becomes special because it's
an intersection point it's an X. axial

intersection point volumetric intersection
point and we can take that intersection

point and then talk about what should
happen there something special.

Well what happens there is that a place
where the staff can engage in converse and

talk so it's like they're there break area
which works off of all the elements that

they need inside the building or

that idea of the sheds that idea of the
sheds then turns into a circulation system

the node where the sheds join a number of
things happened of course all the projects

I'm showing you are all sustainable as
well because that's just I'm not going to

get into that because every project we
do is either met lead gold or platinum.

It's just a normal thing that we do on one
project so I don't think it's a big deal.

It's just part of the process that we
do I think there's more important.

It's just natural that that happens
there's other things that I'm talking

about today but one of the things that
we that we wanted to deal with on

this building was it's a very straight
forward planning organization so

that very straight forward plan
actually shows a double loaded cord or

here just a hallway rooms on either
side leading into a central node one of

the things we we wanted to do with
the building was to activate that hallway.

It's on the orthogonal we could put
a skylight or a dormer above it and

bring daylight into it
which we wanted to do but

if we did something just
slight like they could.

Dormer and shift it across the orthogonal
axes move it off about twelve degrees

that that would allow
us to take that door.

Or from a low point where we don't need
a lot of light to a higher point down at

the node where we do need a lot of light
just that shift just that shift off

the orthogonal would be enough inside the
building to start thinking about how light

could actually bounce off walls and roof
and ceiling and how that shift in axes and

then start to engage and
influence what we're doing with walls and

how we're getting light so you can see
even in hand drawing we're trying to deal

with the growth of the dormer as it goes
down and how the walls in the roof and

how they all start to shift inside how
that shift starts to engage other elements

inside the corridor itself and then
again in the little diagram just see how

we're using that center point to deal with
heat and radiant cooling in a geothermal

system under the floor so that really
has everything and it has a photovoltaic

system a geothermal system that has
a passive south wall and has a troll mall.

So it's all it's got all these things but

the shift the shift in the axes
right there allowed us to do just

a slight little incident on the building
that was just enough to add some interest

inside you're seeing it from the south
side right here because one of the things

that happens in Colorado is that the South
Side sun is actually is is very extreme.

If you glaze a building on the south side
basically people covered up because it's

too much where and so what we tend to do
on the south side of our buildings is we

actually decrease the apertures at the at
the people level at the ground level and

we increase the aperture
at the upper level.

So we're dealing with bounce light
at the upper level we're dealing

with glare visual light and how to
control that at the at the lower level

we actually try to get most of our light
from the north side in the in Colorado and

so one of the things we we did with the
building was we were also questioning this

idea of protection which
the police used to be about

protection inside the building itself and
exposure and.

Pro-action that they're about now.

So the idea of an envelope of a.

Building actually eroding away and

exposing itself can speak to
the philosophy of what the force is about

which is opening themselves
up to the to the community.

So we looked at that in a in a way
of saying well it's the skin.

It's actually the roof in
the skin of the building

that provides the protection in Colorado.

Whether it's against snow when diurnal
temperature changes whatever it is

that provides the protection at the edge
of the building where the public

can gauge with it then that's where
we can erode away that system and

start to say yes but
we're also open to the public so

it's that balance of trying to deal with
security and openness to the public.

It starts to actually allow
the building to speak the language and

you can see in the background at the same
time we're also trying to speak to some of

the architecture that existed
at one edge of the site.

And you can see you can see some of those
ideas taking place especially when we

deal with the non-essential building and
we're just in closing our king area for

their cars but we're looking at
everything from that idea of protecting

an unfolding and letting the skin
wrap unfold protect and so

that's what gives the building
its its aesthetic.

As you move inside the building then you
just get a glimpse from the public area

and you just get a glimpse of the start of
that diagonal of the shift in the dormer

happening as it starts to
move down the hallway and

as you go inside the building then you
can start to see the shift taking place.

So this is a very straightforward
idea of a plan organization but

it's the shift of the dormer that starts
to actually impact and tell the walls what

to do to capture light and send it into
certain areas inside the facility itself.

Now as those shifts come together
we had one point in an office where

we were dealing with an eleven degrees
shift in the orthogonal coming together

a dry wall or it was there on site
just drywalling down that right there.

And as I arrived at the site one
day he brought me into the room and

said Look what I was able to do right
here because there's no way we could have

figured that out on drawing but
they but what happened was.

Is that these the guys who were building
the project they actually understood

what we were trying to do with that
shift and it became almost like craft or

arts and ship with them even the dry
wall or gotten gauge with it and

you can see the cops and that this is what
happens as the storm reaches the end of

the corridor basically just opens up and
creates a wider space for them to engage.

So again as we as we're working in
the rural context of Colorado and

around this is north of Denver
because this is a boulder.

We had a as the same type of situation
in terms of the landscape here but

this was our first fire facility.

We were now trying to merge from police
stations in the fire to kind of stretch

our niche market a little bit and this
is located next to the Boulder reservoir

which is here our site is right here and
this is a a live fire training facility

where basically what happens is new
firefighters learn in the classroom and

then they go outside and
then they learn how to deal with

situations in an environment experimental
environment outside so they're they're

actually burned buildings climbing towers
smoke towers located all around so

they can engage in those but
then there's a building also where they do

studies inside the classroom and
look at videos.

So we just created a site when it
was pretty straightforward in allows

the building to become
the center of focus for.

All these incidents they can
set up outside around and

then as they grow over the years
they can set up more throughout but

the idea behind this
building was pretty simple.

That we were what we were going
to do was actually engage.

We were going to engage both
the inside learning process and

the outside learning process.

Knowing that the the firefighters
have to start somewhere.

They have to start in the classroom and
that as they learn in the classroom and

then they see these videos of Benchley
they learn how to put their gear on and

all that they learn about the fire
trucks that are in the apparatus Fe and

then they move up inside
the facility to an upper

level right here which is a classroom
that opens up to the outs.

Side.

So the whole idea behind the building
is the circulation that takes place in

the knowledge.

Again of knowledge that takes place
as you go from classroom learning

to outside learning and then eventually
when you're outside you go out and

you can actually engage in the real
elements that are happening outside so

it's a very simple party for a building
but it's derived from the program.

It's derived from how
they use the building and

at the same time the shape of the building
is actually derived from how they

use it as well because down
at this end are offices.

Small aperture small small program
elements that need to be enclosed just

under a small roof and as it grows and as
the building grows we get into classrooms

and we get into fire apparatus bays and
we get into the second floor.

So the shell of the building itself with
simple shed actually defines the program.

Of the facility and then outside the
building a skylight actually defines that

procession route from the beginning in the
learning process all the way to the end

where you're starting to be released to
engage in the outdoor into the outdoor

activities and again we're dealing
with an environment that's very flat.

There's nothing around it.

So the buildings themselves
actually establish a vocabulary and

a connection to the kind of agrarian
roots of the of the region there

which are these just simple
shed like farm buildings and

forms in our ideas that the rapper that
there's two things happening here.

There's a learning process that's
happening along the spine of

the of the red building.

That moves in this direction and
then there's a response thing that happens

as the fire trucks go out and fight fires
in this direction so it's too simple axes

that cross patterns and when they cross
that one eats away at the other one.

Well that was our first fire station and

it won several awards nationally also so
now we've been asked

to deliver speeches at all these fire
conventions and now we have four fire

stations in the office just from doing
this from doing this one right here.

So but but it was all derived from
thinking about it was all derive from

thinking about what they really do and
what they're.

Work is and how that work.

What they do the functionalism
of their work can actually

influence the building itself and
that how we can give emotion and

character to the building after
merging all these things together.

When you make a if you've ever had to
make a nine one one call an emergency

call if you you end up calling these call
centers which are usually buildings hidden

in an environment because nobody wants to
know they really don't want anybody to

know who they are because they don't
they want these to be secure buildings.

Well one of the call centers that we did
just about ten years five years ago or

so is located in a little
community outside of Denver and

it's this building right here.

It's called add com Nine one one
they actually had to build it

around an existing building
that is right here.

So they asked us if we could design
a project that would allow them to

continue doing nine one one service and
eventually we could build onto it and

they could just shift over
into the new building.

So this whole this whole project was
actually about allowing them to continue

to work and then creating an environment
for them to work in in the future.

So we we took that we took
that idea as a direction

to think about how you would engage an
existing building into a new building and

actually not touch the existing
building until the very end.

So the idea behind the project was that.

Here's the existing building.

Here's the new right here that all we
would do is wrap it and we'd leave this

kind of interstitial space between the two
it would eventually be enclosed and

become this kind of transparent connection
between the old building and the new.

And then as we started to explore the
building and look at the potential that it

had one of the things we recognized was
after talking to the people that work and

here's the here's the existing building
behind this wall and here's the new That's

wrapping it you can see even
the rooftop can leverage over that.

Invisible connection right there.

But as we were working with
the agency in talking to the people.

How they were one of the things that we
recognized in the project was they sit

here for eight hours a day and they
stare at these little computer screens.

And it's a high it's a highly stressful
job because they're getting calls and

they're trying to deal with these calls.

What happens is their eyes get tired.

If you ever stare at you know that if
you look at a computer screen for so

long that your eyes will centrally because
in the muscles will essentially become

focused on that distance right there and
that you need to retrain your eyes and

so when you get up and walk away from a
computer and look at something fifty yards

away it's actually very good for your eyes
to to do that to retrain themselves so one

of the things that we looked at in this
project was how do we do that for them.

How do we get them to to get away from
their computers and retrain their eyes.

Well the idea that we
had was that we would

create a series of layers inside the
buildings that every time they get up for

a break every time they
have to go somewhere.

They're always focusing on something
that's a distance away and that their eye

is having to retrain itself whether it's
the way we layer openings or walls or it's

the way we've dealt with a with a space
that has sort of a Zen like quality here.

Inside the building that allows them to
actually see the mountains in the back and

you can't see it as kind of a foggy
day here but the idea is that we're

purposefully designing this building to
respond to something that helps them do

their do their job in that interstitial
space that touch space that we have in

between the existing building and the new
that that space allows us to create this

kind of transparent volume that allows
them to see long distances and out through

the building and again they don't want
anybody to know who they are so that's

the only recognition on the buildings just
small letters right there that's what

exists now we had at that time we had
done a number of projects in Colorado and

you know they were maybe the largest one
was about fifty thousand square feet.

But we wanted to spread out.

We wanted to do bigger projects and

we wanted to see if we can actually work
in urban environments and and get connect.

Did with other communities
throughout throughout the states.

And so we had this idea that what
we would do is we would talk to not

potential government agencies or
clients in these other states but

we would actually go to architectural
firms and say hey you should talk to us

because we know how to do police
stations and we've done several of them.

And so if one comes up in your state
then you need to come to us and

we can put our material in with yours and

all the sudden we've got a team that
can go after these big projects.

Well we made a connection with H. OK.

I did a project with them in California
that was about four hundred thousand

square feet.

We made a connection with Perkins will and

did a few projects with them in the three
or four hundred thousand square foot range

and then we also made a connection
with AIG D.M. J.M. which is probably

the largest I think they're the number one
largest firm in the world or something.

You know they got ten thousand people or
whatever working all over.

Working all over the place but
we made a connection with them and

said you can use our
expertise in programming and

design we need your expertise in putting
the building together and producing it.

Packaging.

So we got together and
we went after a project in L.A.

which is the headquarters for
the Los Angeles Police Department.

It's about seven hundred
thousand square feet.

And it just opened up last year and

when it when it initially came
out it came out as a competition.

Our team won the competition by actually
change it by actually rebranding

the image of L.A.P.D.
from a militarist kind of group

which they were portrayed in the newspaper
as well as the community through an agency

that would now be more public oriented so
the notion of carving out the building and

creating a wonderful civic space with
the police surrounding the civic space and

being transparent to the civic space
was the idea that we portrayed and

communicated to the police department
they bought into it and they hired us and

then one year later they changed the site.

So we had to work on a completely new
site in in Los Angeles and some of the.

You may have been in Los Angeles so you
might be familiar with the site right here

but the site actually speaks to
city hall on one end and then they

On the other end the first
Catholic Church in Colorado and

then more focus that
a building called Cal Trans.

Maine did it right here and

then down the way right here is
the Gary's Disney project down there.

So we're actually situated between two
really good aggressive kind of pieces of

architecture with with our site right
here with the Caltrans building here with

Gary's project down here very sculptural
projects and our site kind of parked

in the center and we needed to maintain a
diagonal view cord or between a park that

was being proposed right here in downtown
Los Angeles in the city hall and

then the original Catholic Church here so
that's what that's what actually kind of

allowed us to sort of take a look at
different ideas for mass in the site so

we went through a number of different
studies and then we ended up coming up and

looking at this one is the one that
allowed us to deal with that diagonal

visual line connecting the the Parkland up
here to the Catholic church down here and

also allowed us to create a wonderful
civic space right here but

the interesting thing that happened is
we were going through this that that we

do we write programs for
these police department.

So we've got to figure out everybody.

What kind of space they work and
who needs to be next to who what

kind of clip that they need the program
for this project was three thousand pages.

So it's great reading material
if you want to fall asleep but.

But what that what we do what we do is
we take the program that three thousand

pages of information and we try to distill
that down into what we call stack and

diagrams where we've basically taken
the program and divided it up into eleven

floors and figured out who's going to be
next to who and then that allows us then

to take the building kind of distill
the information in a simple way and

then we develop a diagram for the foreplay
deals with usually deals with public stuff

happening on one side and then secure
stuff happening on another side and

then a core separating the two so
that way.

Say they don't ever intersect with
each other public on one side

secure on the other that sets up
the building then the idea that we had for

the building is basically that the because
they're trying to project themselves as

more proactive to the community that the
transparent portions of the building would

really push through and
put truth through what was a solid wall.

So the notion of a police department being
very protective and being very little but

still militaristic in
the past is now revised so

that they're saying no we're going
to reach out to the public so

not only are they reaching out
volumetrically with the building but

they're also reaching out by
defining public space for

the building so in an urban way
the building defines the public space and

also it respects what's
going on around it.

So the iconic form of the city hall.

Down the way is respected by
the diagonal that's influenced by

the connection between the city the visual
connection between the city hall.

The park Dion.

And then the reflection of
the building itself from

the Civic Plaza is another way to
represent that connection back to public.

So the building has really been
manipulated quite a bit to allow

these to allow us to
engage with the public and

then we place all the public amenities
on the street level floor and

what you see in this diagram right here
is what I talked about initially there is

Gary's building that in here is
Maine's building right here.

Those two buildings going to speak to
each other in a very sculptural way.

Well we didn't want to we knew
we couldn't outdo main and

we didn't want to out do we
couldn't do Garry either.

So we actually looked at our
building in a different way and

we said well you know sometimes
it's actually good to

have buildings that just framed
buildings that actually are background

to something else that they might
actually make the building that's there.

The building that's there right now like
mains building they might actually make it

better because the simplicity in
the purity of our building against the rig

against that sort of energy and
dynamic quality of Mainz building the.

Press between the two actually makes each
one each one better and we didn't think

that way at the beginning we were actually
trying to outdo Maine with the with

the project but when it when it all came
out it actually worked out much better for

us to kind of simplify what we were doing
and use our building to start to connect

to Mainz building which you can see
right back here and again you see

more of you see mains building back
here and his main entry right there.

But we're actually using the building and
manipulating the volumes and

creating the public space to not only
deal with our project but to deal with

the connections that you can make on
an urban scale in an urban level and

at the same time we deal with things like
invisible security building setback but

try to do it in an artistic or
sculptural way so

that nobody knows that you're really
creating a protective environment.

So you're using art in that way.

That building actually allowed us
to then go into Canada where we're

now doing the headquarters for the royal
the Royal Mounted Police in Vancouver and

it's about a million square feet.

So we've grown exponentially from
those little seven thousand square

foot Colorado State Patrol buildings in
to now a million square foot project and

in Canada and at the same time those
projects are going on within the office.

I have.

I have this interesting kind of
juxtaposition of I have people working on

these law enforcement facilities and then
I have another group that's working on

restaurants and
entertainment facilities and night clubs.

You know so they're able and what I do is
I switch the people back and forth because

restaurants because everybody wants
to do the restaurants and nightclubs.

Everybody wants to be tied into those but

we've got a core group of people that are
now kind of switching back and forth and

the Tokyo Joe's projects are pretty
straight forward a little fast casual

spaces but they're all based on
the idea of a sushi roll and

how it's made and how it can be
unfolded to expose the layers that

go into making it and
the rights that goes into it and all that.

So you want to once you start taking
in figure out how they make the soup.

Role of the patterns that
the chef uses to make him and

how is most hand motion uses
you actually come up with.

Forms that are based on the lips and
so all the shapes that are inside

the building and
all the forms that were through it.

Are actually forms that came from the
distortion of a of the away a sushi roll

is made and that's what informs each one
of the projects while this client is

is great because we've done I think
fifteen or twenty projects form.

Every time we do one he
comes back to us and

he says OK now I want you to out do
what you did on the last one there.

So it's a great.

It's a great opportunity to have
to have a client like that but

we still have to create a connection
between all the restaurants that we do

form so there's always something there's
a language that's created between all

the projects and that that language
started with this sort of.

What I called kind of
a chaotic energy of shapes and

forms and
as we've gone through the years with them.

The chaos of the language has kind of
been toned down a little bit based on his

market and his clientele and that you
can see what happened from the first one

where it was all about energy and
the juxtaposition of geometries and

now as he's as he's gained recognition and
knowledge and his Actually his price point

has raised up a little bit that we're able
to actually change the nature of what

these facilities are so you see they start
becoming actually a little bit more calm

in their appearance but we're using he
also owns a bamboo plantation in Japan.

So we're able to use and where we're using
bamboo in as many ways as we possibly can.

Whether you slice it or grow a stick
it up straight or vertically or

you turn it into a tsunami wave or
whatever inside the space.

We're trying to do whatever but he'll come
in this is the last one we did for him

he'll come in and say I love the tsunami
wave because he's also a surfer because I

love to surf in the way that was great
you know you really made a connection.

OK let's do something else now.

So we're always trying to think of
we're always trying to think of

new things for him.

Well one of our client that
we're working with on his

third restaurant now at the same time
came to us and he had just grab.

Do it from a colon airy
Institute in New York and

his dad gave him three hundred thousand
dollars as his graduation present.

And he said Son he said go ahead and
open up a restaurant.

This is it this is all I'm going to
give you for the rest of your life.

But you have this and I know this is
your dream so go ahead and do it.

Well he had a name for his restaurant
he called it Vesta and if you know

some Greek mythology vested in the best of
virgins in their seven vestal virgins and

there's a whole story behind
Vestas the goddess of fire.

So he had a name for the restaurant best
and he had three hundred thousand dollars

and we had a space that we were able
to find for him in the Lodo and

were so it's an urban condition
urban space and he had a.

He had a CD of music that he was going
to play inside the restaurant and

it was acid jazz and he said OK.

I want you to design me
a restaurant based on the name.

Vesta and here's the music and
when I'm playing.

Go ahead design the restaurant.

So we took that great.

That's why everybody wants to work on
these projects because the clients

are really great when you do things but
anyway our idea behind this was best

as the Goddess of fire fire would be
represented by the hearth in the back

which was basically the grill in the store
in the vestal virgins would would be

the basically the women and the people
meeting at the bar and that the connection

that's made between the vestal virgins and
the men inside the space so

as we started talking about what it could
be inside the space one of the things we

initially sketched was this idea of
a communal bar and a very long narrow

space that we had we couldn't figure out
how to make people talk to each other

because when you have a narrow space and
you create a bar you're staring at a wall.

So he said how do we get
people to not stare at a wall.

Well we'll change the shape of
the bar a little bit and maybe by

sort of introducing some of these shapes
people will start to turn their chairs and

they'll start and

look at each other and they'll be
verbal intercourse taking place.

Sylvester is all about sex is what
the restaurant is really about.

So just to put it.

Just to put it bluntly is what is what's
happening here and the sex is all about

what happens inside the space that you
make an informal connection at the bar.

I mean you can see here the lights there
upside down sperm tails right here.

So there's all this stuff that.

So it looks kind of literal when
we're talking about but but

there's really a great story behind
it because what happens is you make

the informal connection at the bar.

There are six flights six sperm tales
right here the seventh is missing.

It's actually the woman who's there
that you're trying to meet inside and

that you make that informal
connection at the bar and

as you move through as you move down and
you move through the bar that what starts

to happen is it gets more seductive The
further you get into the space itself and

the seduction comes from the shapes and
the forms that are happening like

losing dripping sex almost
inside inside the space and

we create environments where as the bar
itself is a little bit more open and

formal as you move further back you
start to get into these blues and

you get more protection and so this starts
to be more seductive and as you get

further back into the space then you're
able to make that final connection there.

So the it's the built this this restaurant
was done about twelve years ago for

the last twelve years it's one of the most
romantic restaurant in in Denver and

they actually put the story on
the menu and it says it says

on the menu this restaurant is all
about sex and that's how it starts.

But what we're doing is
we're actually rebranding

what we're doing is we're
dealing with with branding and

making sure that there's a special
thing happening when we do a project

it's not just about the architecture
of the space we're creating It's about

the entire environments about
what we call food theater.

It's a connection between the food
the senses the architecture of the space

itself the materials it's all about that.

So we're stimulating the senses and

we're doing that with this
knowledge of connecting everything.

A client of ours saw or
a client who came to assault vest and

he said in he's a nightclub client.

He said I want you to create a.

Nightclub the name of that is D.C. ten.

He said that's it.

Design me something that
respects the name D.C. ten.

So our first look at it
was it's a well D.C.

ten it relates to airport airlines and
levitation and movement and all that.

So we took we took the idea of fuselage
and the way people sit in the control

tower iconic images that
you get from from airplanes

then we took each one of those and
we kind of pushed it into a direction and

said how could it evolve into
a nightclub where you see the food.

There's a large turning
into seating which then

turns into a large booth inside the space
and the control tower turns into a main

center a video screen display
inside the space as well.

So we're basically taking the name and

we're letting that evolve into the
branding of the of the space itself and

here you can see it as a simple diagram.

It just shows how all these pieces come
together you enter the space through

the through the fuselage there
in the control towers in

the center underneath the control tower
the most expensive table where I think

it's two thousand dollars bottle
table service right now so.

So it's a very special
environment in the booth runs

along the entire distance of the space and

then inside outside the building itself
this is what it looked like originally and

of course these guys who do night clubs
they don't have that they make a hell of

a lot of money but they actually want you
to they actually want you to design these

buildings these spaces to last eighteen
months maximum because here's what happens

in the first six months they get to
eighteen they get the people there want to

be the hippest and coolest and go out to
the new places the next twelve months.

The next six months they get
the between people have now

started to filter to
the newest night club.

That's down the street somewhere and then
for the next six months they get to see in

the details and finally they get
gangs fighting inside the nightclubs.

So these spaces are designed really for
that they're like designing a stage

set inside their They're designed to
last eighteen months and that's it.

So outside you've got to figure
out ways to really signal.

What's going on inside.

All we did outside the building was locate
that kind of fuselage is the entry and

then we just have screening on
the Windows system that's based on

you know the airflow in
the wind conditions that

happen on a around
the airplane wing itself.

And that's what gives the space
its recognition and its name and

then inside the facility you can see
how we got to done some things with

the lighting and the screens in the
screens are basically cloud patterns that

pass by as you're sitting so you feel
like there is movement going on and.

And you're drinking too so you're
probably feeling movement all the time

inside there but but the idea is that not
only is that the architecture and what's

in these pieces that we've put inside that
give it its It's its memory but it's also

the it's also the light we can change
the lighting conditions inside the space.

Any time we want because it's all set
up based on only the lighting and

you can change the mood from cool blue to
getting warmer outside and then the light

spills out onto the street and so
the street becomes part of the action too.

And so the whole thing is that the
nightclub is not just about interior but

exterior and of course we work
with the client on branding.

So we talk about uniforms and
what people should wear and

what kind of service
carts they should have.

So it's a total thing that happens
it's not just the architecture.

It's the branding all the way.

And then a couple of the last
projects here because I know on

my over my time that.

I'm way over.

OK I can do that.

Well see what happened when I
was going to school here is when

we had history lectures that we were all
falling asleep in the back row there so

nodding off but I'll try to I'll try
to keep you awake for these last two.

Well the the kind of clients we get for
the for the for the restaurants

are there enter there usually is
entrepreneur types that are that they have

a knowledge of architecture they
have a knowledge of design.

In some way especially
the night club clients or

the one off restaurant clients well
these two guys came to us a year ago and

they they came out of a firm called Ideal.

I don't know if you.

If you have heard of that company but it's
a great it's a it's a kind of a terrific

sort of from the does the branding and
imaging and all this other stuff in there

and they're really knowledgeable high
energy kind of firm these guys came from

New York and these two guys said well we
want to open up a restaurant in Boulder

and we'll call it mob market and we want
you to base it on this notion of what

fast casual restaurant could be
a contemporary version of a fast casual

restaurant derivative of the idea
of a traditional food market.

So we had to tie in this notion
of food market or get of

an organic food market because of course
if you're building something in Boulder

it has to be totally natural and organic
because that's the country of Boulder.

As we call it that that we're
dealing with something that organic

natural These guys are high energy
they want to contemporary thing.

So in our first in our first
discussions with them.

We just talked about
the notion of the linear or

the linear layout of a of a food market
where you're basically walking down and

around and it's usually laid out in
a linear fashion on the street and

that also the idea of the colors in
the natural qualities of the food and

then the connection you make back to the
community because they're usually embedded

these food markets in some kind
of community atmosphere and

we say well how do we turn that into
your how do we make that work for

your restaurant that that's the that
that's where we'll be headed

with the restaurant itself so we created
this and they wanted to prototype it so

we're now on our fifth one or something
with them so they're happening really fast

as we do these restaurants but the idea
is that they're very minimalist inside.

Very few moves.

There's a bank at it's one
hundred thirty feet long.

On one wall.

They grow wheat grass
inside the slot right

here that they use inside
some of their ingredients.

They have an ordering system over
here that is total chaos because they

want it to kind of not be this line and
take a number and all this stuff but

it's basically done like a food
market where you just kind of go up

to the line and they have seven people
working behind you kind of watch them and

tell them what you want them to make for
you.

So it's a it's kind of a.

An idea about how one of these
restaurant works and then they.

As we were starting the project they
said by the way can we introduce some

sustainable stuff in it.

So the entire roof and

this is done in a strip shopping center
the entire roof is their herb garden.

And we have access up to the roof and
so they are growing all the herbs that

they're using inside the restaurant on
the roof and then it's all lit from solar

tubes that are coming through
the roof right here as well.

So we're what we're doing is we're trying
to brand them as a as an organic kind of

hip modern fast casual environment and
last year.

L.A. I think a Los Angeles A.I.A.

and well magazine had this
thing of a competition for

the best restaurants to submit to and
they had a big jury panel and

all of that this project won
the People's Choice Award first place and

also the best new restaurant in
the United States for them so they

got a they got quite a bit of leverage out
of out of this restaurant right here and

of course we had introduced a couple of
things that text your your on the wall.

It's actually it's
actually white Astro Turf.

But the idea was is that you can see
through you can actually see through

the end of this building through
that zone right there and

you can see the flat irons in the
background in the snow on the flat and so

the connection that we made
was that white texture.

On the front of a counter is
actually the textural connection to

the snow that's happening in that in
the background and at night it's basically

just a tube of light that extends
out to the to the street.

So that's the connection that
they make back to the community.

Now the most interesting retail.

Walked into my office in
the middle of a blizzard.

This stunning woman who was six feet tall
was wearing a fur coat long blond hair

she had a child in a baby carriage and she
had a bikini on underneath the fur coat.

I was the only one in
the office at the time.

Nobody could even come
in because it was so.

Bad outside in Denver is it
was snowing it was a blizzard

she walks in off the street.

And she walks in and she says Are you
an architect and I said I said yeah and

I was just getting ready to kind of close
the door and say that maybe she's a nut

case and she needs to leave here and
she says Are you an architect.

She says Well my grandfather.

And she had been modeling in Paris for
five or six years and

she said my grandfather wanted me
to come back to the States and

he just gave me a birthday present.

He gave me four hundred thousand
dollars to open up my store

there will you help me with that
you know I think we can do that.

I think we can do that for you.

So.

Her space is right.

Her space is right here in
the base of this building that

it's a mixed use residential building and
Lodo downtown Denver so

it's a just kind of a nothing store
front that exist on the space but

she had this idea that even though she
was doing a bricks and mortar space and

not a not a virtual she
wouldn't be selling online or

anything it would all be bricks and
mortar walk in traffic.

But she would do some advertising
online that she said but

I wanted to be different.

She says I'm not going to have
any clothes inside the space.

This is I'm not going to
sell off the rack stuff.

This is I want to sell to a different
clientele a different market.

I'm going to sell to the high end and
to the CO to a market.

And so we started talking to her and over
a about a month we came up with this idea

that what we would do inside the spaces
we would have there that the space would

be about the emotion tied into to change.

So the metamorphosis taking place
when you try on something new.

So it's about change.

It's not about picking through
a rack of clothes and all that

it's about what happens when you when
you change by trying something on that.

So elegant and so beautiful.

It changes who you are and
what you're about.

So the whole idea behind the space
was this this notion of change and

that that would come.

That would come from the way
we treated the interior.

So.

Rather than have racks of clothes.

We had three chambers.

We have three chambers inside or

four chain three chambers inside the space
itself and here is the entry right here.

And here's a space laid out all
the support stuff in the back.

We would have three chambers that
would face the front window.

Those are the dressing chambers.

Those are the metamorphosis takes place
the fourth chamber is a holy graffiti

is where they can show Holly and
Graham and

what happens is that this is a screen
on the background right here.

What happens inside the spaces.

There's a you know when you go into a dry
cleaning store they have these racks and

all the closer.

That can be on these racks and
they can call them up.

Or we would place on the racks we would
place watches of material just beautiful

handmade linens and other materials that
clothes are made out of they would be

continually cycling inside the space
on the back wall would be huge.

Only describe the ele
disagreement shows images of show

of live modeling shows
taking place over in Europe.

Or tape shows that that she has so
people will call her up so

she has a very high end clientele
people will call her up and

say well I like the design that was
done by this person in the Tokyo

modeling still happen that
happened in two thousand and ten.

She'll be able to download
that modeling show have it

going on the screen a person can
come in and view that show and

say yeah that's the dress
that I want right here.

She didn't she then takes the image
of that dress downloaded and

becomes the holy goofy inside
the last page right here.

So it's a it's it's
a three dimensional holy

of that's that's inside the that invisible
that that cage in inside these cages.

These are actually the dressing chambers
someone down the she downloads that

it happens here and then the person who
wants to buy that then goes over here and

picks up basically the pattern of
the material and really gets to see what

it's going to be made out of in order
as the orders the dress it's made

in then six months to a year later
they come in and try it on so.

The act of trying it on is
an interesting thing too.

So what happens is this.

And here's the here's the chamber where
you display the hologram the act of

trying it on happens in one of
these three chambers the chambers

are actually in the front at the front
of the store at the display window

the chambers ranged from somewhat trans
loosened to a little bit more opaque.

So depending on whether
you're an exhibitionist.

Or you want to do something in private
that you pick the chamber that you want to

dress so the whole notion of change is not
only you changing but it's actually people

out on the sidewalk watching change
take place inside the store.

So in the in the chamber.

That's the most transparent it's
still translucent you can kind

of tell that somebody is in there you can
tell you can see their shape that they're

getting changed and so this is become
like the IT are out on out on the street.

So it's the it's one of the most popular.

It's one of the most popular stories but
nobody can afford to buy anything.

There are people just stand out and watch
people trying on stuff inside the inside

the store and so
you see the other gram there and

there somebody who's trying on something
right there in the in the store itself.

Well that whole idea of branding and

giving something somebody
something special.

It works on that small scale but
it also works on a much larger scale.

So we had we had Scandinavian designs
which is a furniture store company

come to us and asked us if we would be
involved in a competition that included

Gensler Frank Gehry a few other
offices out of California and

then they asked of if we could
breed Brand who they are.

But what they did was they kind
of controlled the competition so

we want you to really look at
the inside of our store and

how we could change how we kind of
project ourselves to the public and

in what we sell and
all that may sell contemporary furniture.

It's Finnish and
Scandinavian based out of big box stores.

Well we took the competition brief and
we said well we're not going to look at

that stuff we're not just going to
treat this like it's an interior but

we're going to rebrand.

The whole image and so
we said here's here's where the big box is

usually a box in the middle
of a big parking lot.

So we'll start off there or
change it from a big box to a linear box

that's that's based on the stretched
out along the east west axes so

it works on solar standpoint it will
split the program up into cells area and

then storage area that they need the boxes
I'll shave the box defines a public

parking area and that the box will
then have a front in the back and so

no longer will it be something parked
in the middle of a sea of parking but

it's a building that's actually creating
a courtyard and that the building also

can be totally off the grid so that was
another thing that we that we wanted

to make sure we could do on the project
and they've built three of the stores now.

And they're totally all of them
are totally off the grid but

what we're what we were able to talk
to the client about was this notion

of creating an image to the street which
is a four hundred foot long videos and

we do screen in an image to the parking
which is more of a display of furniture

inside but the idea that we had went
all the way from how you deal with day

lighting to the heat to cooling
to ventilation to storm water and

rainwater to projecting an image to the to
the street itself as people drive in and

then we took that we said we'll take it
one step further because we recognized by

reading what these guys read like
Aren't we know our client and

any of the clients that work in this
industry they read a magazine called like

furniture World USA You know it's the most
boring magazine you could ever read.

But if you read those magazines
you actually start to speak their

language and if you speak their
language then they think you really

know what you're talking about.

So one of the things we have in our office
I mean we have we have trade magazines all

the time we have to read them because we
have to be able to speak the language

that our clients speak.

One of the things we recognized after
reading these magazines is that what

what's happening in these large furniture
stores as many times people don't

understand the scale of
the furniture they're buying.

They're buying it in this huge volume
store and they get it home and

it looks like they just bought
a monster and put it inside their.

So they have no idea of scale.

So we say well we need to
scale the interior we need to

do something that scales it.

So what we ended up doing was
saying why don't we put houses

inside the space itself why don't we put
three houses inside in these houses will

be derivative of alto or some other finish
your skin and maybe an architect and

that these houses will be
will be houses will be houses

that we can construct inside and we can
display furniture inside the store itself.

And so you've got a way to actually
display your furniture in an environment

that makes sense and in the space between
the houses can be other areas for

you to display of
the types of furniture and

you see in that diagram too that there's
other things going on a photo will take

system on the roof aside roof over here
we're using day lighting from we're

using protected they lighting from this
side we're bringing in north light from

a clear story on the back side so there's
a number of things that are happening from

a sustainable standpoint as well here's
the highway side of the building.

But it also needs to respond
to the fact that most of these

when you get in these retail
environments they require you to do

something to the building every thirty
feet to break up the scale of it.

So you can't just do a giant wall.

So we break down the scale on one side but
the entry into the into the shopping

courtyard into the parking courtyard
is actually through a portico share.

So you drive in and you feel like
you've entered an environment and

then as you enter the parking area
which is really a landscape court.

You see through the building and
you see the houses inside the space and

then once you get inside you get a totally
different feel of what an interior can can

can be that's displaying furniture but
it also we realise that

one of the aspects of their sales was or
one of the one of the objects they wanted

to sell was actually outdoor furniture and
there was no place to do it out there so

we said why don't we just
put it up on the roof.

So we created a connection from
inside inside the drum right here.

Outside up on the roof so
you ascend the steps and you end up.

Going up the steps and up outside and
that's the view you get from

outside the facility so what we've done
is we've been gage the entire building in

the in the in the idea of what the product
is that they're that they're selling and

we understand what
the business is of the quiet.

Well it won the competition and so
now we're on our third I think third or

fourth project with them and these are
some of the ideas behind the new buildings

we're doing forum you can see the houses
inside the center of the space right

here manipulating the center you can see
some of the energy things we're doing with

just they lighting and how far daylight
penetrates inside the building.

So there's a number of studies that
are done to make sure everything works.

The houses are explored in model form and
see him up here.

These are all some of the conditions we're
using we actually use a radiant cool in

a radiant heat floor inside the spaces
the roofs are all sustainable

they're all sod we put furniture
out there we use the center

space to deal with distribution
of of air ventilation of air and

light the sketches show how we
deal with bringing light in.

Now the one thing we couldn't do though
was we couldn't landscape the parking

areas because they were already there.

So on.

Most of these projects you're
you're given a site and

you're told your building has to go here.

So instead of landscaping the parking lot.

What we've done is we actually
set the building back and

landscape the entry into the building and

that's very important because we realize
that what's happening with furniture is

seventy five percent of the purchase
is actually done by women not men.

And that one of the complaints that
was coming up was these buildings were

basically to Stark and and to out of
scale and that there's a that this idea

of creating a procession from parking into
a building needed an intermediate point

where you could start to downscale And so
these little indentations actually work to

downscale So we're building the this
one's in Algonquin in Illinois.

And then the last one was in Rockland.

And so these projects are now being built
all over the all over the states and

the one in Algonquin that actually happens
to be parked on a cornfield on one side as

well so
it makes a makes a great spot for us.