Design First Loves

What is your design first love?
We asked our staff and this is what they said. #designfirstlove #curiosity #inspiration

My love for design began the first time I saw a brand new pair of adidas Superstars fresh out of the box. I realized how even the simplest design details can make something stand out from the rest.
Eric Nelson, Project Assistant

I could create dream houses and interiors with my first design love; I was hooked from that time on!

 David Link, Principal

My dad took drafting in high school and showed me how he used the tools. He drafted plans for a house we never built. I loved to look at the plans. His dad built pianos. My mom let me rearrange the living room furniture over and over again.

 Susan Kaeuper, Senior Associate

While taking an industrial design class in high school, the Art Center Pasadena, I fell in love not only with the building, but also the art and design inside.

Rene Calara, Senior Associate

Never mind that it's a mortuary/ mausoleum- I had my piano recitals here as a kid. I loved wandering through the building - the stained glass skylights and courtyard fountain were particular highlights! Julia Morgan's work was inspirational to me in my career path.

Karen Karn, Designer

I was super into Lego and K'nex. The Lego windmill was a particular favorite and an important landmark in the large Lego village I created in my bedroom.

Samantha Rose, Designer

, Swatch watches - a design obsession to covet and collect.

 Alaina Ladner, Associate

My inspiration was getting the hell out of calculus 3 at The University of Michigan…seriously. I spent a month trying to figure it out and eventually walked out of a lecture and straight to the college counselor's office. I told her I needed something more creative. She recommended architecture. She was right.

Andrew Volckens, Associate

Studying architectural and interiors history in college, I discovered the amazing work by Italian architect, Carlo Scarpa. His work was not only influenced by Venetian and Japanese cultures, but informed by materiality, landscape, light, and art. He was a practicing artist, furniture designer, and architect.

Tisha Tasaki, Marketing Director

I thought I was going to be a journalist in high school and was doing an interview with a judge in providence for a school report – I visited him in this awesome courthouse. I’ll never forget the way it felt walking into that building – it was very cold but impressive and it struck me how much a space could effect your emotions and from that moment on I have been aware of the impact of interior spaces on one’s mood.

Sandra Tripp, Principal

The Fifth Element.

The immersive and futuristic vision of NYC and Korben’s micro apartment really opened my imagination to what cities and housing could become. When I realized that becoming an architect could mean that I would have a say in what the future comes to look like, it was a no brainer (well, that or become a production designer so I could bring the alternate realities of movies to life).

Katharine Dwyer, Designer

My family credits Architect Wilbur Post with Mr. Ed (his office-mate and talking horse) for my becoming an architect: mixing comedy, my love of drawing and making things, and an early desire to own a horse.

Pamela Robinson, Senior Associate

"The Building’s identity resides in the ornament."
- Louis Sullivan

During my undergrad, walking through the streets of Chicago and seeing beautifully crafted, geometric shapes in the ornamental stone or metal work on buildings, first made me fall in love with our profession.

Tiana Taylor, Associate

It was either the car (1955 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe) or the house that I grew up in. The car was really beige and white, but they called it "Canyon Tan and Desert Sand". It was the first time I ever heard exotic color names. It also had a "Hemi" V8 engine, but that was an inspiration of a wholly different sort.

And at some point I figured out by looking at a plan of the house that my brother's room was four inches away (the thickness of the wall) even though I had to go out the door, down the hall and through another door to get there.

Daniel Huntsman, Chairman

He had me at Kragl.

 Adam Murphy, Architect

I started drawing floor plans on my Etch A Sketch as early as I can remember. I would take it everywhere and do plan after plan. Erase and start over. Efficiency was my goal.

Karie Vagedes, Designer

When I was in elementary school, I walked by these two houses almost everyday. They seemed very different from most of the other houses in my hometown, Charlottesville, VA.

Many of the homes and buildings there at the time - and still- were colonial, neocolonial, or 'Jeffersonian', sometimes described as Palladian. I had some awareness of the importance of Jefferson's architectural contributions there, but I was fascinated by the idea of these houses that were so different and modern and seemingly from another world.

Around the same time, I discovered this book at home that was full of examples of what we now call mid-century modern design.

Those seemingly exotic house and these images gave me the idea that there was another world of possibilities, other ways of thinking about buildings and making places for people in harmony with nature and of the present.

I also began to grasp that design can expand the mind and transform how we live, work and and relate to each other and to the planet, although I would not have used those exact words at the age of 9 or 10!

Keith Turner, Principal