Pictured: (left to right) Marie Arrington, Assoc. AIA, NOMA; Tresna Lim Taylor, AIA, NCARB, CPHC; Todd Hansen, AIA, CID; Laura Walker, RA, NOMA, NCARB; Shorf Afza, Assoc. AIA; Lauren Amt, AIA | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
The architectural landscape, as a professional field, is dynamic. The traditional role, much like buildings and homes that have been designed and built for clients, continues to change, evolve, and adapt to its environment and in relationship to people. Educators, practitioners, and industry leaders alike take on the opportunities and challenges of today and tomorrow, in a field that is often misunderstood. It is a profession full of creatives and storytellers, engineers and disruptors, advocates and stewards; people who use architecture and design as a vehicle in which to powerfully transform landscapes and the lives of the people around them.
In this latest edition, Great Lakes By Design Magazine had the opportunity to speak with a few architects in the region to learn more about their interest and their passion for the profession, the challenges they see facing the industry, and their great hope for the future.
Pictured: Laura Walker, RA, NOMA, NCARB | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
Laura Walker, RA, NOMA, NCARB, had no idea that she wanted to be an architect. She knew she was good at math and science, loved being creative—took painting courses and ceramics classes—but it took a chance encounter with another young woman who was an architect to discover architecture could be the path for her, that it could lead to the design of meaningful places that celebrate culture, prosperity, and creativity at the intersection of public art, architecture, and interior design.
For Lauren Amt, AIA, design is meant to elevate life, to challenge thought, and quietly serve its user. It exists because it is needed and is about the community around it. Design is about communication, a tool and pathway that bridges the individual to the realities of the world, and it is that visual communication and its ability to capture the tactile moments and passions of people that initially drew her to the field of architecture.
Pictured: Lauren Amt, AIA | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
Pictured: Marie Arrington, Assoc. AIA, NOMA | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
Marie Arrington, Assoc. AIA, NOMA, believes in community. She believes in its importance, in its vibrancy across diverse cultures, and in its ability to serve as home for so many people. For Arrington, who has also spent much of her professional career in the acting and modeling world, good architecture embraces community engagement and is an opportunity to design for equitable communities that positively impact all. It is about creative solutions and designed spaces that not only support and deeply reflect community needs but also celebrate what makes them unique.
Shorf Afza, Assoc. AIA, is passionate about how buildings are made. She believes in the vernacularity of architecture and the thoughtful language used to deeply tie it to place, how healthy environments can significantly impact an individual’s life, and the potential of technology as a tool. It is in the use of technology in concert with one’s own creativity, ingenuity, and imagination she finds hope in the future of architecture. That it can deliver spaces that not only embrace complex geometries and biomimetic design but also support its users’ wellbeing—while recognizing the importance of building no more than necessary.
Pictured: Shorf Afza, Assoc. AIA | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
Pictured: Todd Hansen, AIA, CID | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
For Todd Hansen, AIA, CID, beauty is the highest expression of form and function. It is less a finite definition and more of a never-ending pursuit toward a perceived universal good, in which things like delight, harmony, and human aspiration inform spaces and places. To him, that pursuit is embedded in the thoughtful design of projects for clients, in which each home becomes more than a shelter, but also a cultural object with embodied values that is truly at home in the world and brings people into relationship with their surrounding environments and landscapes.
When Tresna Taylor’s youngest child went off to college, she took up ballet. And as Principal and Owner of in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a leadership position that has challenged her to take on new roles beyond that of project architect, Taylor, AIA, NCARB, CPHC, embraces the learning experience. She has a proclivity for graphic design and book design, dabbles in letterpress and aspires to identify typefaces upon sight. She is in the process of replacing her lawn with pollinator gardens—in an exploration of landscape and temporal design—and sees the beauty in honest materials, in structural systems, and in the world of language and design.
Pictured: Tresna Lim Taylor, AIA, NCARB, CPHC | Photography: Michael Buck, M-Buck Studio, LLC
First published in The Architects, Great Lakes By Design: Architectonics