Circle West Architects
An expert and innovator in sustainable design, Peter M. Koliopoulos opened Circle West Architects in 1992. The firm works on residential, mixed-use, infill, office, hotel, and education projects in the Phoenix metro area and throughout the West. Known for creative and unique structures that enhance the desert rather than working against it, Circle West’s work has received many local and national awards, including an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Arizona Honor Award and an AIA + Sunset Magazine Homes Awards Honorable Mention. The firm’s work has been featured in Luxe Magazine, Desert Living, Desert Architecture, and other publications. Koliopoulos earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
Koliopoulos created the amazing “Desert House,” a 5,000-square-foot custom home in upscale Paradise Valley, with a “forward thinking approach to desert life.” Starting with a 20-year-old, concrete-and-stucco house on a one-acre desert property, Koliopoulos used recycled materials and other sustainable techniques to completely reimagine the space, creating a jaw-dropping home with glass walls protected by low overhangs, zinc siding, and straight, clean lines. Circle West also thought a lot about what it means to live in a desert when designing The Duke, a 13k-square-foot condo project in downtown Scottsdale. The sharp-cornered, modern building seeks to balance the dueling human needs for individuality and community, with eight separate homeowners in one distinctive and inspiring structure. The Duke is also a model of urban desert sustainability, having been designed according to Scottsdale’s Residential Green Building Program.
Blank Studio Design + Architecture
About Blank Studio Design + Architecture
Committed to finding new ideas about how to live well in the desert, Matthew G. Trzebiatowski has been director of Blank Studio Design + Architecture since 2006. Trzebiatowski has a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also serves as a professor of architecture, faculty chair, and director of the Architectural Practice Studio at the School of Architecture at Taliesin, as well as an assistant lecturer at the University of Arizona School of Architecture. Experts in sustainable design, the firm’s work has been honored numerous times by the AIA and AIA Arizona and has been featured in Dwell, Hamptons Magazine, Architizer, and many other publications.
Blank Studio Design + Architecture has several interesting and innovative residential projects in the works, including the “Yucca Residence,” a small, futuristic-looking, two-story house perched on a rise on a small lot overlooking Phoenix. The tall, rectangular structure features a long window for sweeping views and is constructed of concrete masonry covered in steel. The studio also designed Xeros House (xeros=dr), a strange and wonderful, two-story rectangle of steel and glass, with great views of the mountains from the second-story nest. Built on a small lot in a residential neighborhood near the Phoenix Mountains Preserve, the home is shielded in places from the harsh desert by panels of woven metal mesh, and its copper-colored metal exterior melds perfectly with the desert sunsets.
Chen + Suchart Studio
About Chen + Suchart Studio
Chen + Suchart Studio is a groundbreaking design firm led by Patricia Szu-Ping Chen Suchart and Thamarit Suchart. Both earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a master’s degree in architecture and urban design from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. The pair started their own firm in 2003 after working for Phoenix-based Wendell Burnette Architects and Jones Studio. The firm has won many local and national awards, including the AIA AZ Distinguished Building Design Award, the AIA Arizona Design Excellence Merit Award, and a Residential Architects Design Award for custom residence over 3,000 square feet.
“We have ZERO interest in style. What we are interested in is work that has integrity which as a result transcends style. Our interests in the arts initiated with the premise of being creative. There are not too many professions where one can be creative and have others support you in this creative process. Our clients come to us to pursue a process and work that is unprecedented.” – Thamarit Suchart
One of Chen + Suchart Studio’s most visually arresting designs is the Staab Residence, a 3,000-square-foot home in Scottsdale. Focusing on views of the McDowell Mountains and the valley, the two-level home features a hidden courtyard with a pool below an elegant floating top floor made of steel and glass. Another section is made of weathered steel, and the private courtyard is surrounded by sand-blasted masonry walls. Another of Chen + Suchart’s stylish and innovative homes is the Yerger Residence, a 3,890-square-foot home in Phoenix with excellent views of Camelback Mountain. The design features a sheet steel-clad floating volume on a concrete base, a negative edge pool, and an open living space with access to elevated outdoor areas through a long, sliding glass door that faces the desert mountains.
Recognized leaders in green design, Jones Studio was founded by architect and Principal Eddie Jones in 1979. He was later joined by his brother, fellow architect and Principal Neal Jones. Brian Farling and Jacob Benyi are also principals and partners in the firm. Jones Studio has won more than 190 awards for its projects and has been recognized by Architect Magazine as a top 50 firm and a leader in sustainability. The firm, with 11 architects on staff, is a leader in water-saving and sustainable and environmental design. Besides building singular and inventive homes in Phoenix metro area, Jones Studio works on commercial, education, and government projects throughout the region.
“The Outpost,” a 4,000-square-foot home designed by Jones Studio in Paradise Valley, is truly a masterpiece in indoor-outdoor, desert-adapted design. A series of “rectangular pods” connected by a path, the home uses solar energy, and each pod can be turned on and off at will. The striking roofs and use of wood harken back to native structures, and there are large glass walls that open and erase the line between indoors and out. And in an especially evocative detail, the long, narrow concrete lap pool and the front door are aligned with the highest point on the horizon, the famed Papago Peak in the distance. The Jones Studio team describes the “Logan Residence,” a 4,600-square-foot home in Scottsdale, as a “private museum,” as it was designed to house an important private collection of contemporary art. The firm designed the house to be a series of galleries featuring daylighting in various forms, in an effort to introduce a different kind of desert light into each gallery or room. Additionally, the home has orthogonal shape so that none of the lot’s native desert vegetation and boulders were disturbed.
About Wendell Burnette Architects
Wendell Burnette opened Wendell Burnette Architects in 1996 after working with Will Bruder for about a decade. He attended the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesin West in the 1980s, and then traveled all over the world to learn about different cultures and their traditions of architecture and design. Burnette’s work has been recognized by the Academy of Arts and Letters and the AIA, and he has been nominated for a prestigious James Beard Award for restaurant design. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including Dwell, The Phaidon Atlas, and Luxe. An AIA Fellow, Burnette has designed buildings all over the world, from libraries to resorts and restaurants.
The “Desert Courtyard House” is a Wendell Burnette home in Scottsdale, a 7,200-square-foot home on a mature, desert lot covered in Saguaro and Ocotillo. The home is perched on an outcropping, with the outlines of mountains shimmering in the distance. Made of rammed earth, the home’s glass-walled living spaces face a tranquil and private courtyard with desert vegetation. The Burnette team describes the singular “Dialogue House,” a 2,200-square-foot home at the base of Echo Mountain in Phoenix, as “two volumes of light.” The main living space is in the first clean-lined volume, which is filled with the light that comes a window that forms one wall. It sits on top of the second, darker volume, which has guest, work, and garage spaces.
The design-build firm Sever Design Group has designed many stylish, innovative, and eye-catching luxury homes in the Phoenix metro area. The firm’s principal architect is Mark A. Sever, who has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Florida. The firm has won the Pace Setter Award for Innovation from Custom Home Magazine and a Best Architectural Design Award from the Desert Living Luxury Home Show, and its work has been featured in many publications.
Sever Design Group designed and built a “personal resort”-style home in North Scottsdale for a couple from Indiana who relocated to Phoenix. The spacious, sleek, and modern home is on a 2.5-acre desert lot and has amazing views of the desert. Luxury and style are found around every clean line and secluded corner. It is exactly what you’d expect to find in a small, exclusive resort in the desert, with lots of glass walls and glass-like water making life a staycation and comfortable outdoor living both easy and necessary. The firm also designed and built a luxury home on a boulder-strewn desert lot in North Scottsdale, which was featured in one of Phoenix’s AIA Architecture Week Home Tours. The $4M, 10k-square-foot home is perfectly suited to its tricky lot, and features a second-floor outdoor pool that hangs over the boulder garden and 10-foot sliding glass doors along two sides providing stunning views.
Urban Design Associates focuses on high-end custom residential design, typically homes in the $1M to $4M range. Principal architect and CEO Lee Hutchison, AIA, and Jessica Hutchison-Rough, AIA, LEED AP, lead a highly talented and experienced staff. Started in 1979, it has since designed more than 2000 custom homes. Hutchison received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Arizona State University. Hutchison’s daughter, Jessica Hutchison-Rough, is a partner architect with the firm. She has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Arizona State University, and a master’s degree in architecture from the University of British Columbia. Urban Design Associates has won many honors for its home designs, including being named to the Luxe Gold List. The firm has won several silver, gold, and platinum Best In American Living Awards from the National Association of Homebuilders, as well as awards from the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona. The firm’s work has been featured in Luxe, Phoenix Home & Garden, Western Art & Architecture, and many other publications.
Urban Design Associates won an Excellence In Masonry Architecture Award from the Arizona Masonry Guild for an luxury home in North Scottsdale built out of adobe, an ancient building technique that never quite goes out style in the Southwest. Other native materials like heavy timbers and stone were used in this artful structure near the Pinnacle Peak Mountain Preserve. The home’s many rounded native forms, which evoke both Pueblo kivas and Spanish missions, contrast wonderfully with the straight lines of the vigas and the grain in the wood floors, making this enchanting home a warm reimagining of regional style. With “Painted Sky” in North Scottsdale, Urban Design Associates designed an open, contemporary showplace that is intimately connected to the outdoors, featuring a pool that flows into the home like a creek, and shaded spaces that allow for seamless indoor-outdoor movement and living.
The design for “Canal House” reflects the public-private, indoor-outdoor balance of Southern Arizona’s Spanish missions. Built on a tricky lot along the Arizona Canal in Phoenix, the home’s living spaces gather around a private, grassy inner courtyard with a rusted-steel fireplace. The rusted-steel theme continues into the kitchen, part of main family living area, with an open flow and vaulted ceilings lined with hemlock. The design for the 2,505-square-foot home has made a big splash; it has been featured on HGTV, and in Dwell, Architect Magazine, and elsewhere. The “Link” project, another celebrated Ranch Mine new-build, has also been featured in Dwell, in Vogue, on HGTV, and in many other publications and websites. A three-bedroom spec house in the Pierson Place Historic District in uptown Phoenix, just a short stroll from the light rail station, the home features a 24-foot sliding glass wall, and the line between indoor and outdoor space only exists if you want it to. Using passive solar energy and with a direct link to public transportation, this home represents the future of urban desert style.