Alan B. Ford | |
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Born | |
Occupation | Architect |
Practice | Ford Architects P.C. |
Buildings | Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Walt Disney World Swan Hotel, Tycon Towers |
Alan B. Ford, FAIA, (born December 20, 1952) is an American architect and author best known for his work on K-12 sustainable schools.
A regular contributor to architectural journalism, Ford is author of Designing the Sustainable School and a co-author of both A Sense of Entry: Designing the Welcoming School and the most recent publication Creating the Regenerative School. In 2008, Ford was a member of the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) Soloso (now Architect's Knowledge Resource) Editorial Content Review Board and subject matter expert for the website's design content. He has been published in such prominent journals as Architect Colorado [1] and World Architecture News. [2]
The best known works to which Ford has applied his architectural expertise are the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (Donovan and Green) in Simi Valley, California; the Walt Disney World Swan resort hotel (Michael Graves with Alan Lapidus Architects) in Lake Buena Vista, Florida; and the Tycon Towers development (John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson) in Vienna, Virginia.
Alan Ford was born on the Travis Air Force Base in California, where his father was stationed at the time. While growing up, Ford and his family were relocated to Alaska, Georgia and Florida.
By age six Ford had discovered and sought to develop his own creative talent through music. He cycled through various instruments and ultimately began playing guitar at the age of fourteen, which he continued into his twenties. Inspired by the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia, Ford went on to form the band Nothing (later renamed Free Form). From 1970 to 1972, Alan performed as a professional musician with his band. He began as a rhythm guitarist, often providing backup vocals, but later assumed the role of lead guitarist with occasional spots as lead vocalist.
In 1973, Ford parted from his band and moved to Boulder, Colorado in pursuit of a career in the recording industry. However, upon an unsuccessful attempt at securing a job with a Boulder-based recording studio, he began working at a dental supply company to save money for college.
Ford earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1978 and a Master of Architecture from the University of Colorado Denver in 1980.
Alan Ford is now married with a wife and two kids. They live in an 1896-built Victorian home in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. In 2000, Ford and his wife (also an architect) designed their own remodel of the house, which consisted of an 1,100-square-foot (100 m2) addition that received widespread media acclaim. The renovation also earned a 2003 Architect’s Choice Award, [3] sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News , the American Institute of Architects’ Denver chapter and the city and county of Denver.
Upon receiving his Master of Architecture in 1980, Ford landed a job with W.C. Muchow and Partners Architects in Denver, where he remained for three years. In 1984, Ford moved to New York City where he joined the office of John Burgee Architects and Philip Johnson. He later went on to do work for Alan Lapidus/Michael Graves in 1989, I. M. Pei & Partners in 1990 and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in 1991. Alan attributes the cultivation of his fervor forarchitecture – which materialized in the form of architectural journalism – to the inspiration he found in Philip Johnson's passion for the profession. [4]
In 1993, Ford co-founded Hutton Ford Architects P.C. with Paul Hutton, where he was a managing principal until 2007. On June 1, 2007, in a move to diversify his firm's range of services, Ford established Alan Ford Architects P.C.; [5] however, both he and Hutton continue to collaborate on a number of joint ventures under the entity Hutton Ford Architects, LLC.
Alan Ford continues to practice as a licensed Colorado architect and principal of Alan Ford Architects. He authored the book Designing the Sustainable School and co-authored A Sense of Entry: Designing the Welcoming School with former partner Paul Hutton. [6] In addition to his interest in K-12 sustainable school design, Ford has a passion for masonry detailing, which is evidenced by his Park Hill residence and a significant number of past projects. [7]
Ford has served on the editorial board of the award-winning AIA magazine Architect Colorado, and as an honorarium professor and guest critic at the University of Colorado, School of Architecture. He is also the former subject matter expert/editor of design content for the national AIA Soloso website (now the Architect's Knowledge Resource), where he regularly contributed content promoting sustainability, design innovations and the architectural profession.
Ford Architects P.C. is a Colorado architecture firm based in the unique Taxi2 development within the River North Art District in Denver. The firm was founded in 2007 by Alan Ford, who had been a design and managing partner with Hutton Ford Architects. Alan Ford Architects specializes in the design of high-performance, sustainable K-12 schools, but also has extensive experience in a variety of additional project types including office, retail and mixed-use developments; performing arts facilities; single family and multifamily residential; and sports and fitness centers. [8]
John Burgee is an American architect noted for his contributions to Postmodern architecture. He was a partner of Philip Johnson from 1967 to 1991, creating together the partnership firm Johnson/Burgee Architects. Their landmark collaborations included Pennzoil Place in Houston and the AT&T World Headquarters in New York. Burgee eased Johnson out of the firm in 1991, and when it subsequently went bankrupt, Burgee's design career was essentially over. Burgee is retired, and resides in California.
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an American architect who designed modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the postmodern 550 Madison Avenue in New York City, designed for AT&T; 190 South La Salle Street in Chicago; the Sculpture Garden of New York City's Museum of Modern Art; and the Pre-Columbian Pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks. His January 2005 obituary in The New York Times described his works as being "widely considered among the architectural masterpieces of the 20th century".
Tom Bender was one of the American founders of the green architecture and sustainability movements.
Tycon Center is a development at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive in Vienna, VA, built and initially owned by developers James T. Lewis, Roy Mitchell and Don Moore, known as Tycon Development The complex is also known as Tycon Towers 1 and consists of a postmodern 17-story brick clad building designed by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson.
"America's Favorite Architecture" is a list of buildings and other structures identified as the most popular works of architecture in the United States.
Eugene Sternberg was a Hungarian-born American architect known for his passionate commitment and contribution to contemporary/modernist architecture and town planning in Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. He designed over 400 building projects and subdivisions, many of them iconic examples of Modernist architecture. Since his focus was on improving the quality of life of the general population, the structures he built were beautiful, useful, and cost-effective. Most of his projects were in the category of social architecture: affordable homes, senior housing projects, public housing, hospitals, medical clinics, public schools, community colleges, community centers, churches, buildings for credit unions, labor unions, and headquarters offices for Rural Electric Associations. As a planner Sternberg designed a number of innovative housing subdivisions and master plans for college campuses, governmental complexes, county fairgrounds, and a number of small western cities.
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects.
Sharon Egretta Sutton, is an American architect, educator, visual artist, and author. Her work is focused on community-based participatory research and design. She is a professor emerita at the University of Washington. In 1984, she became the first African American woman to become a full professor in an accredited architectural degree program while teaching at the University of Michigan. She has also taught at Parsons School of Design, and Columbia University.
Pennzoil Place is a set of two 36-story towers in Downtown Houston, United States. designed by Philip Johnson/John Burgee Architects from a concept by Eli Attia, a staff architect with the firm. Completed in 1976, it is Houston's most award-winning skyscraper and is widely known for its innovative design.
Fentress Architects is an international design firm known for large-scale public architecture such as airports, museums, university buildings, convention centers, laboratories, and high-rise office towers. Some of the buildings for which the firm is best known include Denver International Airport (1995), the modernized Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX (2013), the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia (2005), and the Green Square Complex in Raleigh, North Carolina (2012).
Curtis Worth Fentress is an American architect. He is currently the principal-in-charge of design at Fentress Architects, an international design studio he founded in Denver, Colorado in 1980.
Charles Allan Haertling was an American architect, whose works often combined elements of modernism and organic architecture. He is best known for his distinctive residential projects in and around Boulder and Denver, Colorado.
Edward Divine White Jr., FAIA, was an architect based in Denver, Colorado, whose forty-year practice focused on contemporary architecture and historic preservation. Along with his architectural practice, White was lifelong friend to Jack Kerouac from 1947 to Kerouac's death in 1969. The pair exchanged over 90 letters and postcards during that time.
Sydness Architects is a New York City-based architecture firm founded by K. Jeffries Sydness AIA in 1996. Other senior members of the firm are Associates Matthew M. Ruopoli, AIA and Melissa Carolina Cheing, AIA.
Fisher & Fisher was an architectural firm based in Denver, Colorado named for partners William Ellsworth Fisher (1871–1937) and Arthur Addison Fisher (1878–1965).
Philip Enquist, FAIA is a partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in charge of Urban Design & Planning. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Thomas Doerr is an architect, author, and educator. After studying design in Rome, Italy and interning in Boston, Massachusetts, Doerr received his Bachelor of Architecture Degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. Doerr spent two years as an architectural intern in San Francisco, California then earned his master's degree at the University of California at Berkeley in 1993.
Bartholomew Voorsanger is an American architect.
Roger Kutnow Lewis, FAIA, was an American architect and urban planner, and a professor of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught architectural design and other courses for 37 years, retiring in 2006. Also an author, journalist and cartoonist, Lewis wrote about architecture and urban design, and about how public policy shapes the built environment.