Becoming an architect was never a direct path for me. I was not one of these kids that wanted to do architecture from age 5. Several people I met in college and in my career have been that way. If I’m being honest, architecture has always been my safe back up career. But I wouldn’t change anything about how I got here. Having all of these different interests and experiences helped make me the well rounded creative that I am today. When I bring ideas to a project, I’m pulling from everything I’ve learned in my other creative pursuits.

Cartoons

From an early age, I loved sketching and generally making art. Having access to an early version of Photoshop Elements on our home computer made an impact on digital creativity too. I was basically a baby graphic designer, spending hours in all the creative programs we had on our massive windows desktop. Animation played a big role in my media as a kid. I grew up on simpler style cartoons like Dexters Lab, Powerpuff girls, Johnny Bravo, and spongebob but I also enjoyed the older better drawn cartoons like Looney Toons, and Tom and Jerry. The old cartoons were mind blowing because it was hard to draw the character once, much less drawing Daffy Duck flapping around 12 frames per second. Scooby Doo was always cheaply/poorly executed but I couldn’t help but love it. I very clearly noticed when there would be running scenes how there would be the same sratchy looking repeating background plate. Clearly it wasn’t just about liking the cartoon but also how it was made. I made my own comic strips for an audience of just my family and friends. Sunday comics like Peanuts, Garfield, Iggy, Wizard of ID were all a big hit for me. Quick little stories that are sometimes funny seemed like an appealing idea to try. I wasn’t just fascinated with 2d cartoons, I also loved stop motion animation. The Rankin Bass Christmas movies were so fun, but the one that blew me away was seeing the first Wallace and Gromit movie, A Grand Day Out. That was a piece of filmmaking that is clearly handmade. I loved the idea of building all of those little sets and the clay figures. Turns out I’m pretty bad at making clay figures but I’m trying to get bettter. Around junior high, I would create cartoons making fun of hyper specific issues/observations about our school. It was always fun to create something and share it with people to try to get a laugh. I’m still toying around with cartoons, and have released a few music videos with animations I made. One of my dreams for my last few creative projects in my life is to produce an 2d animated film while I’m in a nursing home. Seems like a great final project to do that I could produce largely by myself.

LEGOS

It probably also all started with legos. I remember having a lot of different sets and tearing them all apart to make new creations. I made my own version of the Naboo Starfighter from Star Wars Episode 1 rather than buying the set they sold. As the years went on more and more proprietary/custom pieces became part of the norm for the sets and I wasn’t as excited about that. It felt like the more impressive thing was making something cool with the basic shapes. I built a really tall house that was the Pokemon house for a lot of toys to live in. I also had a giant skateboard park design that I was constantly messing around with.

Games

When I was a kid, the Tycoon games genre probably hit their peak. The Sims and Sim City were huge of course but what really occupied my mind the most was Roller Coaster Tycoon. RCT was a sandbox for laying out the ideal theme park. Somehow the game was primarily made in assembly code by one guy, Chris Sawyer. It seemed so hard to believe one person could could create this thing. I was also very drawn to Sim Theme Park, which was more of a kiddie game but you could walk around your park in 3D. It was a phenomenal experience to draw a space and then walk around as a guest and experience what I drew from the bird’s eye view. PS: Sim Theme Park does not really hold up – I can’t recommend it but it was huge for me as a kid. Interesting side note – I recently learned the lead programmer of that game eventually co-founded DeepMind. Age of Empires/Mythology was a big one I enjoyed for building out the city moreso than managing armies. My favorite thing in that game was surviving well enough to build up multiple layers of castle walls, farming areas and a dense center city. Another Tycoon game I loved was Zoo Tycoon which is very similar to RCT but you’re placing animals in exhibits rather than rides. The Sims was great too, but I enjoyed playing with bigger designs than single family houses with the other similar games. Sim City really wasn’t my thing, felt too big! Sim City was so zoomed out feeling since the goal was to plan a city without getting involved with the vibes of the neighborhoods. The scale and fun of theme park games felt just right. Creating an entertaining park experience for guests to enjoy was the most fun I ever got out of a cereal box CD. If this wasn’t already overwhelming, I have a whole article dedicated to discussing some of the games that lead me down this journey and some modern ones that are similar!

Art

I was exposed to the art world early on and often. Mississippi had a lot of art endeavors with the Libraries and we would go to art muesums when travelling. I studied the classics and gravitated towards modern, expressive art. Picasso’s career was fascinating. I remember staring deeply into the massive red painting, Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman in the MOMA in NYC. I generally would get more out of the massive modern art paintings. The simpler the better. I found an early appreciation for Saul Steinberg. Steinberg felt simlar to the lowbrow cartoons I loved but here it was being celebrated in an art gallery. He was even trying to be funny on some of it! It was a revelation to find out art that’s accepted by the galleries didn’t have to be serious, totally about aesthetics or a dark moody experience.

Music

Music was an early passion starting with piano, followed by drums and guitar. I took piano lessons from about age 7 to the end of high school. I went for drums in the band program for roughly the same years, eventually being on the marching drumline and playing piano in the “jazz” band. Songwriting came along with all of that starting in Junior high. A full on obsession with writing songs developed and by the end of high school. I had hundreds of very average songs. Some of my band students and I would try to start little bands but nothing really came together creatively at the time. Once I started the creative side of music I continued tinkering with songs and making terrible recordings of them. The balance of school and music was always a challenge and it eventually gave way to the equally challenging architecture career vs music balance. But all of it was a great joy overall. I was able to release four EP’s of music and its still not over with my band’s first full length on the way sometime. We’re waiting on our friend to finish mixing it and its been comical how long thats been taking. Over the course of over twenty years of pursuing music, I eventually made some songs to be proud of, lifelong friends, and have way too much gear in my studio. Being able to express myself from the initial songwriting, playing instruments, singing, recording and producing a final product is something I’ll always cherish.

DVD Movies

At the same time, I was obsessively watching all of the behind the scenes of our DVD (yes DVD) collection for popular movie series like Star wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and more. The building miniatures and explanations of other special effects were fascinating. The idea to bring people together to produce a convincing world that people could enjoy was inspiring indeed. And I didn’t just watch behind the scenes for the movies I loved. I watched the behind the scenes of every movie we rented from blockbuster (RIP). I wrote my first script (a sci fi submarine thriller) towards the end of high school with floor plans and sketches for all of the sets I felt the story needed. Of course it suffered from the classic issue all creators have, being too ambitious.

Senior year

Architecture was only ever the backup plan. While I was dreaming of a NYU film degree and visualizing the incredible movies I would make, my parents helped me to visualize being completely broke and unable to produce rent. So there I was, about to go to college wanted to be creative and able to pay rent. Seemed like architecture was a great route to still be the creative director of a project while having a decent living. Of course I was pretty wrong about the decent living part. It turns out, in the end, Architecture is still a career in the arts!

College

I went to the architecture school in-state (to my family’s financial relief) and strapped in for 5 years of working hard and partying hard. Getting through each semester was an uphill battle. Imposter syndrome was strong throughout. There were always star students in the class. And so many people who considered architecture their big dream since they were a kid. Couldn’t fully relate! I still pursued music and put together three incarnations of bands with friends and played lots of shows. I learned to record and produce (more listenable) music properly with Garageband and Logic. I also picked up video production with Final Cut Pro x. Released a ton music video productions on YouTube. The rockstar career didn’t quite take off, but I continued to balance the creative music/videos side with the architecture school side throughout the 5 years of my degree. I made sure to get internships in the summers. Big thanks to Howorth and Associates for the first internship and Beard & Riser for the second. Thankfully, I managed to line up a couple of job offers right after graduating. I wound up accepting an opportunity in Nashville and that’s where I’ve been since.

Nashville

I worked hard and learned harder lessons. Architecture school may have been an emotional beat down for 5 years by our professors, but I still didn’t feel fully prepared for what the real job was about. I had a lot to learn about the craft of architecture along side new office politics to learn to play. I worked at several different firms and learned about a great breadth of project types. I worked on major renovations to multiple hotels in downtown Nashville, Lots of science labs at Vanderbilt, Nasty medical renovations in Flordia, hospital renovations, airport renovations, restaurants, behavioral health, nursing home renovations, ground up major brand hotels, boutique hotels, and even worked on modern and traditional Luxury homes. I gravitated to hospitality (restaurants and hotels) more than any other project type. While I worked on all of those different project, I continued to pursue my passion of producing music and movies.