PROFILE

PHILOSOPHY

It is an immense, short grass plain with the Rocky Mountains as its western boundary. Rivers named Yellowstone, Missouri, and Musselshell run through it. Evidence of its habitation is often only a smattering of metal pre-fabricated buildings, some grain elevators, and miles and miles of barbed-wire fence. These are the High Plains of the modern day American West, a relentless unfurling of landscape under high white wisps of cirrus clouds. On the High Plains there are places where you can actually see the earth curving away from you; there is nothing to stop your view, nothing to terminate a line or an axis. It is for the architect to introduce order to this land, to bring human scale to an awesome vastness. And this is the passion and driving force of High Plains Architects.

The people of High Plains Architects live and work on the High Plains because they are drawn to its unique character. And because it is a place that they love and respect, they are committed to developing, designing, and building a kind of architecture that is of and about this place as much as it is in this place. High Plains Architects creates an architecture that is influenced by the region in which it will exist. It is an architecture that responds to the opportunities of climate, available materials, cultural traditions, and functional necessity imposed by this place, making it a truly regional architecture.

The firm is deeply committed to green, sustainable architecture, an architecture that is resource and energy efficient, a responsible architecture that understands the renewable and respects the non-renewable resources of the region and that ultimately yields a building less expensive to own and operate.

High Plains Architects believes that in order to create a building, a place that is responsible to the unique needs and aspirations of the client, the client must be an active participant in the process of creating that building. The client must be a collaborator from the very beginning. By combining each of these ingredients–place, resources, and client–in an intense, interactive design process, High Plains Architects strives to go beyond merely meeting the clients' needs to doing nothing less than exceeding their loftiest aspirations.