THE ONLY “STYLE” WARD | BLAKE DESIGNED SPACES HAVE IN COMMON ARE THEIR RESPONSIVENESS TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS.
“We don’t have a ‘style’ because we respond to the site, the climate, the client, and to the views, some of which we’ll want to protect and others that we’ll want to enhance,” Blake says. “We hope the biophilic nature of our work resonates with people viewing our portfolio. Even if two clients want the exact same program, every project we design is completely site-specific.”
While Ward | Blake projects do not bear a stamp of the firm’s “look,” they do have similarities. Every Ward | Blake project is sensitive to its environment, successfully integrated with its surroundings, tactile, modern, and artfully crafted. For this approach, the firm was named the 2013 Firm of the Year by the six-state American Institute of Architects’ Western Mountain Region and has won numerous International Design Awards (IDA), which were created to recognize, celebrate, and promote legendary design visionaries and smart and sustainable multidisciplinary designs. The firm’s IDAs include Architect of the Year, which it won for one of the four EarthWall homes it has designed and built. “It’s difficult to persuade someone to build their dream house out of dirt, but the end result is such a unique, tactile building with a personality of its own,” says Ward.
We don’t have a ‘style’ because we respond to the site, the climate, the client, and to the views, some of which we’ll want to protect and others that we’ll want to enhance.
— Mitch Blake, architect
Not surprisingly, more important to the firm than a huge project budget is having clients who are interested in doing interesting things. “The design process is iterative and improved by clients who engage,” Blake says. Ward recalls the firm’s founding vision: to be provocative in thought, flexible in nature, and disciplined in execution.
