Ian Hunter did not quite understand the dynamic when, weeks after moving to Atlanta about seven years ago from Bucks County, Pa., he called the offices of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Atlanta chapter and declared he was running for president.
The current president called Hunter and said, “It’s nice to see you’re interested in becoming involved in AIA but…who the heck are you?” recalled Hunter, an associate principal at tvsdesign, with a laugh. “He said, ‘You’re new to Atlanta. Take some time and establish your roots here.’”
Hunter did, and next year will become AIA Atlanta president.
How did you get interested in architecture? I grew up outside Houston, and I was always interested and involved in the arts, especially music. I thought I’d become a professional musician. I was a middle-of-the-road student in high school. When I went for the first meeting with a college counselor, we talked about what I was interested in. He recommended I apply for a summer architecture program at Cornell that you take for college credit. They were the most fun classes I’ve ever taken in my life. The lightbulb went off, that this is what I should be doing. I’ve now been in the industry for about 15 years. I went to Rice University, through its dual-degree five-year program. After four years, you get a BA in architecture, then you went away for a year to do an internship, then you come back to school for a year to get your professional degree, and you can get licensed with that degree. Being able to come back that fifth year and synthesize what you learned in real life and at a real workplace with your studies was an awesome opportunity.
What led you to Atlanta and where you are now? I graduated in 2010, and it was difficult to get a job. The industry was still reeling from 2008. I worked for [architect] Michael Graves [where I did my internship during Rice] doing everything under the sun, from hotels, casinos, resorts, public schools, single family homes -- it was really all over the place. Then I moved to another firm, where they did multifamily. After a few years, I moved to Atlanta and worked in workplace interiors and office, but then multifamily somehow drew me back in. I worked for multifamily firm here in Atlanta for a few years before I came to tvs. I’ve been here about 3 ½ years [out of seven in Atlanta] and now I do multifamily. It’s an incredible amount of coordination and work and detail that goes into these projects. But two things draw me back [to multifamily work]. One is it’s an amazing feeling to design places where people live and raise their kids and even work their full workdays. They’re really impactful spaces. But there’s also an opportunity. Multifamily is notoriously in our industry one of the lagging market sectors when it comes to technology, innovation, change. That was part of the reason tvs drew me in, being able to create projects that push the boundaries of what we see in multifamily. That’s been my mission, to push the multifamily boundaries to be more adaptive to change and be more innovative. [Also,] we have a nationwide housing shortage. Affordable housing and attainable housing is a huge concern. Being able to focus on great design in affordable ways is really challenging but that’s what’s kept me drawn into this.
How would you describe your design philosophy and how has it evolved? I’ve always been a function-over-form person. We ask ourselves this question in our team at work: “What is the why?” To me, there has to be a mission behind what you’re doing. It’s about a story. It could be a feel-good story, it might be a rational story about why you did something, but for me, the most important thing is coming to the table with a design solution where when someone asks you why, you have that reason. There’s a method behind the apparent madness. That’s hard sometimes. It’s something we always push ourselves to achieve. Being able to design a building that’s beautiful is an incredible thing but being able to design a building that’s beautiful but also that communicates its purpose or mission is the next step.
What’s an example of this? I’m working on a multifamily project right now in Denver. The story has evolved by leaps and bounds throughout the design process. The story completely changed into this [design] almost like geode. The narrative is crafted around this building that’s simple and rhythmic and clean, and then you crack it open and there’s a surprise inside of it, the connectivity of the residents and the public between the inside and outside spaces.
What are some of your favorite projects? A local Atlanta project that has stuck with me is old JC Penny headquarters at Peachtree and Third. There’s a lobby and coffee shop and then to get to the garage, there’s this hundreds-of-feet-long corridor that is just a straight corridor. Our clients and team were like, “What’s the way to break it up to not make it feel like it’s such a long corridor?” I was like, “What if we make it feel like it’s even longer?” The client said do it. It is just awesome. What we did with the ceiling treatment was pulled it down, put this powerful teal blue color and integrated light fixture runway light. You stand at entrance of the building and look all the way back. It turned out so cool. I loved working with a client that said, “Let’s do it and see what happens.”
What are some buildings, neighborhoods, structures that inspire you? The Marriott Marquis downtown designed by Portman. I have such a strong sense of appreciation for that building. That building wasn’t designed in Reddit or Autocad. It’s got these levels as you look up to the atrium; it’s such a powerful experience. For the time that it was built, Portman didn’t have these electronic tools. This was drawn. It’s really inspiring to see that kind of work go up. Every architect has one project, one or two that create an emotional response. The first one I really felt that was Peter Zumthor’s thermal bath in the Swiss Alps. It is the most simple, clean design you could ever imagine but it’s also incredibly complex: different smells, different temperatures, different baths, and they’re all linked together. The second one was more recently: La Sagrada Família in Barcelona. I walked into the cathedral and started crying. It was really such a wow, emotional experience. I’d like to make a multifamily apartment building where you walk in and it makes you cry. Maybe that’s my new career goal.
How did you come to get involved in AIA? When I was working for Michael Graves and then the second firm, I was living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which has a small AIA chapter and community. A colleague there was on the board [so I joined]. It was small so we did everything. When we had to mail letters, we were sitting there with stamps on someone’s living room floor. AIA Atlanta is very different, one of biggest chapters in the nation and we have an incredible staff. While in Bucks County, I was elected president [of the chapter] but then I relocated to Atlanta. I reached out to someone on the AIA Atlanta staff and said, “I’m putting my name in for president.” I was probably 25, 26 years old at the time. [A staff member and current president] called me and they could not have been more diplomatic, but they said, “It’s nice to see you’re interested in becoming involved in AIA but…who the heck are you?” I’d moved to Atlanta like three weeks before! They said, “You’re new to Atlanta. Take some time and establish your roots here.” They encouraged me to get on the board and this is my fifth year [on the board]. I did three years as development director, one as secretary and now president-elect.
What are your goals for your term as president of AIA? Our members, our constituents who elected me, I need to give them what they want. It’s being able to focus on building a set of resources, continuing education, all that good stuff that people expect from AIA, and improve upon it and make it accessible. I do have one initiative, something all our firms talk about, and that’s DEI initiatives around architecture. We’ve seen some amazing positive changes in the industry around diversity and equity but we’re not there yet. The big thing is being able to create a framework at AIA Atlanta that will continuously advocate for and be a resource for firms and individual architects to be able to improve upon that landscape in our industry. There’s a lot of really great work being done in AIA, especially on a national level, but there’s still so much for us to learn from. At the end of my term, my goal is, since we’re also working on our strategic plan this year, being able to create a dedicated and concrete mission for the chapter to be able to move forward with permanently, that has somebody, if not everybody on the board, really with [DEI] as the number-one initiative. This is something that needs to be part of the core of what we do as architects.
How would you describe the outlook for the future of architecture and design?
One thing I’ve realized working at tvs and throughout my career with individuals from diverse backgrounds of racial, socioeconomic, gender, sexual orientation, is your identity impacts the way you design. People tend to design for themselves and experiences they’re familiar with. It’s hard to design for an experience you have no first-hand knowledge about. I’m seeing the industry becoming more diverse and inclusive, and that will impact the initiatives architects take moving forward. We are seeing that around affordable and attainable housing initiatives; they are becoming inclusive communities, not exclusive communities. When I was graduated Rice in 2010, we were about 80 percent women and 20 percent men. Compared to 30 years prior, it was drastically different. But firm leadership representation does not look like that; it’s quite the opposite. I know we can all be impatient. But it really is about that early engagement that’s going to have tremendous impact around demand and design, and will even impact the way we use tech and research and how we analyze what people want and how they use space. Its game-changer for our industry to have designs coming from a more diverse group of individuals.
What are your career goals? My career has always been about people. I’ve always been passionate about what the human experience is. I’m always drawn to places where I can make changes and I have a platform to make those changes. It could mean there’s a future for me in five years working with AIA Atlanta and getting more engaged with AIA national. It could mean really tackling the way employees work and are treated, and that we have equity in our industry. I just always want to keep my eyes open to those places I can be to improve the world for people. That’s were my passion lies.