LEADERS Doug Hoerr An ASLA fellow and senior partner of Hoerr Schaudt , Doug Hoerr and his team have created award-winning residential gardens, botanical gardens, commercial and corpo-rate projects, civic spaces, campuses, and streetscapes that employ horticulture as a transformative element. Rooting his design in craftsmanship, a hard-earned knowledge of plants, and an instinctual understanding of the land, Hoerr creates seamless, uniquely American landscapes that have a sense of place and space . His upbringing on a farm in Indiana nurtured his love of the landscape and of building things, leading him to earn a degree in landscape architecture from Purdue University. After working in a design-build studio for a decade, he took a two-year sab-batical in England, working in the gardens of some of Britain’s greatest plants-men and immersing himself in centuries of accumulated English horticultural traditions. When he returned to the States, he started his own eponymous fi rm, grow-ing his portfolio one client at a time. One of his fi rst commercial projects was de-signing the groundbreaking median planters down the center of Chicago’s iconic Michigan Avenue that provided two miles of wonderment for two decades. His time in England and the formation of his own fi rm, risky moves, defi ned his career. In 2008, he merged with Peter Schaudt, establishing Hoerr Schaudt, which has studios in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Kansas City, Missouri. As more importance is being placed on holistic and healthy spaces, the land-scape literally is changing, shifting Hoerr’s work in a new direction. “People expect more out of landscapes now,” he says. “It’s more than seamlessness, more than beauty—it’s making a healthier planet, cooling the planet, cleansing the air with our horticulture, and improving our mental health and connection to nature.” Hoerr, who has won numerous national and local design awards and has been featured in a number of publications, including Architectural Digest , and in the book “Movement and Meaning: The Landscapes of Hoerr Schaudt,” says it’s imperative to reach out to younger generations and introduce them to the fi eld. An allée of ‘Bowhall’ maples screens neighbors, and a stone-lined rill exudes serenity while the bubbling fountains cancel out urban static. The clean bed lines of white impatiens refl ect this city home’s stately New Irish Georgian architecture. Portrait photo by Scott Shigley / Courtesy of Hoerr Schaudt Gary L. Brewer & Art, a professional organization that helps edu-cate as well as advocate and support traditional urbanism and design. A partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects , What started as a small group of adherents Gary L. Brewer leads the design of institutional, of traditional design now is an entity with 15 hospitality, and residential projects. chapters. His work includes the Spangler Center, “I don’t think any of us imagined it would which complements McKim, Mead & White’s grow into a national organization that has had 1920s master plan for the Harvard Business such a lasting impact,” he says. “For younger School campus, and a hotel, conference center, architects, examples like this show that with and golf clubhouse on Kiawah Island in South an idea and a certain amount of chutzpah and Carolina. energy, they can truly eff ect change.” He also has designed a number of private Brewer, who frequently lectures on tradi-residences around the country and is working tional house design, the history of pattern-book on two new projects in Charleston—a mixed-use houses, and New York City clubs, is the co-building that involves the restoration of a historic author of the 2021 monograph “Houses: Robert train shed and repurposing notable houses; and A.M. Stern Architects.” the fi rst senior living building on King Street. The work he’s done with RAMSA, he says, The work that he and the fi rm have done “helps people have a better appreciation for their illustrates that traditional design and urbanism community because what we do is so rooted in are legitimate approaches for many diff erent context. What we’re trying to do is drill into the building types, ranging from single-family houses Cougar Point Clubhouse in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, top, was completed in 2019. The massing of this Colonial Revival structure, with splayed wings and history of a place and make it more of what it to university buildings, apartments, and com-sprawling porches, provides an iconic backdrop for an outstanding golf experience. was, so that it is special to the place that we’re mercial structures. The Corsair in Greenwich, Connecticut, was conceived as a large house or inn in the building.” “We think deeply about urban design and New England Shingle-style tradition, expressed in fi eldstone and cedar shakes. Calling traditional buildings prime sustain-how our buildings can contribute to cities and en-ability assets, Brewer says that he hopes that “people will demics, saw architecture as a profession that would allow hance neighborhoods,” he says. “One of the core ideas begin to think about the long-term benefi ts of building him to span both areas. of our practice is to make places better. Groupings traditional architecture, so we can get back to where people When Brewer began practicing, in the 1980s, there of buildings, in a way, are actually more important are excited about the impact these buildings can have on weren’t many fi rms focusing on traditional design. That than individual buildings.” their communities.” led him to co-found The Institute of Classical Architecture Brewer, who has always been interested in art and aca-64 | TRADITIONAL BUILDING October 2023
Traditional Building October 2023: Page 64
