Design, art, and architecture are central to Suzanne Zahr's firm Keith Imper, from the local arts organization Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA), sat down with Suzanne Zahr to talk about her Architect-led Design-Build firm, and they discussed several key aspects about this intersection of disciplines.
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Meet Gary Henderson - Interior Designer.
At SZ, we love to feature the experts we work with on our team so our readers can get to know them a little better, too. This month, we’re featuring an interview with Gary Henderson of Gary Henderson Interiors.
Gary has been working with Suzanne for 12 years, completing several major projects together, such as Caruccio’s Culinary Event Center. Suzanne admires Gary’s experienced authority in the field of interior design, as well as his personable and friendly communication style with clients and across teams. He brings a humanity back to the process of design, and similar to Suzanne’s own philosophy, Gary designs with solely the client in mind.
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Learning from the Case Study House Program
We previously made a list of the architects who inspire our work the most, and now we're shining a spotlight on a group of architects and a famous program that especially provides inspiration to our residential design concepts: The Case Study House program from 1945 - 1966. Famous architects like Charles Eames and A. Quincy Jones were part of this program, and we hold many of the architects of the Case Study House program in very high regard. Their houses still hold much cultural value, delivering a "wow" factor over 60 years later.
The Case Study House program was created in response to the demand for single-family residential housing in the post-World War II era. This call for housing led to what is now referred to as suburbia. A group of architects came together in January 1945 to create the Case Study House program, where they announced in Arts & Architecture magazine that each architect will take it upon themselves to build a house that is capable of duplication. Each house would then be on display for the public to walk through and determine how successfully the job had been done. Many of these houses are still standing in Los Angeles, CA.
These houses represent how architects had a voice during the 1940s - 1960s, especially when it came to residential development. Developers back then took cues from the architects, which is vastly different compared to today's market. The Case Study House program embodied a spirit of curiosity from that era, which is a spirit that we at SZ always strive to maintain.
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Coppei Partners - Design for Innovative Collaboration
Suzanne and her team recently completed a 4,500 square foot office design for Coppei Partners, aimed to capture the company’s culture in every inch of the space.
Located on Mercer Island, WA, Coppei Partners is a consulting firm made of seasoned and skilled professionals who provide their clients with transformative strategies on Project Leadership, SAP Implementation Services, Technology Solutions, Change Management, and People Development. With the redesign recently completed in September 2017, Coppei’s office space is now able to accommodate their growing firm and support their highly collaborative environment through an innovative use of space.
To share more about how the remodel has influenced Coppei Partners, I corresponded with Carrie Dallas and Travis Larsen of Coppei Partners to ask how they’re enjoying the newly designed space and how they imagine it will help the company continue to grow. The Q&A has been organized based on the variety of questions, which pertained to productivity, company identity and culture, scaling the business, and any other thoughts.
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