Ward + Blake Architects of Jackson Hole Named Top Mountain Architects in Fall Mountain Living Magazine
Jackson Hole, Wyo., (PRWEB) September 25, 2015 -- Ward + Blake Architects of Jackson Hole, Wyo., has been named a “Top Mountain Architect” in the current September/October 2015 issue of Mountain Living magazine. The magazine’s editors describe their annual Top Mountain Architects & Interior Designers list as an “exclusive guide to the most talented and influential architects, design/build professionals and interior designers at work in the West today.”
“It is always an honor to be recognized by Mountain Living magazine’s Top Mountain Architects list,” says Mitch Blake, principal of Ward + Blake Architects. “The magazine keeps very close tabs on what’s being built in mountain communities, so their recognition of us as a top firm is meaningful.”
“Mountain Living is uniquely positioned to understand high-country design,” agrees Ward + Blake principal Tom Ward. “Mountain architecture comes with its own particular challenges and delights, from steep building sites and extreme winter weather to embracing the remarkable views we’re blessed with here in Jackson Hole.”
Ward + Blake Architects is one of 10 Jackson, Wyoming, architecture firms to make the magazine’s 2015 list. The 167 architects to make this year’s list are based in states throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Vancouver, BC, and Calgary, Alberta. Mountain Living is a popular shelter and lifestyle magazine focusing on the “best of the high country” in home design, travel architecture and more. The entire list of top mountain architects including Ward + Blake can be found here.
Ward + Blake Architects is known for drawing inspiration from the distinctive Western landscapes and historical and cultural contexts of its projects, as well as for innovative and sustainable use of materials and construction practices. An early pioneer in the sustainability movement, they developed and patented EarthWall, a low-tech, seismically stable wall construction method that uses locally-sourced materials, and began experimenting with custom sod roofs in the 1990s, incorporating both features into award-winning projects and such high-end residential designs as the Siddoway home in Squirrel, Idaho, which was featured in the Wall Street Journal last year.
The firm was also in the vanguard of Western modernism with its site-driven, environmentally-attuned projects that pay homage to area history and geography, often through material choices and distinctive low-slung profiles. Recently completed residential projects include two Idaho homes on the “other side” of the Teton Mountain Range and two private residences at Jackson Hole’s renowned Amangani Resort – one of which was recently featured in Big Sky Journal. In all, Ward + Blake has now completed nine of the Aman Villas, as those residences are known, referred to by the luxury resort group as its “ultimate tier” of Aman accommodation options and designed in accordance with the resort’s strict environmental and design covenants.
Some of Ward + Blake’s recent commercial and institutional architecture projects include the remodel and expansion of Jackson classic in-town hotel the 49er Inn, a just-completed renovation of the historically significant and remote 47-student Kelly Elementary School at the edge of Grand Teton National Park, and a $54 million 180,000-square-foot K-12 campus currently under construction in Ft. Washakie, Wyo.
About Ward + Blake Architects:
Ward + Blake Architects was built on a distinctive vision: to be provocative in thought, flexible in nature and disciplined in execution. Since 1996, the firm has earned recognition for architecture that is sensitive to its environment and successfully integrated with its surroundings, including being named 2013 Firm of the Year by the six-state AIA Western Mountain Region. Ward + Blake creates buildings that are tactile, modern, bio-climatically responsible, honestly expressed, technologically sound and artfully crafted. A recent monograph, In the Shadows of the Tetons: Selected Works of Ward + Blake Architects, provides an overview of the firm’s award-winning work. For additional information, visit Ward + Blake online at http://www.wardblakearchitects.com or call 307.733.6867.
Media Contact: Anne M. Parsons, WordenGroup Strategic Public Relations, anne(at)wordenpr(dot)com, 303.777.7667
Darla Worden, WordenGroup, http://www.wordenpr.com, +1 303.777.7667, [email protected]
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